Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 74

Shadows ripped a gap through the image. Other sights shuddered into existence only to be torn away, as though at the heart of the crossroads the very worlds, were becoming unstable, echoes of ancient troubles and troubles yet to come.

Hunched and misshapen creatures crawl among tunnels, hauling baskets of ore on their backs. An egg cracks where it is hidden underneath an expanse of silver sand, and a claw pokes through. A lion with the face of a woman and the wings of an eagle paces majestically along the sands; turning, she meets Liath's astonished gaze.

A centaur woman parts the reeds at the sh.o.r.e of a shallow lake. Her coat has the dense s.h.i.+mmer of the night sky, and her black hair falls past her waist. A coa.r.s.e pale mane, the only contrast to her black coat, runs down her spine; it is braided, like her hair, twined with beads and the bones of mice." Look!" she cries." See what we wrought!" She looses an arrow. The burning course of its flight drove Liath backward through the crossroads of the worlds, far into the past, when the land was riven asunder.

A vast spell has splintered and split the land. Rivers run backward. Coastal towns along the sh.o.r.e of the middle sea are swallowed beneath rising waters, while skin coracles beached on the strands of the northern sea are left high and dry as the sea sucks away to leave long stretches of sea bottom exposed to sunlight and fish drowning in cold air.

Along a spine of hills far to the south, mountains smoke with fire, and liquid red rock slides downslope, burning everything in its path.

In the north, a dragon plunges to earth and in that eyeblink is ossified into a stone ridge.

Liath sees the spell now, seven stone looms woven with light drawn down from the stars. She can barely see the heavens themselves because the light of the spell obscures them, but her sight remains keen: the position of the stars in the sky this night matches the horoscope drawn by Biscop Tallia.

The spell like a coruscating knife cuts a line through the Earth itself. The power of its weaving slices along a chalk path worn into the ground to demarcate the old northern frontier of the land taken generations before by the As.h.i.+oi. It cuts right through the middle of a huge city overlooking the sea. It cuts through the waves themselves, like successive bolts of lighting tracing an impossibly vast border around the land where the As.h.i.+oi have made their home. The seven sorcerers weaving that spell in each of the seven looms die immediately as the spell's full force rebounds upon them.

The land where Eldest Uncle's people made their home is ripped right up by the roots, like a tree wrenched out of its soil by the hand of a giant, and flung into the sky. All the As.h.i.+oi walking beyond the limits of their land are dragged outward in its wake, drowned in its eddy, but they cannot follow it into the aether. They get yanked into the interstices between Earth and the Other Side, caught forever betwixt and between as shades who can neither walk fully on Earth nor yet leave it behind.

But they are not the only ones who suffer.

The cataclysm strikes innocent and guilty alike, old and young, animals and thinking creatures, guivres and mice, human children and masked warriors, As.h.i.+oi children and human soldiers armed with weapons crafted of stone. The Earth itself buckles and strains under the potency of the spell. Did the sorcerers themselves understand what they were doing? Did they know how far the effects of their spell would reach ? Did they mean to decimate their people in order to save their people?

Impossible to know, and she can never ask them: they are long dead, never to be woken.

Blue winked within the lightning radiance of the spell. All at once, she saw Alain on his knees on a low hill, with a hound on either side of him. The hounds tugged desperately at him, trying to drag him back from the edge of a blazing circle of stones. Alain clawed helplessly at the body of the girl who lay crumpled on the ground. Wasn't it the same antlered girl who had met her in the realm of Mok? Who had seen with such keen sight into Liath's own heart before even Liath had been able to fathom those depths? The girl was so unbearably young, younger even than Liath, maybe not more than seventeen, but she was quite dead. In an instant more, when the spell's last storm-surge struck back at the looms in which it had been woven into life, Alain would be dead, too.

Liath unfurled her wings. She reached into the past, caught hold of him and his hounds, and dragged them with her back to the world they had left behind months, or even years, before.

EPILOUGE.

THE queen with the knife-edged smile, called Arrow Bright, is long dead yet strong enough still to see with the heart and eyes of the woman who at dawn leads the remnants of her people through what remains of the forest. They emerge at last from the shelter of charred and blistered trees, most of the children crying, a few horribly silent, and every surviving adult injured in some way. Standing here at the edge of the cultivated fields, they numbly survey the ruin of their village.

"Come," says the one called Weiwara, leaning on her staff. She has a bright heart, made fierce by anger, by wisdom bought too dearly, and by the twin babies, barely more than one year old, who rest against her body, one slung at her chest and the other against her back, and the three-year-old tottering along gamely at her side." The Cursed Ones are gone. It is safe now."

They stagger out into an oddly soft morning. Burned houses smolder in the village, although amazingly the council pole thrusts intact out of the collapsed roof of the council house. Mist wreathes the tumbled logs of the palisade. Bodies litter the ground, Cursed Ones who died in the first attacks. She recognizes Bear's form, fallen into the ditch just beyond the gates. He led the charge when they chose at last to break out of the doomed village, and he took the brunt of the Cursed Ones' retaliatory attack. It is due to his courage and boldness that anyone escaped the besieged village at all. The bronze sword he wielded lies half concealed under his hip. A fly crawls over his staring eye. A child sobs out loud to see the horrific sight.

"Come," she says sternly, herding them on: about forty children of varying ages and not more than a dozen adults, pregnant women, elders, andAgda and Pur, both of whom would have preferred to stay and fight but whose knowledge-of herbs and midwifery and of stoneknapping-is too valuable to lose.

They follow the detritus of the fight along the path that leads to the tumulus. There lies Urtan, abdomen sliced open. A blow crushed Tosti 's head. Bear's sister, Etora, looks as if she were trampled by horses and expired at last after trying to drag herself back to the village. Many Cursed Ones lie dead, too, but of the injured they find no sign.

A shout reaches them. Folk pour out from behind the earthworks that guard the tumulus. Battered, b.l.o.o.d.y, limping, exhausted, they remain triumphant despite the destruction littering the ground around them and the death on every side. But Weiwara has no heart for rejoicing. She weeps when she sees her dear husband. He can't walk, but the wound that cut through the flesh of his right thigh to reveal bone looks clean and might heal well enough. Little Useti flings herself on her father, bawling, and after Weiwara has spoken with Ulfrega of Four Houses, she climbs grimly on up through the maze of earthworks.

At the top, she pa.s.ses the remains of a burned shelter, mostly ash and the bones of branches now, and heads toward the small group huddled outside the stone circle: the five surviving Horse people, already outfitted for travel, and one sobbing young man.

The sight of the blasted, fallen stones stuns her. The bronze cauldron lies in a misshapen lump, actually melted by the force of the spell. She thought nothing could hurt as much as the sight of the devastated village and the bodies of her friends and kinsfolk, but one thing hurts more. Adica sprawls on the ground, arms flung out, antler headdress thrown askew. No mark mars her body, except of course for the old burn scar on her cheek. She looks so young.

The twins stir. Wrinkled-old-man, the younger, makes a fist to pound on his mother's back. Blue-bud, the little girl whose life Alain brought back from the path leading to the Other Side, wails as she wakes. She is often fussy, the kind of baby who flinches at bright light yet sobs if she wakes in the dark of night. The young man kneeling a stone's throw from Adica 's body glances up at the sound.

"Mother Weiwara! " Kel has dug something out of the ground and now he leaps up to show her folded garments, a belt, knife, and pouch, and a heap of rusting metal rings." These must be the garments that Alain brought with him when he came to us from the land of the dead. But he is gone, and so are his spirit guides. Even the staff carved him is missing." He breaks down again, weeping helplessly. Though streaked with dried blood, he took no wound in the battle. None, that is, except the wound of grief.

The gray centaur paces fonvard, grave but determined. She limps on three legs, making her walk awkward. Dried blood coats her flanks. After a polite courtesy, she speaks, but the words, such as they are and intermixed with throaty whickering, mean nothing to Weiwara.

The wind changes, blowing suddenly out of the east. An owl skims down and settles on one of the stones, a bad omen in daylight. Mist spins upward from the ground within the broken stone circle. Kel gasps aloud. The hvins quiet. Weiwara drops to her knees as she sees a majestic figure pacing forward, half veiled by the swirling mist. She covers her eyes.'

"Holy One. Forgive me."

"Do not fear, Niece. You have given no offense. I have come for the infant, the elder twin."

"The baby?" After so much sorrow, can she accept more?

The Holy One's voice is as melodious as that of a stream heard far off, touched with the waters of melancholy." We will raise her among our people. We will teach her, and her children, and her children's children, the secrets of our magic. This bond betveen your people and my people will live for as long as she has descendants, for it is in this way that I can honor Adica, who was dear to me."

Even as her mother's heart freezes within, knowing that she cannot say "no " to the Holy One, knowing that she cannot bear to say "yes," a cold whisper teases her ear. One infant will be easier to cope with than two. In such a time of desperation, with winter coming on and their food stores likely burned, feeding twins will be a terrible hards.h.i.+p, and there is Useti to consider as well, weaned early to make room for the younger ones. Blue-bud was never hers anyway, not really. She belonged to the spirits from the beginning.

But her lips refuse to form the words of acceptance. She has loved and succored the child for many months now." What of my people, Holy One? We have no Hallowed One to watch over us any longer."

"Are not twins favored in the eyes of the power you call the Fat One ? Let the younger twin be marked out to follow the hallowing path. I will see to his training myself, here in your own land, and when he is grown he will stand as Hallowed One to all the Deer people."

Mist twines around the stones. A cold wind rises out of the north, making her shudder. Winter is coming, and they will all struggle to survive among the ruins. The spell the Hallowed Ones wove rid the world of the Cursed Ones, so it seems, but she has only to look out over the scorched forest to see that it touched every soul here on Earth with its awful power.

The Holy One continues, as if she understands Weiwara's hesitation." My cousins will bring the infant girl to me. They will suckle her as they would their own child. She will be safe and well cared for with them, as if she has five mothers and not just one. We treasure each of our daughters, here among the Horse people. You need have no fear that yours will suffer any neglect. Have you a name that is meant to be hers when she is older?"

"Kerayi," Weiwara whispers, not even knowing she meant to say those words, almost as if another voice speaks through her lips.

Sos'ka moves forward, holding out her arms. Strange, now that she thinks about it, that all the centaurs she has ever seen are female.

Better to be done with it quickly. Weiwara lifts the tiny girl out of the sling, kisses her gently, and hands her up to Sos'ka. The infant shrieks outrage, but another centaur moves forward and, with a deft swoop, places the screaming infant at a breast. After a moment, the baby gets hold of the nipple and suckles contentedly.

The mist fades as the centaur women make silent gestures of farewell and move away. Better that the parting be swift. The sling sags, empty, against her chest. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s ache as her milk lets down, and Wrinkled-old-man begins to hiccup little sobs, catching her mood. Sun streaks the blasted tops of tumbled stones.

"What about Alain?" cries Kel.

Too late. The sun drives the last of the mist from among the stones. The Holy One has gone, and the owl no longer perches in those vanished shadows.

"I saw her! " Kel momentarily forgets his grief as he staggers forward into the stones." I saw her!" His head bows, and his shoulders shake." But they'll never know. Tosti, and Uncle, and Alain, they'll never know."

As soon as she feels strong enough and after she has nursed the baby, Weiwara leads Kel back down to where the ragged band of survivors waits. Most of the other White Deer people make ready to leave, wanting to return to their own villages to see how they have weathered the storm. As Weiwara surveys the destruction, she thinks maybe her people should leave, too. Ghosts and spirits swarm this place now. She can almost see them. Now and again she glimpses out of the corner of her eye the shades of the Cursed Ones, weeping and shouting curses because they are trapped forever on the road to the Other Side, neither dead nor living.

But the ancient queens have not done yet. Arrow Bright, Golden Sow, and Toothless have not forgotten the bonds that link them to their people. As the last echoes of the vast spell tremble in the earth, they grasp the fading threads and on those threads, as with a voice, they whisper.

When Weiwara and Agda carry Adica 's body on a litter into the silence of the ancient tomb, the queens whisper into her ears. Weiwara arranges the corpse as Agda holds the torch. She lovingly braids Adica's beautiful hair a final time. She fixes the golden antlers to her brow and straightens her clothing, places her lax hands on her abdomen. The lapis lazuli ring that Alain gave her winks softly under torchlight. She stows next to Adica the things Alain brought with him but left behind. In this way a part of him will still attend Adica in death. Last, she places at her feet a bark bucket of beer brewed with honey, wheat, and cranberries.

"Let me share this last drink with you, beloved friend." She dips a hand in the mead and drinks that handful down. As the sharp beer tickles her throat, it seems to her that the ancient queens stir in their silent tombs.

"Do not abandon us, Daughter. Do not abandon the ones who made you strong and gave you life. Do not leave your beloved friend to sleep alone. That was all she asked, that she not be left to die alone."

Weeping-will she always be weeping?-Weiwara says the prayers over the dead as Agda sings the correct responses. Afterward, with some relief, she and Agda retreat into the light. At the threshold of the queens' grave, they purify themselves with lavender rubbed over their skin before they return to the gathered villagers, those who remain.

"What shall we do, Mother Weiwara?" they ask her." Where shall we go ? "

Kel comes running. She sent him back to the village, and with great excitement he announces that eight of the ten pits where they store grain against winter hards.h.i.+p have survived the conflagration.

"This is our home," says Weiwara, "nor would I gladly leave the ancient queens, and my beloved friend, who gave us life. Let us stay here and build again."

Arrow Bright, seeing that all transpires as she wished, withdraws her hands from the world." Come, Sister," she says to Adica's spirit, which is still confused and mourning." Here is the path leading to the Other Side, where the meadow flowers always bloom. Walk with me."

Their memories fade.

In time, as the dead sleep and the living pa.s.s their lives on to their children and grandchildren down the generations, they, too, are forgotten.

Ivar hit the ground so hard that his knees cracked. His arms gave out, and his face and chest slammed into the dirt.

He lay stunned in darkness while the incomprehensible dream he'd been having faded away into confusion. Dirt had gotten into his mouth, coating his lips. Grit-stung on his tongue. His ear hurt, the lobe bent back, but he couldn't move his head to relieve the pressure.

As he lay there, trying to remember how to move, he heard a man speaking, but he didn't recognize the voice.

"I was walking down a road, and I was weeping, for I knew it was the road that leads to the other world, and do you know, Uncle, more even than my dear mother I really did miss my Fridesuenda for you know we're to be married at midwinter. But I saw a man. He came walking along the road with a black hound on either side. He was dressed exactly like a Lion but with a terrible stain of blood on his tabard. He reached out to me, and then I knew he . couldn't have been any Lion, for he wore a veil of light over his face and a crown of stars. I swear to you he looked exactly like that new Lion, the one what was once a lord, who's in Thiadbold's company."

Gerulf chuckled." I recall that one well enough, Dedi." It took Ivar a moment to identify the liquid tone in the old Lion's voice: he was crying as he spoke." He shamed you into returning that tunic to the lad who lost it dicing with you."

"Nay, Uncle, he never shamed me. He just told me the story of Folquin's aunt and how she wove it special for her nephew when he went away to the Lions. Then he and his comrades offered to work off the winnings by doing my ch.o.r.es for me. It seemed mean-hearted to say 'nay' to them."

"Ach, lad," said Gerulf on a shuddering breath." Lay you still, now. I promised your mother I'd bring you home safely, and so I will. I've got to get light here and see what happened to the others."

Ivar grunted and got his arms to work, pushed up to his hands and knees just as he heard other voices whispering in alarm, many voices breaking into speech at once." Quiet, I pray you," he said hoa.r.s.ely." Speak, one at a time, so that we know we're all here."

"I'm here," said Gerulf, "and so is my nephew Dedi- "I can speak for myself, Uncle."

"Is that you, Ivar?" asked Sigfrid." I can't hear very well. My ears are ringing. I had the strangest vision. I saw an angel- "It's the nail he took from Tallia," said Hathumod, still weeping." How did it come to be here?"

"Hush, Hathumod," said Ermanrich." Best to be quiet so that we don't wake anything else. I had a nightmare! I was being chased by monsters, with human bodies but animal faces..." He trailed off as, abruptly, everyone waited for the seventh voice.

In the silence, Ivar heard water dripping." Baldwin?" he whispered. Again, in a louder voice: "Baldwin?" His heart pounded furiously with fear. Ghosts always wanted blood and living breath on which to feed, and Baldwin was the one who had disturbed the skeleton.

"Ivar!" The voice echoed eerily down unknown corridors, but even the distortion could not m.u.f.fle that tone of triumph." Come see this!"

Ivar swore under his breath.

Ermanrich gave a hiccuping laugh, blended out of relief and fear." When we've eyes as pretty as yours, maybe we can see in the dark, too. Where are you?"

As out of nowhere they saw a gleam of pale golden light. Baldwin's head appeared, the soft light painting his features to an uncanny perfection. He smiled as his shoulders emerged, then his torso. It took a moment for Ivar, still on hands and knees and with his head twisted to one side, to realize that Baldwin was walking up stairs.

"You must come see!" Baldwin exclaimed as his cupped hands came into view. A ring adorned with a blue stone winked on one forefinger. He carried a bauble, all filigreed with cunning lacework and studded with pearls. The gold itself shone with a soft light, illuminating the walls of the chamber.

They were no longer in the same place. The stone slab and its ancient burial were gone. The dim alcoves built into the tomb had vanished, replaced by a smooth-walled, empty chamber carved out of rock. Ivar scrambled to his feet, wincing at the pain in his knees. He stared at the walls surrounding them, unmarked by the strange sigils that had decorated the walls of the tomb where they had taken refuge from the Quman army.

"Come see," said Baldwin without stepping fully out of the stairwell." You can't believe it!" He began to descend.

Because he held the only light, they hastened to follow him. Sigfrid took Hathumod's hand, and Ermanrich walked after them as Gerulf helped his nephew to his feet. Ivar groped around and found the torch Gerulf had been holding before the blue fire had snuffed it out. With the light receding quickly, he scrambled to the opening and descended. Fear gripped his heart, making him breathe in ragged gasps. Had Baldwin been possessed by the spirits of the dead? Or had he stumbled upon an enchantment? Where were they?

Ai, G.o.d, his knees hurt.

Twenty steps took him, blinking, into a chamber no larger than the one he had come from but so utterly different that, like his companions, he could only gaze in wonder.

They had found a treasure cave heaped with gold and jewels and all manner of precious chests and bundles of finest linen and silk cloth. Strangest of all, the chamber's guardians lay asleep, seven young men dressed in the garb of a young lord and his attendants. They slept on heaps of coins with the restful comfort of folk sleeping on the softest of featherbeds. The young lord, marked out from his attendants by the exceptional richness of his clothing, lay half curled on his side, with one cheek resting on a palm. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. His fair hair set off a complexion pink with health. A half smile trembled on his lips, as though he were having sweet dreams.

"Seven sleepers!" exclaimed Sigfrid in a hushed voice." The church mothers wrote of them. Can it be that we've stumbled across their hiding place?"

"I can count!" retorted Baldwin indignantly.

"Didn't we read about the Seven Sleepers in Eusebe's Church History!" Ermanrich asked.

"Lord preserve us," swore Gerulf." That's Margrave Villam's lad, his youngest son, the one called Berthold. I remember the day he disappeared. Lady bless us, but I swear that was two years or more ago." Fearful, but determined, he crossed to the young lord and knelt beside him. But for all his shaking and coaxing, he could not wake him, nor could any of the sleeping attendants be woken despite their best efforts to break the spell of sleep.

"It's sorcery," said Gerulf finally. He gave up last of all, long after the others had fallen back to huddle nervously by the stairs, which led up through rock toward the chamber above.

The glowing bauble made the chamber seem painted with a thin gold gauze, but shadows still lay at disconcerting and troubling angles, swathes of darkness untouched by light." I think we should get out of here," said Ivar unsteadily.

"What about the Quman?" asked Baldwin." I can't run from them anymore." He knelt and scooped up a handful of gold coins, letting them trickle through his fingers.

Shadows moved along the floor of the chamber like vines caught in wind, twining and seeking.

"Baldwin!" said Ivar sharply as a thread of shadow snaked out from the treasure and curled up Baldwin's leg." Move back from there!"

Baldwin yawned." I'm so tired."

Ivar darted forward, got hold of Baldwin's wrist, and shook him, hard, until all the gold scattered onto the floor." Don't pick up anything!" The bauble rolled out of Baldwin's hand and spun over the floor, coming to rest with a clink against a chest of jewels. Shadows writhed at its pa.s.sage.

"Don't take anything from here," said Ivar harshly, turning to stare at the others. The light from the bauble began to wane." It's all enchanted. It's all sorcery! I've seen sorcery at work." The old hatred and jealousy rose up like a floodtide in his heart. He seemed to see Hugh leering at him from the shadows that ma.s.sed beyond the treasure, and within the heart of those shadows he sensed a sullen enmity, whispering lies in his heart: Hanna is dead. Liath hates you." Let's go!" He tugged Baldwin mercilessly backward and pushed him toward the opening made by the stairs.

Gerulf got a spark from his flint, but it died on the blackened torch stub. A second spark spit and caught, and the torch flared to smoky life. They scrambled up the stairs with Gerulf right behind Baldwin and Ivar at the rear. Cold tendrils washed his back, but they let him go. The pure gold light behind him gleamed with greed and ancient anger.

He stumbled over the last step into the cool, empty chamber where the others waited for him.

"There's another tunnel here," said Baldwin, who had gone ahead.

There was nowhere else to go, but quickly they discovered they had fallen into a maze. This was no simple burial tumulus, with a single straight tunnel leading to the central womb where ancient queens and princes had been laid to rest in the long-ago days, but rather a labyrinth of corridors, some low, others so high that Ivar io couldn't touch the ceiling. All wound back on themselves and crossed in a bewildering pattern made more confusing when Sigfrid thought to leave a mark at each intersection so they'd know when they'd doubled back. They discovered quickly enough that they were walking in a complicated circle.

Finally, exasperated, Baldwin grabbed the torch out of Gerulf's hand." This way!" he said with the certainty of one whose beauty has always gotten him the best portion of meat and the most flavorful wine.

Taking this turn and that without any obvious pattern, they found themselves smelling air and light and feeling a tickle of breeze on their faces. The torch flame shuddered and licked out, leaving a wisp of smoke. The tunnel sloped upward, but the ceiling lowered until they were forced to crawl, and now Ivar felt dirt under his hands, twining roots and, once, a moist crawling thing.

Baldwin, at the fore, shouted. Ivar heard the others in reply, and then it was his turn to tumble free through thick bushes and roll, blinking, into hard sunlight. He clapped his hands over his eyes, only to remember that he'd lost two of his fingers. Yet the wound no longer hurt. White scar tissue sealed the lowest knuckles where the fingers had been shorn off right at the hand, as though it had been a year or two since the wound was taken. After a while he dared lower his hands from over his eyes to discover that it was a cloudy day, although it seemed as bright as sin to eyes so long drowned in darkness. He laughed weakly into the gra.s.s.