Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 53

Their guide fingered a series of b.u.mps and grooves carved into the railing; a gate swung open to reveal a stairway carved into the cliff. Down these steps they descended into a labyrinth of pillars and archways clothed in jewels. Caverns spun one off the next as though an ancient hand had woven thread into stone. No surface was unpolished, and so many patterns and markings had been in cised into every sloping wall that she thought it must be a language read by fingers. Indeed, their guide kept a hand in contact with these surfaces, its fingers rubbing and tapping in a complicated code.

They did not walk far before their guide steered them to a vessel that looked like a giant sh.e.l.l scoured clean and fitted out with pearlescent benches. It took all three of them to hoist up the dogs, and they clambered in uneasily after. Their guide hopped over the high side with unexpected grace to take its place at the stem of the vessel.

The vessel lifted right up off the ground. Laoina yelped in surprise. Alain gasped out loud as he steadied himself on the backs of the dogs. Adica bit her lip rather than make a sound; she didn't want their guide to think that she, a holy woman, was awed by their magic.

But she was: stunned and even terrified as they floated through the cavernous city. It seemed to stretch on forever, winding corridors, lengths of dark tunnel that opened at intervals into caverns born out of a thousand p.r.i.c.kling lights or streaked with veins of gold and copper. This was mystery and power displayed on a scale so vast she could not comprehend it.

How had she ever thought the Cursed Ones powerful? They were as children, compared to this.

The guide's eyes-if they were eyes-remained turned away from them. Even their awe did not interest it. Yet Adica did not feel unwatched. The many adornments, bits of metal, rods of silver, square plates of gold that flashed and winked when any light diffused over them, seemed alert. Adica sensed magic h.o.a.rded within them, a mute life, aware but unspeaking. A few of the skrolin they pa.s.sed halted to regard them as one might a curiosity, but most hurried on their way uncaring. She saw none performing any manner of work she recognized: no one sc.r.a.ped hides, gutted fish, wove baskets, built pots, or chipped obsidian into tools. She saw nothing resembling the magic of the smiths, who worked with fire blazing as they wrought sorcery into copper and tin. She saw no fields, nor flocks, but when they came at last to a vast river whose banks were chiseled out of the rock itself, she saw a thing she could finally recognize, built on such a vast scale that it took her breath away.

"Truly," Laoina muttered, clenching her hand until her knuckles whitened, "there is more to this world than I ever dreamed."

Adica knew a market fair when she saw one. The wood henge was the market for all the Deer tribes, where they gathered at the great festivals, three times a year. Peddlers and merchants might linger for days or even weeks at the Festival of the Sun as people gained time free from their fields and flocks to trade. One time, when Adica had been a child, the Horse people had come to the midsummer fair. Their tents and wagons had made of the henge a vast fair unlike ariy other she had seen, exotic and colorful, and folk had lingered there long past the usual seven days of meeting, but soon afterward the first of the raids made by the Cursed Ones had come, and the Horse people had never traveled so far west again. Adica had also seen the lively market of Shu-Sha's city before it was burned by the Cursed Ones, and she had seen, from a distance, the great slave market where the Cursed Ones sold and bought human slaves.

Was it possible that all those other markets were but shadows of this one? Here, along this river, lay a market built out of stone, a long avenue fronted on one side by a cunningly paved road and, on the other, by the river. For the river was also a road for those who traveled its ways as easily as a human walked a path.

The skrolin were trading with the merfolk. Could it be that skrolin and merfolk alike lived lives completely oblivious to what took place beyond sea and cave?

What merchandise pa.s.sed from hand to hand she could not see; the vessel did not slacken its pace except to accommodate the flow of crowds who at intervals crossed the thoroughfare where other vessels such as this one skimmed past. A long wharf, decorated with sh.e.l.ls and mosaics on the riverside and soaring into archways and pillars carved like elongated dragons on the land side, marked the border where the two folk came together. In troughs cut into the wharf, merfolk lounged at their ease, eellike hair writhing languidly around their heads. The skrolin, who looked quite dry and encrusted next to the sleek, moist forms of the merfolk, crouched comfortably on their squat legs next to low tables and basins in which, it appeared, merchandise was displayed. The only light illuminating this scene emanated from the stone itself, so diffuse and cool that it felt murky, like looking through water.

In a way, the cloudy light made the vista seem more dream than real, like that city seen beneath the sea, too strange to comprehend.

Adica could not have run the length of the marketplace without becoming winded, but it did come to an end at last. Alain had not uttered one word, only stared, while Laoina muttered imprecations and prayers under her breath. The only noise their skrolin guide made came from the tinkling of the adornments hanging from its body.

At last, they turned away from the river to quieter venues, stopped deep in shadow. Their guide disembarked before a simple stone structure, longer than it was wide. A second skrolin emerged from the building. The two communicated by tapping each other so rapidly that in the dim light Adica could not make out the individual movements of their fingers. Then their guide shooed them out of the vessel, rather like pesky rats being swept out of a clean house, before it climbed back into the sh.e.l.l and vanished into the darkness.

"You are the animals who live in the Blinding." The skrolin's voice grated like rocks. Words came awkwardly to it, and although it spoke in the language of Horn's people, Laoina had a hard time understanding its p.r.o.nunciation. But no Walking One succeeded without a good ear. Whatever fear and awe Laoina felt, she did what was expected of her.

"We are not animals but human, people like yourself." Adica displayed the armband before touching the other jewelry she wore to show that her people, too, had the skill of making.

"So is our bargain, that we must help you because of the child who was lost." With a delicate claw it brushed the armband she wore." What wish you of us? In haste, we give you what you need so you may leave."

"Pa.s.sage to the land of the tribe of Shu-Sha, which borders the lands of the Cursed Ones."

Without warning, the skrolin turned and shuffled into the stone house. The door shut in Adica's face as she tried to follow; it bore no latch she could see, nothing to pry open. Smooth as wood, its surface had the grain of rock but she suspected it was neither substance.

"With such allies, surely we could defeat the Cursed Ones," she said.

"I knew nothing of this," repeated Laoina, as in a daze." I thought I knew so much! How powerful their G.o.ds must be, to watch over such a place!"

"There is only one G.o.d, Female and Male in Unity," said Alain." They who created all creatures and all places. Even these."

Laoina snorted. It was an old argument, one the two had had before." I have not seen this G.o.d. Where do you keep it? In your pocket? Or your sleeve?"

"G.o.d are everywhere. As G.o.d are part of each one of us and of the world, so we in the world are part of G.o.d."

Before Laoina could reply, the door whisked open and the skrolin beckoned." Come."

With its shuffling gait, it led them into the house and down a flight of stairs. It soon became so dark that they had to feel their way along the steps; Alain, helping the dogs, fell behind. The skrolin did not seem inclined to slow its pace to accommodate their clumsiness, but just when Adica could no longer hear its chuffing and wheezing, it halted so they could catch up.

She had lost count of the steps and knew only that her thighs and knees were aching when the stairs bottomed out. They stood in a vast chamber, echoing with loud booms. A hot blast of air struck her in the face. She was completely blind. A clawed hand sc.r.a.ped her arms, then shoved her forward unexpectedly. She collided with a slick wall, banged her knees on a bench, and sat down hard. Laoina crashed into her, swore; then the dogs were barking.

"Alain!" Booms and clanks drowned out his reply. The walls hummed. A jolt slammed her against the wall. One of the dogs was trying to climb up on her, paw digging into her thigh. With an effort, she got the dog off of her, groped, caught Laoina in the armpit, tried to rise, suddenly panicked, and then Alain found her and sank down on the bench beside her, holding her tightly.

"The armband is gone," she whispered." They took it."

"I have mine still, but it casts no light here."

After a long while, waiting in silence, they realized that nothing had changed. The floor rocked slightly and steadily, as a boat would, but no waves slapped their hull. It was too dark to see anything.

"Are we at sea?" Laoina asked finally in a whisper.

"I think not." Adica searched out their surroundings by touch. They might as well have been sealed inside a huge acorn; she found no trace of door or shutter, beam ceiling or dirt floor, only unknown patterns and textures covering the walls." We are trapped."

"Nay, do not say so," objected Alain." Let us wait, sleep, and restore our strength. Maybe what seems dark now will seem more clear after."

"Good advice," agreed Laoina." Even from a man whose G.o.d fits in his sleeve."

Alain laughed. His laughter made the darkness lighten, although there was in fact no actual change. They shared out water and a portion of the remaining provisions between the five of them. Afterward, Adica listened as Laoina settled down, making herself a nest, such as she could, for sleep. The Akka woman's breathing slowed and deepened. The dogs panted, and then began to snore.

Secrets lie buried in the dark, where they fester and rot. Wasn't it better to be truthful, no matter how harsh truth was?

"I'm going to die," she murmured, finding Alain's body and pulling him close.

"No, you're not! The Holy One sent me to protect you. I'll see you safely through this. I'll see you safely to the great weaving you've spoken of. Don't you believe I can do that?"

She rested her cheek where his shoulder curved into the soft vulnerability of his throat. Tears slid from her eyes to course down his skin." Of course, my love. Of course you will."

She could not go on. Grief choked her.

He found by touch the knots that closed her bodice. The darkness, and the silence, lent an intensity to their touching, just as rage and sorrow did: rage at fate for tearing from her the life she could never have, with him; sorrow at the loss that would come. Death did not mean as much to her, at that moment, as losing him. She had learned to live in solitude, even when she was married to Beor, but she had never understood how lonely her life had been until Alain had come to her.

His fingers found and caressed a nipple as she slid his skin tunic up his thighs and straddled him. They rocked there, falling into the pulsing rhythm of the floor shuddering under them. Cloth bunched up and spilled free as they moved. She caught her hands in his hair and pulled his head back to kiss him.

Let it last forever.

In her dreams she sees the fire-woman again, pushing, pushing, pushing as she struggles forward, trying to press her way through the glittering, golden crowd that swarms around her like bees buzzing and stinging.

"Let me pa.s.s!" the fire-woman cries frantically." You must not give her the skopos' scepter. You must not trust her! " But she cannot get through. No one even notices that she is there, astounding as that seems, given the way she blazes.

The hall in which they stand looms impossibly high and long. The figures robed in gold cloth who stand somewhat above the others, placed on a platform built at the far end of the hall, look half the height of normal humans. Maybe that is just a trick of the lamplight.

Maybe it is all a trick. Dreams and visions can be false as well as true. But Adica knows in her gut that this is a true vision. The only thing she doesn 't understand is why it matters, or where in the middle world she stands, if she stands in the middle world at all.

She lifts her staff, surprised to find it in her hand." Come, Sister, do not despair," she cries, because the look of anguish on the fire-woman's face touches her deeply. She has known anguish and isolation, too." There is usually an answer if you only know where and how to look."

Eyes as blue as pure lapis lazuli widen in alarm. This time, the fire woman turns, and sees her.

IN the sixth sphere there was always enough food, and everything shone with the golden light of plenty, courtesy of the empress of bounty, known in ancient times as the G.o.ddess Mok. But Liath despaired from the moment she entered the regnant's feasting hall in the palace at Darre, just in time to hear King Henry rise to toast the woman who would, in a week's time, be invested and robed as the new skopos, Holy Mother to all the Daisanite faithful.

"Let us pray fittingly to G.o.d, who have shown us Their mercy by bringing us a new skopos renowned for her wisdom, piety, and n.o.ble lineage."

How could they crown Anne as skopos? How could they trust her, who was the greatest danger of all? How could she stop them when not one soul in the hall was aware of her presence?

She pressed through the celebrating throng to the side of Sister Rosvita, who had interceded for her before. But although the good cleric looked thoughtful rather than pleased, concerned rather than joyful, nothing Liath could do caught her attention. The sardonic cleric seated beside Rosvita, who kept making sarcastic asides, brushed at his shoulder when Liath tugged at his robes, as though brushing at a fly. He didn't even look up.

She dared not ascend to the high table, where Hugh sat in the place of honor between Queen Adelheid and the new skopos. Hugh would not heed her; he had ensnared Adelheid and Henry both. Obviously he had become Anne's favored ally, even though Anne had seen him at his worst, abusing her own daughter. Hadn't Anne let him take Da's Book of Secrets? Had she guessed all along what he could become and meant to twist him to her own purposes, or was it Hugh who had twisted Anne?

Did it even matter? Hugh's goals, at least, Liath could comprehend: he wanted knowledge and power. All that mattered to Anne was destroying the Ashioi.

Without allies, Liath wasn't sure how she could stop her.

"Come, Sister, do not despair. There is usually an answer if only you know where and how to look."

She turned.

The woman facing her was obviously human, not tall but not particularly short either, with black hair neatly braided, a broad face and a generous mouth, and a livid burn scar marking one cheek. But she was dressed so primitively in a tightly fitted cowskin bodice with sleeves cut to the elbows and an embroidered neckline, and a string skirt whose corded lengths revealed her thighs as she took a step forward. At each wrist she wore a copper armband incised with the head of a deer. The metal winked, catching lamplight, and Liath blinked hard, recognizing her.

"I saw you kneeling before a cauldron. Where is Alain? Is he living, or dead?"

The woman shuddered as at the pa.s.sing of a cold breeze, making a complicated sign at her chest, a hex to drive away evil spirits." He lives. He is my husband."

"Living!" murmured Liath as hope flowered in her heart." At least he is free, and alive."

"The Holy One brought him to me from the land of the dead. Is this that land?" The woman gestured toward the merry folk feasting in the hall as they celebrated the coming invest.i.ture.

"Nay," she said bitterly, "this is the land below the moon, but I cannot reach them. I cannot stop them from doing the very thing they must not do."

"I do not understand," admitted her comrade, coming forward to stand beside her." I thought this might be the Fat One's realm."

"That land I do not know."

"Of course you know it. The Fat One is the giver of all things, pain and death as well as plenty and pleasure. Can you not see her hand here as well, in this place wreathed half in light and half in shadow?"

"Who are you? Where are you from? Where is Alain now?"

"I am called Adica, Hallowed One of the Deer people. I come from the land of the living but it is true that I walk now in the land of dreams and visions, as you do. Alain sleeps beside me, in the heart of skrolin country, deep within the earth."

"Now I am the one who does not understand," said Liath with a smile.

A horn blew. Like curtains rippling in wind, the hall shuddered as a rich, golden light spilled over the scene, folding like days running together. Had the world come undone? Was the belt twisting?

Liath staggered, dizzy, and found herself grasping her new companion's hand in a sober hall lined with dark wood and filled with a crush of people, as silent as ghosts.

The empty throne of the Holy Mother stood upon a smaller dais wrought entirely of ivory and gems which was itself placed upon a larger dais carpeted in gold and red. A procession worked its way forward through the throng, presbyters cloaked in silken cloaks, clerics swinging thuribles as the smoke of frankincense rose in stinging clouds, giving Liath a headache. Bouquets of roses and lilies wreathed the base of lamp stands and ornamented the closed shutters. Anne walked at the forefront, escorted by Hugh and three other presbyters, all of whom were far older than he was. He outshone them as easily as the sun outshines the moon.

"Ai, G.o.d," said Liath desperately, "I cannot let them make such a mistake. But I'm trapped here, because I'm walking the spheres, not standing in Aosta. I can't stop it now."

Adica had a serious face but such a pleasant expression that the words she said next shocked Liath, so agreeably were they spoken." Yet if she threatens you and your people, then you must do whatever it takes to stop her. Can't you kill her?"

"Even if I had the power, I just can't," she whispered, "It would be unnatural."

As Anne reached the steps leading to the lower dais, her four companions stepped aside. Only the skopos could set foot on the ivory steps leading to the Holy Mother's seat. When she set her foot on the highest step, she turned to look back over the crowd. Liath saw clearly the resemblance in her stern features to that of her grandfather's death mask, rendered in stone in the chapel at Autun. None could mistake her who had seen Taillefer's rec.u.mbent statue. Here, in flesh, stood his missing heir, child of the son born and raised in secrecy to spare the infant boy a potentially fatal contest for the imperial throne.

With Anne as skopos, sovereign over the holy church, who would truly be more powerful? Henry, or Anne?

"Is killing unnatural when we hunt deer to feed ourselves? Is killing unnatural when we seek to protect our children from that which would harm them? Is killing unnatural when we fight off our enemies who wish to burn our villages and enslave us?"

"That's not what I meant." The hall had fallen into such a profound silence, waiting for Anne to take her seat, that Liath had a crazy notion that she had gone deaf. But her voice still worked." She is my mother."

"Your mother? But you have a heart of fire."

Adica touched Liath over her heart and closed her eyes. Lips pursed, expression intent, she swayed her head from side to side as though seeking, listening. Her eyes popped open, but her irises had rolled back in her head, leaving only the whites visible. A thin line of drool dribbled down her chin.

She spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper not at all like the easy tone she had used before, as though her inner sight had made a voice for itself out of smoke and ash." Child of Flame, look inside yourself. She is not your mother."

The ring on Liath's hand flared with a blinding blue light. Cold stung her finger, shooting up her arm until it stabbed into her heart.

She screamed.

She heard their booming voices, far away, calling her "child."

She knew it for truth, pecause truth hurts far more than a lie.

"Did Alain send youl to protect me?" she cried when she could speak again." To guide me?" She understood the trap of Mok now, the obstacle laid before her: the trap of false obligation. She had believed blindly, without trusting in her own judgment and wisdom and instinct." If I am not the heir of Taillefer, then I am free of his shadow and of his burden. I am free to act as I must."

She pulled off the ring and thrust it into Adica's hands." I pray you, Sister, keep this for him in return for the help he gave me. Let it protect him, when he is in danger, as he has protected me. If he ever needs me, I will come to him."

"Where are you going?"

Liath let her wings of flame flower into life, but she was sorry to see the other woman step back in awe." To the sphere of Aturna, the Red Mage, who rules with wisdom's scepter. To find my mother."

Without the ring to bind her to Mok's realm, Liath rose easily on a draft of wind cloudy with incense as, below her, Anne took her seat in the throne of the Holy Mother and grasped the jeweled scepter wielded by the skopos of the church of the Unities.

SILENCE and stillness startled Alain awake. He was lying in the dirt with Adica's weight pinning his left arm to the ground and Sorrow licking his ear. Jagged pebbles stung his rump. He groaned, shifting to pull out from under Adica, and sat up, rubbing his hand. It hurt to touch it, still, but once he chafed the p.r.i.c.kling needles out of it, he could close it into a firm fist. The snake's poison had neither killed nor crippled him, but he still had that faint ringing in his ears.

Dust motes floated in a shaft of daylight that cut through a cave's mouth. His staff, their empty provision sacks, and Adica's pack with her holy regalia all sat on the earth nearby. Rage whined in the dim recesses of the cave, scratching at the rock face that closed off the back. Laoina, with her spear, was poking at the rock wall as though to flush out snakes. Adica slept, hands clenched. Sorrow sniffed Adica's ear, then flopped down beside the Hallowed One and rested his huge black head on his forelegs. Doleful eyes regarded him. He rubbed Sorrow's head with his knuckles, and he grunted contentedly. Rage yipped, padding over to get a pat as well.

"Where are we?" Alain asked, picking up his staff. He tested the height of the cave's opening and measured the tumbled boulders. They could climb out, but it would be difficult to hoist the hounds out.

Laoina turned." I am thinking it is a good thing that these Bent People do not want humans as their slaves, because to me it looks like they have powerful magic. They have ships that can sail through rock, maybe. How else could we have come here? By o some sorcery the vessel carried us under the land to the country of Shu-Sha's tribe. When I was an apprentice to the Walking Ones, I met a man who walked all the way from Shu-Sha's tribe to Horn's tribe. That was when the Cursed Ones destroyed the stone loom and the fine city built by Shu-Sha's people. That man left at the waxing quarter moon, and he saw three full moons before he came to Horn's tribe. That's a long path to walk in one journey. I don't know what magic the Bent People used to make us sleep so soundly, but I'm not thinking we slept as long as three courses of the moon."

"That's a long way," he agreed, thinking that maybe Laoina had lost her mind or gotten confused. Something had changed about the way she spoke, too; the hitches and pauses had vanished, as though the language of the Deer people flowed more easily from her tongue. And anyway, he could not explain any better than she could the things they had seen in the city of the skrolin." How do you know where we are now?"

She indicated the opening behind him. He scrambled up, sc.r.a.ping his knees. Dirt rained on his head from rootlets stirred as he pulled himself out where he could see. At first it was too bright to recognize anything, but gradually the patterns of light and shade resolved into a rugged defile plunging deep into shadow. The far slope was covered in spiny bushes clinging desperately to the precipitous slope. At the top of the ridge opposite, he saw a ma.s.sive wall rising up out of the hill like a waking dragon.

Laoina tugged on his foot." Come back down, quick. That fort belongs to the Cursed Ones."