by Tanya Huff
Lord Death had no response to that so he merely sat and watched the last of the wizards drink her ale. He enjoyed watching her, not only because she was stunningly beautiful and inhumanly graceful, not only because she was intelligent, witty, and powerful, but because . . . He broke off the thought, as he always did at that point, and glanced around the room. An ancient man, sitting as close to the fire as he could without igniting his old bones, lifted his mug in salute. Lord Death smiled and returned the salutation. He appreciated a graceful exit. A number of the relic’s friends peered about, wondering whom he greeted. By the coarse jokes and ribald poking at the old man’s supposed gallantry, it was obvious they saw only Crystal. After living their lives in a land where winters were often eight months long, they were well practiced at judging a person’s gender despite the heavy clothing.
If Crystal noticed any of this, she chose to ignore it as she ignored the other noises of the crowd, letting sounds wash over her in an undifferentiated rumble. Her table, back in a corner and away from the fires, was isolated, cold, and a little dark. Save for the one miner who’d approached at the drunken urging of his friends, she’d been left alone from the moment she’d slipped quietly back there and sat down. Even the young man who served her ale came back as seldom as he thought he could and shivered the entire time he was forced to linger so far from the fires. He’d asked her once if she wouldn’t like to move closer, more for his sake, she suspected, than hers. She’d told him no, and he hadn’t brought it up again. If she thought about the cold at all, she welcomed the drafts that skirted her ankles and tugged at the edges of her cloak; they kept the odors of humanity, steaming woolens, and stale beer down to a bearable level. An enhanced sense of smell, part of her heritage from the Mother’s Eldest, could be a distinct disadvantage at times.
She wasn’t sure why she’d even entered the inn. She had no need of food or warmth; she had no wish for companionship; but when the last light from the setting sun had picked out the gilding on the tavern’s hanging sign and it had flared like a beacon in the fog she’d taken it as an omen.
What kind of omen an inn called The Wrong Nugget would be, Crystal had no idea.
She sighed and let her gaze drift over to the stairs that led to the second floor. Each step dipped from the wearing of countless footsteps and the wood was polished almost white. Any place that kept the stairs so clean, she decided, could be trusted to keep the bugs in the beds to a minimum. Perhaps she would stay the night.
But tomorrow?
Maybe she could return to the centaurs. It had been seven years since they’d taught her the delicate manipulations of the dreamworld. Perhaps enough time had passed that she could handle their pompous and pedantic utterances again. She thought of C’Tal. “Are you entirety certain that your spiritual growth has proceeded sufficiently for you to be instructed in . . .” No, seven years wasn’t long enough. There had to be something else.
She sighed.
“No one needs me,” she said again, and finished her ale.
“Self-pity makes me sick!” The voice blazed between her ears, disgust and anger about equally mixed.
Crystal flicked a glance behind her. Only her shadow grayed the rough log wall. Only Lord Death was close enough to have made the remark.
“I beg your pardon?”
Lord Death looked startled at the frosty tone. “I didn’t say anything,” he protested.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
She had to believe him. He had never, to her knowledge, lied. She wasn’t sure he could. “Then who . . .” She rubbed her forehead with a pale hand. Wonderful, now she was hearing things. Just what the world needed: a useless, crazy wizard.
With a scream of frozen hinges and a roar of winter wind, the outer door burst open and slammed back the wall. After an instant of stunned silence, the sudden blast of freezing air brought a number of the patrons to their feet and a bellow of: “Close the Chaos damned door!” ripped out of a dozen throats.
The man who staggered into the light wore furs so rimed with ice it was only common sense that said he wore furs at all. He half dragged, half carried a man-sized bundle, equally white. Just over the threshold, he stopped and swayed and stared, eddies of snow swirling about his feet through the open door.
The men and women in the tavern stared back, caught by his desperation but not knowing how to respond, as the room grew colder and the lamps guttered. Finally, the young server pushed through the crowd and wrestled shut the door, alternately kicking and cursing at the lumps of ice that had followed the stranger inside. When warmth no longer leeched out of the tavern, he placed a tentative hand on the stranger’s arm. The man didn’t appear to notice. Even blurred by layers of clothing, every line of his body screamed exhaustion. His sway grew more pronounced and he toppled to the floor, curled protectively around his burden.
“Get the poor bugger a brandy,” someone suggested, breaking the silence.
“If yer buyin’, I could use one meself.”
“Brandy’ll kill’im. Have Inga here give’im a kiss.”
“That’ll kill’im fer sure.”
Amid appreciative laughter at this string of wit, the server knelt down beside the body, advice and drunken speculation continuing until one voice above the babble, sharp and clear:
“What is going on out here?”
The tavern fell as close to silent as taverns ever fall, and every head still capable of the motion turned to the kitchen door. Physically, the woman who waited there for an answer was not the type to inspire such quiet. She was short, thin, with close cropped red curls, and a wide mouth—currently pressed into a disapproving line. The apron she wore over winter woolens was stained, for, proprietor or not, she did much of the cooking herself. A smudge of ash marked her nose. “Who,” she demanded, dusting flour off her hands, “left the damned door open? We can feel the cold all the way into the kitchen. I’ve told you lot before that I’ve no intention of heating all of Halda.”
“It’s a stranger, Dorses,” the barman called out and the rest of the explanation was lost as everyone tried to shout out their version of events.
She sighed, signaled the barman to stay put—his skill with beer or brandy was undeniable, but the man was useless in an emergency—and made her way across to the door. Experience told her it would be faster to see for herself than to try to sort out over twenty voices. When she reached the stranger, she touched his shoulder with the toe of her shoe.
“Is he dead, Ivan?” she asked the server.
“No.” Pale brows drew down toward a snub nose. “But he’s not good.”
Dorses shook her head and turned a withering gaze on her clientele. “And I suppose it occurred to none of you to get him over by the fire and out of those wet furs?”
As several of the more sober blushed and muttered excuses, she looked back to her server. “What are you trying to do?” she demanded as Ivan continued to tug on the stranger’s arms.
“I can’t get him to let go of his bundle,” he grunted, lower lip caught up between his teeth.
“Then let him be.” She scanned the faces present. “Nad?”
“He’s in the pot.”
“Nay, I’m back.”
The man who pushed his way forward was of average height and anything but average width. His shoulders were so broad he seemed a foot or so shorter than he actually stood. Pleasant features were arranged about a mashed caricature of a nose in an expression of eager curiosity.
Dorses twitched Ivan out of Nad’s way and said: “See what you can do.”
Nad flexed his massive shoulders, bent over the stranger, and taking each fur covered arm in a callused hand, lifted. A foot, then two, the stranger rose and although he maintained his grip the bundle’s own weight pulled it free. Nad grunted in satisfaction, moved a bit to the left, and gently lowered the man back to the floor.
The stranger lay forgotten in a puddle of melting snow while they all examined what he’d been clutching so tightly. Dorses bent and stroked the long, brown and black fur.
“It’s brindle all right,” she said, lifting a corner and looking beneath. Her tone remained unchanged as she added, “It’s also a body.” After eight years of running this tavern, she’d pretty much lost her ability to be surprised by anything.
“My brother,” the stranger’s voice was a reedy gasp. He rose shakily to one elbow and removed the half-frozen wool scarf from in front of his mouth. “Wounded in the mountains.” Beneath a drooping mustache his lips were pinched and white. “Needs . . .” Then he collapsed back to the floor.
“Help,” Dorses finished, her hand slipping beneath the fur and resting on the throat of the wounded man. His pulse barely shivered against her fingers. “Ivan, take care of . . .” Without a name, she waved a hand in the general direction of the stranger. “I want his brother here up on that table. Don’t unwrap him, Nad!” she snapped as huge hands reached down and started to roll the brindle free. “Lift him as he is.”
“But Dorses!” Nad protested, scarred fingers sinking into the plush fur. “Just think on it! A week at my forge wouldn’t bring in what this pelt will. You don’t use brindle as a stretcher! You can’t!” His tone was horrified.
“Why not? It’s almost a shroud. Now move!”
With a miner on each side of the torso and another lifting the legs, the body and the pelt were hoisted onto a hastily cleared table. Nad bit back a cry as the preferred fur of kings settled gently on top of biscuit crumbs and spilled beer. At a curt nod from Dorses, he almost reverently folded back the outer edge, and then the inner, pulling slowly but steadily for the pelt was frozen stiff and stuck to something beneath.
“Mother who made us all,” he breathed, and his hands dropped to his sides.
Even Dorses paled.
The stranger’s brother looked about thirty and was a slightly built man, thin but muscular. A week’s beard glinted gold in the lamplight, some shades darker than the wire-bound braids. His skin was pale and he had a delicate beauty seldom achieved by men; just barely saved from being effeminate by the stern line of his mouth, uncompromising even so close to death. Above the waist, his clothes bore russet brown stains. Below, they were shredded and the flesh beneath was no better. Not even the stiff and reddened strips of hide that bound them could disguise the extent of the injuries. Only by courtesy could these hunks of meat still be called legs.
The tavern fell silent. One of the men, up on a neighboring table for a better view, scrambled down off his perch and vomited into a bucket. Everyone ignored him, their eyes on the dead man. Oh, he still clung to life, although the Mother only knew how, but there wasn’t a person watching who would grant him a place amongst the living.
“Jago?” Pulling free of Ivan’s help and leaving the young man holding his sodden furs, the stranger fell onto the bench by the table and took his brother’s face in cracked and bleeding hands. His hair was nearer brown than blond and pulled back into a greasy tail. Although pain and exhaustion made it difficult to tell for certain, he appeared five to seven years older than the wounded man. “Jago?”
“Give me your knife,” Dorses said quietly to Nad. “Those bindings have to come off.”
“Those bindings are all that’s holdin’ the flesh on his bones,” observed a woman in the crowd.
“Aye,” Nad agreed from his vantage point. “You’ll have a right mess if you cut him free. And the whole lot’s froze so you’ll have ta pry the bindings up and likely take a bit of leg with it. Wouldn’t be surprised if what’s left is frostbit, too.” He handed Dorses his knife and added, “’Course, far as he’s concerned it won’t make much difference either way.”
“While he lives, we do what we can.” And her tone left no room for argument.
The knife was sharp but the bindings were tight, wet, and becoming slimy as they thawed. Only the shallow and infrequent rise and fall of his chest said Jago still breathed. Although her eyes never left the delicate maneuvering of the blade, Dorses checked between each repositioning of the point; just in case. She’d fight to save the living, but she’d not waste her time on one already gone to Lord Death.
“Are you a healer?” The stranger looked up from his brother’s face, his eyes and the circles beneath them nearly the same shade of purplish gray. His accent gave the words an almost musical inflection but did nothing to hide the desperation.
“No.” Dorses’ mouth pressed into a thin white line and the tendons of her neck bulged as she forced the knife through the hide.
“We’ve no healer here,” Nad explained, putting one foot up on the bench and leaning a forearm on his thigh. “And few anywhere in Halda. When the Wizard’s Horde went through twelve year ago, they were all killed, from apprentice ta master. When the wizard fell, and the horde with him, there was no one left ta teach the youngsters until Ardhan sent aid. E’en then there was so much healin’ needed doin’ they’d no time ta teach at first. Dorses was joined ta a healer though and he . . .”
“He couldn’t have done anything here.” As the flesh beneath the bindings began to warm, her nose told her what she’d find. She had hoped it was the untanned brindle hide she smelled, and in part it was, but with even a small fraction of leg exposed the putrid stench rising from the black bits of flesh could only mean gangrene. The one question remaining was how the man still lived with legs clawed to shreds and rotting off his body.
“Have you a name?” She asked the stranger.
The stranger nodded. “Raulin. This,” he added, “is my brother Jago. We were traveling north across the mountains when we were attacked by the brindle. Jago screamed and screamed, but I got my dagger in its eye . . .”
“In its eye?” More than one eye in the tavern measured the length of the pelt. A full grown brindle stood more than seven feet high at the shoulder and its eyes were two feet higher than that. Of course, if it was feeding . . .
“I climbed on its back,” Raulin continued, as jaws dropped throughout his audience, “and put my dagger into its eye. It’s a long dagger. It died. Jago stopped screaming.” Tears dripped from his face onto his brother’s. “Five days ago. Maybe four. He hasn’t screamed since. I did what I could. I promised to get him to a healer.” He began to struggle to his feet. “You said no healers. We have to go on.”
Dorses’ hand on his shoulder pushed him back down and a steady pressure kept him there. She was stronger than she looked.
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” she said, her voice as gentle as anyone had ever heard it. “And your brother is well on his way to Lord Death.”
In the quiet corner, as far removed from the drama near the door as was possible while still remaining in the room, Crystal raised her head and met Lord Death’s eyes. He nodded.
“He’s mine, or yours,” he said.
She peered through the nearly solid wall of wool and leather covered backs and then at the Mother’s one true son. Already his hair was beginning to lighten and a faint line of beard coarsened his jaw as the features of the young man on the table moved onto Death. She couldn’t save every handsome young man destined to die. But she could save this one.
She made up her mind.
“He’s mine.”
The scrape of her chair, moving away from the table as she stood, sounded unnaturally loud. A miner turned, nudged his neighbor, and in seconds the crowd had spun on its collective heel to look at Crystal.
There was no longer any point in avoiding attention.
She threw back her hood and let the cloak slip from her shoulders. Hair, the silver-white of moonlight, flowed almost to her waist and danced languidly about in the still air as though glad to be f
ree. She stood taller than the tallest man in the room. As she stepped forward, her eyes began to glow; green as strong summer sunlight through leaves. There could be no mistaking who she was.
The ancient wizards had been bred of gods and mortal women and they’d ruled the earth for millennia until their arrogance destroyed them. All but one. All but Kraydak. And in less than a thousand years on his own, Kraydak had engendered as much carnage as all of the others had accomplished together over five times as long.
But from Ardhan came a prophecy, that from Ardhan would come Kraydak’s Doom.
Crystal. A weapon forged by the goddesses in a mortal womb, shaped by the strength of the Eldest.
Crystal. The last wizard. Only seventeen when she’d faced Kraydak and defeated him. Only seventeen when she’d saved the world. Twelve years later, she looked barely older.
The crowd parted, moved by surprise and other emotions, less well defined, with a guttural, multitoned murmur. Her gaze shifting neither left nor right—the tavern might have been empty from the way she moved—she approached the table, a song of power building in the back of her throat. It wasn’t a sound yet, but the hair on every neck in the room stood up. She looked down at the wounded man and then at his brother.
For the first time in five days, Raulin’s eyes held hope.
“Save him,” he said.
She nodded, laid long pale fingers on the torn and rotting legs, and sang.
TWO
The soft crackle and hiss of flame, the pervasive scent of smoke mixed with wool and wood, the warm weight of blankets shielding her body against the chill that touched her uncovered face, the musty taste of time’s passage in her mouth . . . Crystal opened her eyes.
Above her, parallel lines of logs, bark still clinging, slanted down to the right. She turned her head and followed their length until they ended in a wall, also of rough log, and liberally chinked with mud and moss. Barely below the eaves, two small windows made of glass so thick it appeared green let in weak and watery winter sunlight. She shifted and heard the rustle of straw as the mattress moved below her.