From a High Tower

by Mercedes Lackey

  She discovered, as Fox and Cody set up targets for her, that there was indeed a difference now: her eyesight was slightly sharper, her awareness of every faintest breath of air keener, and once she began actually shooting, she discovered her reflexes were faster.

  And she knew things. Like exactly how that coin was going to fall, and exactly when to shoot it so that she could hole it instead of sending it spinning. Like the precise motion of the “rabbit” target, so she could not just hit it, but hit it in a neat little daisy pattern.

  Then Cody set up the edge-on playing card for Annie Oakley’s famous trick. And suddenly, literally out of nowhere, she understood that if she created a kind of tunnel of air for the bullet to travel down, and leaned infinitesimally to the right, she could guide the bullet and . . .

  ...hit it.

  Splitting it right down the middle.

  Just like Annie Oakley could.

  The roar of cheering that broke out behind her startled her so much she nearly dropped her rifle. She realized only at that moment that most of the company had gathered behind her to watch her “practice.”

  Then her rifle was snatched out of her hands, and she was engulfed by the crowd of her fellow showmen and friends, hoisted on their shoulders, and paraded around the camp like a conquering hero, with everyone cheering and singing “For she’s a jolly good fellow!” until they ran out of breath. And only then did they carry her to the Army Camp and let her down in front of one of the fires, where Captain Cody was waiting with a glass and a particular bottle she recognized.

  That was when she came very close to fleeing. Because that bottle . . . that bottle held the Captain’s cherished whiskey from America, and it was something she had no desire to experience after sniffing its potent fumes. Beer was one thing, even schnapps, but this? She was absolutely certain that it would remove the skin from her tongue, throat and probably stomach.

  But the gleam in Cody’s eye, and the grins on the faces of everyone else, convinced her there was no escaping this particular “honor.” I’d better face it and get it over with, she thought with mingled dread and resignation. So when Cody poured a glug of the gold-colored stuff into one glass and handed it to her, and did the same for himself, she accepted it.

  Cody held the glass over his head, signaling he wanted silence, and got it. “Today,” he proclaimed. “Our very own Ellie showed herself the equal, maybe even the better, of Miss Annie Oakley. There ain’t nothin’ Miss Annie kin do that Miss Ellie cain’t. So! I call fer a toast! I give you the deadliest shot on this here continent! To Miss Ellie!”

  “To Miss Ellie!” came back the reply as a roar of approval, as she solemnly clinked glasses with the Captain. And steeling herself, she threw down the entire shot in one gulp.

  It didn’t quite remove the skin from her tongue and throat, but it certainly felt as if she had gulped down a mouthful of fire, not liquid. Somehow she managed not to choke or gasp, although tears started up in her eyes as some of the cowboys pounded her back in congratulations. Fortunately, a moment later, Rosa thrust a stein of beer into her hands, and with gratitude she quelled the fires in her mouth and throat with its familiar bitterness.

  It seemed that the rest of them felt that a celebration was in order. More glasses and steins appeared, and a tapped keg. A couple of the band members fetched their instruments and began some impromptu dance music. Dancing around the fire began, not at all hindered by the fact that there were very few females to partner with; it seemed that cowboys in a dancing mood would dance with each other, or with a broom or a coat, or with nothing at all. The beer flowed generously, the rejoicing became more general, and it wasn’t long before Giselle was able to slip away from her well-wishers and go sit in the shadows outside her vardo to look up at the stars, and breathe, and think.

  “That was the Hu-Huk,” said Fox, strolling around the side of her vardo. “White men call him the Thunderbird. I never dreamed that he would come to me here, in this strange land.”

  She didn’t need to ask him what he meant; he had probably been thinking about that giant birdlike Elemental all afternoon and evening, and just as probably had been waiting with customary patience for her to be free to talk about it. “The One with the Thunder in his wings and the lightning in his claws,” she replied, with a nod, and then steadied herself as a wave of giddiness hit her. “He was . . . like nothing I have ever seen before, except . . . except maybe once, when I might have seen a storm dragon.” She blinked a little. “I think I am a little drunk.”

  Fox sat on his heels next to her, and peered into her eyes without touching her. “Only a little, but I think it was wise of you to leave the celebration before that changed to ‘falling down.’ Wait a moment.” He got up, went off, and came back with a bucket of drinking water and a dipper, set the former down next to her and handed her the latter. “Water will help. It was a very good day.”

  “It was a very, very good day,” she agreed, following his advice and drinking three dippers-full of water, slowly. “I was always a little afraid to call the great ones, before. Mother warned me of the consequences if something went wrong.”

  “Hmm. The storms that angry great ones can bring are . . . dangerous,” Fox agreed. “And the danger would be not only to you, but to anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the area. But you conducted yourself well, and you have pleased them. It is good.”

  “Oh yes,” Rosa said, approaching from the direction of the party. “Oh yes, it is very good. I brought you some bread and cheese I got from the cook tent. You shouldn’t go to sleep with nothing but beer, water and that vile drink the Captain loves so much in your stomach. You’ll regret it in the morning otherwise.”

  “In fact, she should not go to bed until she no longer feels even the breath of the firewater in her head,” Fox agreed.

  “I don’t think I could go to bed right now anyway,” she admitted. “I feel like a spinning top! Only in a good way, not a dizzy way.”

  “I’m going to guess, because it doesn’t work that way for an Earth Master, that this is the effect of conquering the final Air energies and taking them into yourself,” Rosa told her. “Everything feels more alive, right?”

  “And clearer, and sharper, and as if I am more in control,” Giselle told her eagerly.

  “Eat,” Rosa scolded, before Giselle could launch into a longer description of how she was feeling. “From now on, you won’t have to wonder if lesser Elementals will answer when you call, they always will. But don’t take them for granted, ever, or you’ll lose the respect of the greater ones, and your control and power will fade. Treat them well, they’ll treat you well, just as always.”

  “Is that why the Hu-Huk came to you?” Giselle asked Fox.

  “I think yes. And that He understood that it would do me much good to see Him again.” Giselle could sense what Fox was not saying, that he missed his forests and plains, his land, and most of all his people and their spirit creatures.

  “But now you know the Hu-Huk will come to you,” she pointed out. “And that the distance is nothing to him.”

  “Even so,” Fox agreed. “A very good day.”

  They talked without saying very much until Giselle finally felt completely sober, and said so. “Thank you, both of you, for today,” she added, with all the feeling she could muster (which was quite a bit at this point).

  “It was a pleasure. I’m just glad it went smoothly,” Rosa replied, with a smile in her voice, and yawned. “And on that note, I am going to bed.”

  She went up the steps into her vardo and closed the door. But Fox lingered a moment.

  “Do not be surprised if the spirits visit you in your dreams,” he said, finally, as she waited to see what he would say. “This seldom happens for those whose spirits are of the earth. But for us . . . often. What happens during waking is often only half of what is to come.”

  She felt a thrill, and a
little frisson of fear. Only half? But . . .

  “They will test your courage,” warned Fox. “And your mettle. Be prepared to hold nothing back from them.”

  “What will they do?” she asked, one hand on the doorframe to steady herself.

  But Fox shook his head. “I cannot say. Every test is different.”

  And with that, leaving her without any answers at all, he turned and vanished into the darkness.

  She was almost afraid to sleep, until she reasoned with herself that there was no point in trying to put this off. If the Elementals were determined to test her further in dreams, there was really nothing she could do to prevent that. She would have to sleep eventually, after all.

  So she did everything she could think of to steady herself, climbed into her bed, and composed herself for sleep.

  One moment she was lying in her bed. The next she was . . . somewhere else.

  It was like swimming, or rather floating, but in the air rather than in water. There was no sign of the ground anywhere around, but it didn’t feel as if she was falling, so she felt no fear at all.

  There was no horizon, just an endless blue all around her. An empty, endless blue, with light everywhere, but no actual light source.

  It was so quiet . . . so very, very quiet.

  Then the universe shivered with a single, low note. As if someone had softly struck a gong the size of a mountain.

  And then . . . it faded into her view.

  It was huge, bigger than the Thunderbird had been. And she couldn’t have said what, exactly, it was. It certainly wasn’t human. But it was no animal, no bird, that she recognized. It had eyes, but everything else was constantly changing, as clouds changed even as you watched them. She couldn’t read the eyes, either; they showed no emotion that she was able to recognize.

  Wasn’t the Greek God of the Air . . . Chaos?

  Without any warning at all, she found herself—or her mind, anyway, being leafed through like a book. One moment, she was just hovering there, and in the next, it was as if something was calling up memory after memory at a dizzying pace. Memories of being tiny, and watching the sylphs play above her. Of being a little older, and watching the pixies, and ever so carefully, to keep from frightening them, trying to get their attention.

  Of Mother teaching her the rudiments of magic. Of learning to shield, and to use it wisely. Of calling small storms to water the garden, of clearing clouds away so the wash would dry. Of making lights in the darkness, of feeding the sylphs bits of it. And then . . .

  When that handsome, terrible man had tried to hurt her.

  The moment froze. She froze, caught in the terror of the time, reliving it as if it was still happening.

  She felt the Being examining the memory, the emotions, carefully. Weighing it. Measuring it.

  And then, dismissing it and moving on. She watched herself learning to defend herself, and learning to shoot, and then the memories began passing through her too quickly for her to recognize them properly, until suddenly they froze again.

  Froze on the moment that she had told the night-sylphs, “Take his breath!” and the Hauptmann had died.

  Now the Being turned its attention, not on the memory, but on her. It asked her no questions, and yet . . . it questioned.

  It examined her, in that moment. Examined every nuance of thought, every hint of feeling. Scoured the moment, looking . . . looking . . . for something.

  The memory inched forward, to the next moment, when the sylphs had told her that the Hauptmann was not moving.

  Once again, she felt everything about that memory being scoured, examined, taken apart, reexamined.

  The memory inched forward, slowly, agonizingly, those all-seeing Eyes watching, watching for . . . what? She couldn’t tell. She was inside the memory, and yet outside of it. Experiencing it again, able to feel and think everything she had felt and thought at the time, and yet somehow outside of it, as much a spectator as that Being was.

  Then she was out the window, and her memories sped up again, flying past, so that she could only recognize a moment here, a moment there, and in that recognition they were gone again.

  Then she got a glimpse of the mountaintop of this morning, of the Great Air Elementals, of the Thunderbird, and then . . .

  Then it was over. And she was back to being herself and not a compendium of remembrances, hanging in front of those fathomless eyes.

  “Would you have done what you did a second time?”

  The Being didn’t just mean inadvertently killing the Hauptmann. It meant everything.

  “Without knowing what I know now, how would I have been able to change anything?” she asked, honestly. “I am absolutely responsible for the death of that man, no matter what Rosamund and Tante Gretchen say. But without having had some way to see the future, I don’t know what else I could have done besides allow myself to be . . .” She choked on the word. She still couldn’t bear to say it. “I can be responsible, regret it, and still know I would have had to act to save myself, all at the same time!” she said, at last. “And I am responsible, and I do regret it, and I wish there was a way to change it. But not at the cost of letting myself become someone’s victim.”

  “Interesting.”

  “It is the truth,” she said, meeting those Eyes squarely.

  “It is.” There was a very, very long silence.

  “I will never, ever, ask an Elemental to harm someone again,” she said into that silence. “If harm is to be done, I will do it myself. It is not fair to ask them to be used as a weapon. If I had the chance to do that over again, that is what I would do.”

  “Ahhhhhhhhh.” Another long silence. “And if they elect to provide . . . aid . . . on their own?”

  “I don’t know.” How to answer that question? “I suppose it would depend entirely on what was happening. I think I would try to prevent them from hurting another human but . . . I don’t know.” She felt absolutely helpless. What was the right answer? Was there a right answer? “Coercing them to keep them from harming someone is still coercion! I won’t do that! I won’t! They are free creatures and how can I enslave them even if I think it’s for their own good? How is that right?”

  “How, indeed.”

  “Friends are not slaves,” she said, finally. “And no friend would make another a slave. That’s all I know.” She looked deeply into those Eyes. “I’m not very wise. I’m not very old. I’m often not right. But I . . . try my best to do what is right.”

  “You have been heard.”

  The sound came again, and the Being . . . dissolved away. And she dissolved into sleep.

  12

  IN the morning, she wasn’t sure if she had passed or failed her tests. But Air Magic came to her just as easily, and there were pixies frisking about the inside of the vardo when she pulled back the bed-curtain, so she could only assume with that evidence that at least she had not failed.

  The feeling of uncertainty passed, as the camp woke around her and everyone went back to the daily business of the shows. She incorporated the card-cutting trick into her act that very day, but the whole time, during her turns and in the breaks, she thought about what that Being had asked her. And what she had, more or less, promised.

  That was when she decided that yes, there was something she could do that would keep her from ever having an Air Elemental in the position of having to decide to kill for her.

  And that was, to make sure she had such control over her own powers that if any killing was to be done, she would be the one with the skills and the will to do it.

  And that meant no more relying on the sylphs or the other Air Elementals to help her with things she could control herself. It was time to learn how to control every single aspect of Air, from snuffing a candle to calling a storm. After all, it was just a matter of control and practice, right? And how do you become good at anythin
g? she reminded herself. Practice, practice, practice.

  The entire run at Bad Schoensee was a success. And the two weeks in the sun and under clear skies did wonders for everyone. It was quite clear at this point that the folks who hailed from the American plains had very much missed the sun; everyone was more cheerful, from the cooks to the band. The buffalo fattened up on the lush meadow grasses, and became even more docile thanks to Rosa’s intervention with them. The horses acquired glossy coats and a definite spring to their step, even the ones used for “bronco busting.” By the time they were ready to pack up and leave for their next venue, they were all more rested and in better fettle than when they had arrived, despite the two weeks of two shows every day.

  Their next destination was Todtnau, another alpine village. Between here and there . . . was more dense forest. But they headed out on their journey feeling more than ready to deal with the dark and gloom for a couple of days.

  It helped that the forest they wound their way through on the first day was cut back from the road a bit, and there was none of that uncanny feeling about it. Every time Giselle looked up from her book to make sure her horses weren’t lagging, she caught glimpses of sylphs, pixies, and zephyrs among the trees. Probably there was just as high a population of Earth Elementals, she just wasn’t seeing them.

  They found a sunlit meadow big enough to make a decent camp in halfway between Bad Schoensee and Todtnau. There was no water source in the meadow itself, but there was a spring not so far up the valley that it was too much effort to get the water barrels filled with the help of a wagon and horses. The more that they traveled, the more Giselle was glad she had chosen a vardo to live in, instead of a tent. While the vardo could get a little stuffy once the sun was beating down on it, and she certainly was a bit short on room, setting up at a campsite was merely a matter of parking where she was directed to go and unharnessing the horses to take them to the common area for tying up overnight.