Wizard of the Grove

by Tanya Huff

  “Month and a half,” put in Aliston, turning his nearsighted gaze on the young wizard.

  “I don’t know,” Crystal admitted again. “But I’ll think of something.”

  “Without magic,” Aliston pointed out, “you’ll never make it through the badlands without a guide.”

  “That has all been taken care of.”

  The entire council started, but it said a great deal for the timbre of the voice that, although everyone in the pavilion was armed and nerves were balanced on a knife’s edge, not one weapon was drawn. When they saw who had spoken, jaws dropped and the company stood and stared.

  The two centaurs were so large that their heads brushed the top of the tent. Their horse halves could easily carry a man as massive as Mikhail in full armor and their torsos were heavily muscled and equally as huge. The beards flowing in magnificent curls over their naked chests—only practical Cei noticed that they had no nipples—exactly matched the shade of their glossy hides. Their whiteless eyes seemed to hold all the wisdom of the ages.

  A strangled cry caused heads to turn back to Crystal. The color had drained from her face and her eyes stood out like burning jewels. Her breath hissed through slightly parted lips and her hands, clenched into fists, began to rise.

  The council edged back until the centaurs and the wizard faced each other in a circle of humanity pressed tight against the canvas. They had seen her, in her rage, call down mountains and all of them knew that power once taken up will be used again and again.

  “Crystal!” Tayer stepped forward, away from the retreating council, and her voice threw up a wall between her daughter and the creatures she faced. “You will not do violence. These . . . persons . . . are guests in my tent!”

  In the silence that followed, the wheeze of Cei’s breath could be clearly heard and a breeze against the canvas roof was a booming roar.

  The wizard locked eyes with the queen, who ignored their emerald depths and stood glaring at her furious child. “You will not do violence to a guest!” she repeated.

  Slowly, Crystal lowered her hands and uncurled her fingers. “But, Mother . . .”

  “Hush, child, I know.” Tayer gently touched Crystal’s shoulder and together they turned to face the centaurs.

  “My thanks, Majesty.” The black centaur inclined his head. “Although we are not sure she is capable of causing us harm, the release of such power would have definitely been detrimental to those around us. I am C’Tal.” He indicated the palomino. “This is C’Fas.”

  “What are you doing here, C’Tal?” Crystal snapped before Tayer had a chance to speak. “Haven’t you interfered enough?”

  “We have been informed,” C’Tal told her in ponderous tones, “that we were remiss in your education.”

  “You were given all the information,” C’Fas continued in a voice equally as solemn. “We did not feel it necessary to tell you what to do with it.”

  “Others, however, suggested you were ill-prepared for the conflict you found yourself in.” C’Tal shook his head sadly. “We feel you were as well-prepared as possible, considering the short time we had you in our charge. Given a century or two and perhaps . . .” he shrugged, sending fascinating ripples down the length of his body. “What we could have done is not the point but rather what we did.”

  “Or what they imply we did not do,” broke in C’Fas with an edge to his voice.

  “Precisely,” agreed C’Tal, nodding at his companion. “Or what they imply we did not do.”

  “Who implied?” demanded Crystal, used to the considerable time centaurs took in getting to the point but no longer willing to put up with it. Not now. Not after Bryon.

  “The hamadryads,” said C’Tal, glowering down at her. “While we are firm in our contention that we did all we could in the time we had available, there is something in what they say. You should never have faced Kraydak yourself. We should have been more careful that this was made clear to you.”

  “I’m surprised the hamadryads cared.” Crystal felt her anger lose its edge as guilt returned to the foreground. She had been told but hadn’t understood.

  “They do not. But they were most annoyed at being awakened, feeling, and perhaps rightly, that had you been told of the dragon as you should have been, there would have been no need for you to go to them.”

  “But why,” asked Tayer, “are you here?”

  “We have come to help.”

  “Where were you two days ago,” Lorn snorted, remembering the arrow through his father’s throat and the ranks of the undead, “we could’ve used help then.”

  Both centaurs turned to look at the duke, who was paring his nails with a slender knife and was not at all intimidated by their gaze. He gave them back glare for glare.

  “Then you needed more heavy cavalry,” said C’Tal.

  “Now you need centaurs,” finished C’Fas.

  Lorn looked interested but not convinced. He wisely chose not to mention that the centaurs would make impressive heavy cavalry themselves.

  “I will carry the wizard to the edge of the badlands.” C’Tal stepped forward and laid a heavy hand on Crystal’s shoulder. “While my brother will remain here.”

  “Well, we’ll be happy to have him,” Tayer began, nervously considering the creature’s bulk and wondering how to entertain someone who was half horse, “but there really won’t be much for him to do.”

  “He is not here to be amused, Majesty,” C’Tal boomed. “We hope his presence will convince the enemy that the wizard is still here. If he does not probe too deeply, he will not be able to tell the difference between their life forces.”

  Tayer looked from the huge golden-haired centaur to her daughter. “Oh,” she said.

  Crystal tried to explain. “Centaurs are magical beings, Mother. They don’t use the power so much as they are the power. If Kraydak has no reason to suspect I’m gone, and doesn’t force his way below the surface patterns, he’ll think C’Fas is me.”

  “Oh,” Tayer said again, only this time she felt much better about it.

  Mikhail stepped forward and stared belligerently up at C’Tal. He had to crane his neck to meet the centaur’s eyes and that annoyed him. He’d never had to look up at anybody before.

  “Can you protect her from the dwarves and the dragon?” he asked.

  “That is not my concern,” C’Tal informed him. “We will do no more than what I have already said.” He turned to Crystal. “Now come, we must go.”

  Crystal stopped Mikhail from saying what he so obviously thought; he had never been good at hiding his anger.

  “As much as it hurts me to admit it,” she said softly, “he’s right. That,” a hint of steel came into her voice, “is not his concern. I can take care of the dragon.”

  “That dragon has only one purpose,” Mikhail reminded her as he gave her a boost onto C’Tal’s broad back, “to kill wizards.”

  “To kill Kraydak,” Crystal corrected.

  “Waking up in the presence of a wizard after sleeping for a thousand years may cause him to attack first and ask questions later,” Mikhail said grimly.

  “I’m not like any of the other wizards,” Crystal reminded him in turn. “My heritage from the Lady of the Grove will protect me.”

  “What of your humanity?” asked Tayer gently, coming up to stand in the circle of her husband’s arm.

  Crystal’s face grew bleak and she saw again her reflection fading from Bryon’s eyes. “That died with Bryon,” she said shortly. But catching sight of Riven’s concerned face over C’Tal’s shoulder, she wasn’t as sure of that as she had been.

  And then, as impossibly fast and silent as the centaurs had come, Crystal and C’Tal were gone.

  “Stop that!” snapped C’Fas as Hale, horse sense overcoming common sense, ran a hand over a glossy haunch.

  * * *

  T
o ride a centaur is like nothing else in the world. Perhaps being strapped to a shooting star would give the same wondrous feelings of grace, power, and speed but Crystal doubted it, for a star would not have a convenient shoulder on which to rest your head. Her hard knot of anger at the centaurs began to dissolve; surely it was unreasonable for her to expect them to go against their natures. Used to dealing in centuries, they had done the best they could when forced to work with days and months and years. Gradually, the old feelings for her teachers began to resurface and for the first time since Kraydak had destroyed the palace, Crystal felt protected and safe. She paid no attention to the countryside they passed over; instead she locked her arms about C’Tal’s waist, buried her face in the familiar smell of his back, and gloried in the ride.

  It ended too soon. The Aliston badlands passed by in a rocky blur and they stopped before a red sandstone pillar. Suddenly stiff from so many hours in one position, Crystal slid awkwardly to the ground.

  “The dwarves are past the pillar?” she asked C’Tal as she massaged the pins and needles out of her legs.

  “We do not keep watch over the dwarves,” C’Tal informed her imperiously. “Your foster father says they are on the other side of the pillar. We see no reason for you to distrust him.”

  Crystal straightened up and stared dubiously past the marker. The land consisted of a series of low rock ridges, split and blasted into strange and forbidding shapes. Everything was a dusty gray with no living green to break the monotony. The dwarves lived in that?

  “Oh, well,” she sighed, “if they’re in there, I guess I can find them.”

  “If they are in there, they are more likely to find you,” corrected C’Tal sternly. “Remember, you must not use your power. If Kraydak discovers what you are attempting to do, it will mean not only your death but the deaths of thousands of innocent people as well. I will be here when you emerge.” He paused and looked down at Crystal with something very close to concern in his expression. “If we are truly responsible for what you have done, we are sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t raise the dead,” said Crystal softly.

  “Nothing will raise the dead,” replied the centaur. “It is therefore unproductive to hold fast to one who has died.” He spun gracefully on one massive hoof and disappeared.

  “I’m not holding Bryon,” Crystal shouted after C’Tal. “I’m remembering him!” There was, as she expected, no response. Taking a deep breath, she stepped beyond the column. The landscape appeared no different, the red tower of rock was a marker, nothing more. She’d hoped it might be some sort of magical barrier, that once passed the home of the dwarves would stand revealed. A small gray lizard, so perfectly camouflaged she almost stepped on it, scuttled out of her way—the only life in sight.

  Because it seemed like the only thing to do, she headed deeper into the badlands. Five miles and a blister later, she was very dusty and very thirsty and no dwarves had appeared. A fear lurked in the back of her mind, whispering that they might have moved on since Mikhail had won his sword, moved on and taken the dragon with them. And if they had? She tried not to think about it.

  The centaur had dropped her off in the early morning and it was now midafternoon. “I could have flown this far in less than a minute,” she muttered to a disinterested lizard.

  She perched on the edge of a rock and mopped her forehead with the edge of her tunic. The dust covering both became a muddy smear. The sun beat down mercilessly and she looked longingly at the cool black shadow of a small cave.

  A cave.

  Dwarves lived in caves. Granted they were carved and built into caverns of great beauty, but they were still caves.

  Crystal dropped to her knees and peered into the darkness. After the bright sunlight, it took her eyes a moment to adjust, but she was certain that the cave extended back quite far and eventually opened up. Carefully, she slid forward onto her stomach and began to inch her way into the darkness, pulling herself along by her elbows and toes. Her body quickly blocked any light coming from the entrance and the darkness became so thick it could almost be touched. A sharp rock dug into her elbow, drawing blood and a string of curses that would have horrified Tayer could she have heard them.

  Inch by torturous inch, Crystal squirmed down the tunnel, wondering why she had been so sure it would open up ahead. If anything, it became more confining and began to slope quite distinctly down. Then, just as her eyes were beginning to adjust and she was able to distinguish between the denser black of the rock and the grayish black of the air, her elbows found no purchase and, scrambling for something to grab, she tumbled over the edge of a precipice.

  A small one, fortunately. She lay on her back, breathing heavily, more frightened by her instinctive urge to break her fall with power than by the fall itself. She had just realized that, unable to use her powers, she could die in a great many ridiculous ways . . . and this time there would be no Riven to pull her out.

  The sudden flaring of a lantern almost blinded her, but her hamadryad eyes welcomed the light, absorbed it, and soon she could see again.

  She had never seen an uglier man. He was short, bandy-legged, barrel-chested, and had the arms and shoulders of a man twice his height. The grizzled red beard did nothing to improve the scarred and scowling face. Red fires burned in the depths of his eyes. Around his waist, over a patched brown tunic, he wore a belt made of gold leaves that was so beautifully crafted and so detailed Crystal was sure she heard a breeze move through the leaves. He had to be a dwarf.

  “Name’s Doan,” he growled at last. “I expect you’ve come for the dragon.”

  Crystal opened and closed her mouth a few times, but words just wouldn’t come.

  “Well, you look like her,” Doan said, holding out a hand to help her up. To Crystal’s surprise, he appeared to be smiling. “But you sure haven’t got her way with words. Coming?”

  “Where?” Crystal managed at last.

  Doan held the lantern up and she saw they were in a small, circular cave. Tucked up against the ceiling was the tunnel she had fallen from and opposite it, at floor level, was an arched doorway. Doan headed for the door and she followed.

  She had to duck to get under the arch, but the rest of the corridor—such a work of art could not be thought of as a mere tunnel—was high enough for her to walk erect. The dwarf moved quickly for all his squatness and she hurried to keep up. There was no time to study the carvings on the walls, although she was sure they told a story as so many images kept repeating, there was barely time to notice the inlay work and the beauty it brought to the stone.

  “Doan,” she said, before the silence became oppressive and reminded her that they were walking under almost a mile of solid rock, “who is it you think I look like?”

  Doan snorted. “You’re the image of the Lady. And you know it. Even her sisters remarked on the resemblance.”

  “But we all look alike.”

  Doan snorted again, a rude noise he seemed fond of. “The Lady had more life in her than all those sticks of wood combined. So do you.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I’d hardly know you looked like her if I didn’t, now would I.” His harsh voice softened slightly and though he looked no less ugly, he was, for a moment, less frightening. “Aye, I knew her. She’d done me a favor, thousands of years ago by mortal time, so I watched them for her—her man and her boy—and I watched her die.” He looked up at Crystal; the red fire blazed in his eyes and his voice was stone.

  “Kraydak and Death could have the whole mortal lot of them if it was up to me.” Then he sighed and the fires died. He waved her on ahead. “But it isn’t, so there you are . . .”

  Crystal stepped out into a cavern where the rock had been worked on and improved by hundreds of dwarves for thousands of years. And the cavern had been beautiful to start with. Gold and silver danced across the walls and diamonds refracted the light into count
less tiny rainbows.

  But the room was only a frame for the dragon.

  More lovely than anything Crystal had ever seen, he lay sleeping, wrapped around a stone column that had been carved to resemble a giant tree. His scales were gold and shone with an almost iridescent light. He was grace and power and a terrible beauty. The mighty head lay pillowed on a curve of foreleg, and his golden lacelike wings were folded across his back. From his nostrils came two thin streams of pure white smoke and from his mouth . . .

  Crystal turned to Doan in disbelief.

  “He snores?”

  Doan nodded. “And he stinks when he gets too hot. He’s a bit whiff now.”

  A slightly unpleasant, musky odor was noticeable and it grew stronger as Crystal moved closer. She winced as her footsteps echoed, sounding unnaturally loud.

  “Don’t worry about the noise,” Doan said, stomping along beside her. “We carved this cavern out around him, and if that noise didn’t wake him up there’s no sound loud enough to disturb him.”

  Crystal stood and stared up at the dragon. Had its jaw been flat on the ground, she would have just barely been able to look it in the eye. Tentatively, she reached out and touched it on the nose. Beneath her hand, the skin was warm and surprisingly soft. There was no indication that the creature was aware of her at all. She prodded it gently with the toe of her boot. Nothing.

  “It’s funny,” said Doan, kicking the dragon and not gently, “that out of all the spells Kraydak threw at this creature to stop it, it was the simplest one that worked. Sleep, he said, and sleep it has.” The dwarf shrugged. “Even the earth sleeps, so I guess those made of it must as well.”

  “But how do I wake it if I can’t use my powers?”

  Doan gazed at Crystal in astonishment, both brows raised nearly to his hairline. “Didn’t the centaurs teach you anything?” he demanded.

  “They taught me plenty,” Crystal snapped. She’d settled with that and didn’t need it brought up again. “They never mentioned this, is all.”