Adventures in the Liaden Universe Part 11

The ice in his belly sent a shaft lancing upward into his chest and he came off the bench in a silent rush, meaning to shake her, to pull away the cord, even to shout- The beads shifted against the floor with a sound like sobbing, and, obedient at last, hurtled through the airto land with a clatter upon the table top, half-an-inch from the Witch's long hand.

Lute froze, staring at her face, willing her to open her eyes, to shake her hair back, extinguish the candle and put aside the blue cloak; to mock him, even, for his terrors-She sat, still and silent as death. Beside her, the candle flame flickered, and went out.

Finally, he moved; relit the candle and set it so the light fell full on her face. It was then he saw that she was crying.

"Moonhawk?" A cracking whisper; much unlike his usual manner. He reached forth a hand and touched her, lightly, on the shoulder. "Moonhawk."

She gasped and hurled back in her chair, lifting a warding hand, eyes wide now, and bright with terror.

"Moonhawk!" He caught the uplifted hand, and nearly gasped himself at the coldness of her flesh.

"Ah!" She cried and bent her head, making no effort to take her hand from his. Her breathing shuddered.

"Gone," she mourned. "All gone. Goodbye sun. Goodbye flowers. Goodbye love. h.e.l.lo dark. Mother?

Mother! Where is she? Why is there no rest, no sweet embrace and welcome home?"

"Moonhawk!" He held tight to her, cupped her chin in his free hand-sacrilege, and worth a stoning, to touch the sacred body of a priestess without her aye-and forced her head up. Wide, unseeing eyes stared into his.

"Moonhawk sleeps," she said, still in that young, grief-sodden voice. "Tael was called and Tael is here-and here will remain until right is done. " She put her hand up and gripped his wrist in cold, ice-cold, death-cold fingers.

"Avenge me."

THEY WERE GATHERED in a bright-lit parlor two steps down the hall from the kitchen: Mother, daughter and son-to-be, all with a bit of work to hand. The boy was mending a harness-competently, Lute noted with surprise; the shrew was setting tiny, precise st.i.tches into a shirt. Aster sat with her work held lightly in her right hand, needle poised in her left-but she was not st.i.tching. Her eyes dwelled dreamily upon the candle flame and she seemed lost to her surroundings.

Nonetheless, it was she who looked up as Lute paused outside the room, and she who rose to greet him.

"Master Lute. Is there-has Lady Moonhawk found my child?"

He smiled, and bowed with professional grace, trying not to think of the mourning wraith he had left in the guesting-chamber, tucked among the pillows.

"The Lady Moonhawk," he intoned, "has wrought a very powerful spell. Your daughter has indeed been located and-G.o.ddess willing-will be home tomorrow morning."

Joy lit Aster's face. She clapped her hands and looked to where her eldest still sat, calmly st.i.tching.

"Senna, have you no ears? Did you not hear Master Lute say that your sister will be home tomorrow?"

She glanced up, brown eyes hard as pebbles. "And did I not say she would be home when she had done with whatever madcap scheme she was chasing?" She bent her gaze once more to her st.i.tching."You would believe that some ill had come of her. Ill never comes to the likes of Tael, who laughs at everything." She made a particularly violent jab at the fabric with her needle before concluding, half-whispered, "As she will be laughing at all of us, tomorrow."

"Senna-" her mother began, shock blighting the joy on her face.

"Tomorrow?" That was the boy, rigid as a carving on the stool, harness forgotten in his hands. "If she's close enough to be here tomorrow, why don't we go and fetch her tonight?" He turned wild, glittering eyes on Aster. "You'd do better not to let your hopes rise, housemother! What do we know of this Lady Moonhawk, in truth? what word have we, except her own, that she is Circle-trained? Does she come to us properly clad-no! She comes like a ragged gypsy fortune-teller, bearing company with a-"

"Cedar!" Aster commanded. "Hold your tongue!"

"Yes, do," said Senna, bending to put her work into the basket. She stood and glanced from her mother to the boy. "Morning will be here soon enough, and then we can all judge the truth of the foretelling." She yawned, covering her mouth with work-scarred fingers.

"I, for one, believe the lady, by whatever means she gained her knowledge," she concluded. "And now I am going to bed, the better to speed morning along. Mother?"

"Yes," said Aster distractedly, and turned to lay her mending haphazardly on the chair. "A good notion."

She straightened and held out a hand. "Master Lute, thank you for your service to us. I will just step down the hall, Senna, and give thanks to Lady Moonhawk, also, and then-"

"Lady Moonhawk," Lute interposed smoothly, "was exhausted with the working of magic and has since retired. Doubtless there will be a time for speaking together, tomorrow."

"Doubtless," said Senna, sarcastically. She put a surprisingly solicitous hand under Aster's elbow. "Come to bed, Mother. Good-night, Cedar. Master Lute."

"Dream sweetly," Lute wished, and bowed them out of the room. He turned in time to see Cedar come to his feet, harness falling unnoticed to the floor. He shambled forward, and started badly when Lute touched his arm.

"I see you're as wide awake as I am," the magician said, smiling into the bewildered young eyes. "Do the grace of walking with me. A touch of evening air and a bit of exercise are doubtless just what we both require." The boy simply stared. Lute smiled more widely, took a firmer grip on the arm and pulled him, unresisting, toward the kitchen and the door.

"Come," he said softly. "I'll tell you a story while we walk."

THE MOON WAS high, limning the countryside in silver, and the stars hung pure and unflickering just out of Lute's longest reach. He looked around with genuine pleasure.

"What a delightful scene! What delightful country, certainly, once one climbs out of the village. I thought of settling here this afternoon."

"But your mistress has no mind to rest," Cedar said, with a touch of his former acidity.

"You mistake me, child. I am my own man. And the Lady Moonhawk is indeed a Witch out of Circle, properly attired or not. We happen to travel in the same direction. When either of us chooses a differentway, why, then we shall part company."

Cedar unlatched the gate and they stepped through onto the track. Once more Lute looked about him.

"Truly delightful! What direction shall we walk?"

Hope flickered in the boy's face, clearly discernible in the moonlight. He turned east, toward the village.

"This way," he said eagerly.

Lute extended a hand, caught the boy's arm and turned him firmly west. "I've a fancy for this way, myself. Come, walk with me."

Hope died in that instant; the boy's shoulders sagged and something in his face crumbled-but he stayed stubbornly rooted, resisting the gentle tug of Lute's hand.

"Come," Lute repeated. He gestured with his free hand and plucked a silver bit from the starry air.

Taking the boy' s resistless fingers, he turned palm up and placed the money there, closing the fingers firmly.

"Here now," he said. "You've agreed to guide me-and taken my coin to seal the bargain. Let us walk this way." He pulled more sharply on the arm, and this time Cedar went with him, walking silently on rock-hard path, with Lute keeping pace beside.

They had gone for some little distance, silent, but for the magician's now-and-again comments on the surrounding country, or the stars, or the breeze, when Cedar glanced over.

"What is the story?"

"Your pardon?"

"The story," the boy repeated impatiently. "You said you would tell me as we walked."

"Ah," said Lute softly. "The story." He went another few steps along the path, glancing upward as if to ask the moon for guidance. "The story, " he said again, ""is this."

"Not very long ago-nor very distant-there walked on a path very like this one a young woman and her betrothed. It was a dewy morning, or a brilliant afternoon-though doubtfully evening, for she did not wear her cloak against the chill and it was not the moon's time of fullness-the path would have been too dark.

"So they went, these two, and as they went, they talked. Alas, the talk turned from pleasantries and flirtations to distressful, hurtful subjects. The lover accused the girl of being unfaithful to him, cried out that she refused to wear his troth-gift; that she refused, perhaps, to fix the date of their final vowing. He demanded to know the name of his rival; demanded to know by what right she-a woman grown and mistress of her own life-by what right she continued to wear the necklace she had always worn-the one he had not given her.

"He demanded these things, petulant, and she ignored him-ran a little ahead or to the side or exclaimed over a flower.

"Goaded, he said other things, ugly things, striving to be hateful, to hurt her, as a child will try to wound the adult who has disciplined him." Lute paused, glanced back at the boy, who had stopped on the silvery path and was staring ahead, hands fisted at his sides.

"Cedar?" he said softly. "Is that how it was?""She laughed at me!" the boy cried out. "Laughed! But I swear by the Mother-I never meant to kill her!"

"But you did kill her," Lute said, still soft.

"It was an accident!" Cedar half-raised his fists, anguish twisting his face. "She laughed and then she-she said that she was sorry, that of course she wouldn't wear my gift, that she had never-had never considered me a life-partner-" His voice caught, as if on a sob. "She said that she saw she had been wrong, that she had tried to be kind to me, until I outgrew my-my-" He brought his hands down, still fisted, to rest tautly against his thighs.

"I hit her," he said, and bent his head.

"One blow killed her?" Lute wondered, soft as thought. "Or were there more than one?"

"One!' Cedar wailed. "Only one, as the G.o.ddess knows my soul. But she fell-I heard her head hit the rock and then she didn't get up... I knelt beside her and tried to-tried to lift her head-" He swallowed hard. "The blood..." He looked up and Lute marked the tears that dyed his cheeks silver in the moonlight.

"There is a-a spring-cave not far away. I carried her there; piled rocks around her so that the animals..." He swallowed again.

"It was early morning. After-that evening, I went to Mother Aster's farm, asking for Tael. She wasn't there. I waited-and I've been waiting. Soon, they would have given her up! Senna would have decided that Tael simply didn't wish to be found. Aster would have mourned-and taken up more good works in the village-and forgotten. Soon, there would have been-would have been peace. But you had to come and that Mother-blasted woman-how did she know?" he screamed suddenly, lunging forward and swinging a fist, randomly, it seemed to Lute, who merely stepped aside and let the rush go past him.

The boy whipped around, admirably quick, though still a shade uncautious, and braked so strongly he went down on a knee, loose stones clattering across the path.

"Wisdom, boy," Lute said, no longer soft; and plucked a silver sliver from the air. He made a magical pa.s.s and showed the kneeling youth a quick succession: sliver, stiletto, dagger, nothing. Sliver, stiletto, dagger...

Cedar licked his lips.

"Consider illusion," Lute directed. "Consider reality. You hold the coin I gave you still within your fist.

Which of these is real, Master Cedar? Will you gamble your life that I only juggle air?" He ran the sequence again, and again, using the rhythm of the moves to add force to his words.

"The Lady Moonhawk is a Witch. She called Tael and come Tael did, demanding what right remains her-proper burial, benediction-truth. Our duty tonight is to have her home, laid out and decent for her mother to see at dawnlight. Your duty then is to tell the truth-for justice and peace-and your own salvation." He vanished the dagger for the last time and stood staring into the boy's eyes.

"Peace never came from lies, child. And hearts do not forget so quickly." He gestured. "Get up."

Cedar did, as if the gesture lifted him, and Lute nodded. "Show me the place."

"All right," said Cedar and turned westward once more on the path, Lute walking just behind.* * *

IT WAS MANY hours later that Lute went into the laundry, stripped off the fine red robe with all its stains and tears and washed, scrubbing himself from hair to toenails, rinsing and then scrubbing again.

When he was done, he combed his hair and braided it, dug the silver knife from the sleeve of the discarded robe and used it to sc.r.a.pe the stubble from his cheeks.

Lastly he dressed in his own clothes, damp though they were, and stood, shivering, thinking about the night's work.

Mercifully, the spring-cave had been cool, and the season not yet high summer. Sadly, something had been at one of the hands, and there was, after all, the blood, and the other general nastiness attendant upon days-dead bodies. Her face-her face had been untouched, except for the bruise splashed across the right cheek.

In life, she had been beautiful.

Lute shuddered.

They had laid her in the parlor, across two benches pushed together, draped with an old quill they had found near the wood box. They had crossed her hands over her breast-whole one over chewed-and combed her hair until it fell in gleaming waves straight back from her face to the floor.

Her eyes had already been closed.

"Blue," Cedar had said distractedly, touching her hair, her face, her folded hands. "Blue as tael-flowers, her eyes. You would have loved her, Master Lute, if you had seen her-as she was."

Lute shuddered again, whether in pity or revulsion he did not know.

The boy had declined to wash or sleep, saying it was not so long until dawn and if he was to see Mother Aster and tell her the whole, he might as well be there when she came down.

"Besides," he said softly, eyes on the dead girl's face. "She's home now. It would be graceless, to let her in the night alone."

Pity locked Lute's tongue. Leaving the reminder of three abandoned nights unspoken, he had gone to wash.

Washed, and in somewhat better control of himself, he quit the laundry and went to the guesting-room, dread 'round his heart like ice.

"MOONHAWK?" In the candle-glow he saw her, reclined among the pillows, wrapped in the blue cloak that she had not allowed him to remove. Her face was smooth, distant, childlike. Her breathing went in and out with regularity. He could not tell if her state was trance or sleep.

Sighing, aching in every joint, he sat on the pillows opposite, set the candle carefully aside and prepared himself to wait.

A scream wakened him.

Aster was the first he saw as he rushed into the parlor. Aster with her fist shoved against her mouth and her face white as her dead daughter's. Then he saw Senna, wide-eyed and staring, but not at Tael-atsomething, it seemed, upon the floor. At something which, now that he noted it, Aster stared as well.

Foreboding flared, too late, and he stepped into the room, looked over Aster's shoulder- He had used a leather-hook; it lay by his right hand. The slash it had made across his throat was ragged-and very deep.

His eyes were still open.

"No!" Lute flung forward, went to his knees by the pooled blood, extended a useless hand-and pulled it back, clenched.

"Young fool! There was no need, no need." The tears were hot, they fell into the pooling red.

A hand touched his shoulder; warm fingers gripped him. Behind him he heard Aster shift and clear her throat.

"Cedar was so undone by my-by Tael's death that he killed himself. His love was such-"

"No," whispered Lute, and- "No," said Moonhawk, as she gently kneaded his shoulder. "Cedar killed your daughter, housemother-unintended, but he was the instrument of her death. We have the story, if you will hear it.

And we will stay and help you bury them, with every proper rite, if you will have our help."