The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  Open air touched them. They had come out on top of one of the walls. Ingrid could see the wonderful outlines of the Heart of the World clearly in the moonlight. Peik Shing did not give them time to stand and admire the view, however. She hustled them down an outer stair into the great stone courtyard.

  As soon as her shoes touched the paving stones, Peik Shing’s entire manner changed. She assumed a martial stance, with her back and shoulders ramrod straight. She did not walk swiftly before them now, she marched at a steady pace. Walking so openly sent fear to choke off Ingrid’s breath. There was no place to hide here, no way to run should they be spotted, no one to turn to except Peik Shing, who might be on a mission of her own.

  The guards at the main doors closed ranks as they approached. Ingrid was sure they were caught. But Peik Shing flashed them some sigil — Ingrid saw a graven gold disk in her palm — and the other guards drew back.

  Inside, the ghosts watched them even more closely than the guards had. Hollow eyes weeping blood followed them, hands clawed for them, in beseeching and in warning, thought Ingrid, although that could have been her imagination. She made herself watch Peik Shing’s back, but the movements of the dead kept catching at the corners of her eyes, and tears began to form from the effort of trying not to see.

  The end of the corridor opened into a broad rotunda. A black spiral stair rose from the wooden floor, winding up around gilded walls hung with silk. Not one ghost stood upon those stairs.

  “Cold iron,” murmured Avanasy in wonder. “I’ve never seen so much in one place.”

  Peik Shing marched them up the steps. Their soft-soled shoes made each stair ring like faint and distant bells. Below them, the dead raised their hands up and mouthed incomprehensible words.

  Ingrid counted four stories passing by them as their path spiraled higher and higher. She breathed more easily here, despite the height growing dizzying. It was easy here not to look down, not to see the ghosts below.

  On the fifth story, Peik Shing led them onto the circular balcony with its fantastically carved rail. Ingrid thought she recognized a few of the signs Avanasy had showed her worked into the design. Corridors opened like spokes off the central hub. Still, here there were no ghosts. But Ingrid found no comfort in the cold and empty place. Peik Shing picked one corridor and led them down its dim length. The open window at the end let in some of the moonlight, but there was no other illumination. Still, Ingrid saw exactly where they were going. Doors opened on the left and the right at regular intervals, but only the left-hand door at the end was decorated by a pair of guards.

  Peik Shing stopped in front of the guards, who might have been her sisters in their black armor and yellow sashes. She flashed the golden sigil she carried again.

  “The dowager has sent these two doctors to inspect the prisoner,” she declared.

  The right-hand soldier frowned and squinted at Ingrid and Avanasy. “At this time of night?”

  “She is concerned. There have been signs that the prisoner is not thriving well. These honored physicians have traveled far and are concerned enough by the reports they have heard they ask to see her at once.”

  The left-hand soldier glanced at her partner. “I’ve seen no such signs.”

  “You’re not a doctor trained in northern medicine,” snapped back Peik Shing. “Perhaps you’d care to go wake the Revered Person of the Dowager and tell that her in your opinion the prisoner is fine and her orders may be disregarded.”

  Right Hand looked at Left Hand for a long moment. Ingrid’s heart rose to fill the base of her throat. Left Hand watched Peik Shing for some wavering in her expression. None came. Reluctantly, Left Hand turned and lifted first one, then the other heavy bar that blocked the door. She next unlocked it with a key taken from under her breastplate, pulling the door open and standing aside. Peik Shing also stood aside, and Ingrid and Avanasy walked alone into the bare room.

  The door slammed shut behind them.

  A single figure shot up from the mattress that lay in the corner. Avanasy stood where he was, amazed or bewildered. Then, he reached up one hand, pulled off his cap and walked into the patch of moonlight the room’s open window allowed in.

  “Avanasy?” the young woman breathed. She took a step forward, then another, trembling and staring as if she could not believe what she saw. Then, all at once, she ran forward and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder. “I knew you would find me!” Ingrid barely heard the muffled exclamation. “I knew it.”

  Gently, Avanasy extricated himself, stepping back just a little so the young woman had to stand on her own, but he did not let go of her hands. Then, slowly, and with dignity, he knelt before her.

  She was slight, this young empress. Her fair hair had been cropped off and now stuck out wild and ragged in all directions. Dark circles ringed her blue eyes. Despite it all, Ingrid could see the bloom of her beauty, and saw easily how a man who spent much time in her confidence could come to be distracted as Avanasy had confessed to being. Nothing she could name as jealousy stirred in her though, as she watched the man she called her husband kneel, only an odd, straining sadness.

  Remembering how custom here called for so many salutes and bows, Ingrid also knelt.

  The empress Medeoan did not even seem to see her.

  “You heard then?” she said to Avanasy, looking down at both their hands. “Iakush found you?”

  “Yes, Imperial Majesty,” Avanasy replied. “But he gave his life to do so.”

  Ingrid saw no flicker of emotion pass across the empress’s face as she heard this. “Stand,” she told Avanasy. “There is no time for ceremony here.”

  “No, Majesty.” Avanasy rose quickly, and Ingrid stood with him. It was only then that the empress truly noticed her. Medeoan’s expression was nonplused. Ingrid might have been a goat or a ghost, for all the sense the empress seemed to be able to make of her presence.

  Avanasy licked his lips. “This is Ingrid Loftfield, Majesty. She returned with me from the far shore of the Silent Lands. She has been of great help to me in my quest to find you again.”

  He did not say “she is my wife,” and Ingrid’s sadness deepened, but she just bobbed a curtsey for the empress.

  Medeoan’s gaze raked her over, evidently still uncertain as to what this stranger was doing here.

  “You are most welcome,” she said quickly, and Ingrid tried to tell herself the lack of warmth was due to circumstances, which would be natural enough.

  “Avanasy, have you a way out?” asked the empress.

  “A guard outside says she’ll guide us.”

  “I have a better way.” The empress’s blue eyes gleamed, and all at once she looked very young. She ran to the leather mattress that was the room’s only furnishing and flipped it aside. Ingrid retreated to the door, listening. She heard no running feet, no cries or even conversation. Surely that must mean they were still undiscovered.

  She glanced back. The empress held up something for Avanasy’s inspection. At first, it seemed to be nothing more than a flat mat of hair, but as she stared, she saw it was a wreath of flowers, woven, obviously, from Medeoan’s own shorn locks. Avanasy, as he gazed at it, seemed nothing short of stunned.

  He took the thing from the empress’s fingers and laid it flat on his palm. “Is it complete?” he asked in an awed whisper.

  “No,” the empress answered. “But it should serve, and it means we will not have to trust one of theirs.”

  As she spoke, a single knock sounded against the door, followed fast by the faint sound of boots against a wooden floor.

  “Whatever it is,” breathed Ingrid, “you’d best do it quickly. Our time is up.”

  “Let them see the mettle of the empress of Isavalta,” said Avanasy. “Call for the place of Lien to receive us.”

  The young woman’s shoulders straightened. She turned to the window. Ingrid caught just a glimpse of her expression, at once proud, mischievous and vengeful.

  “The sk
y is held in place by twelve apple trees,” she intoned. “The trees are held up by three pillars. Beneath each pillar is a green snake. The first is named Shkurapeia. The second is named Polikha. The third is Liukha. I beg you Liukha, Polikha, Shkurapeia, loan me the strength of your pillars to hold up the moonlight under my feet. I beg you Liukha, Polikha, Shkurapeia, let me and mine walk safely to the place of Lien under your ever-watchful gaze. I beg you in the name of divine Vyshemir, vengeful Vyshko and in the name of their daughter Medeoan Edemskoidoch Nacheradovosh!”

  Medeoan tossed the woven wreath of hair out into the darkness. For a moment, Ingrid saw it, dark against the waning moonlight. Then, impossibly, the wreath began to unravel. The golden strands glowed, catching up the silver light in themselves, stretching out as if spun by fantastic spiders into arching, shining webwork that spanned from the windowsill to the dark distance.

  Gasps of wonder from below. More shouts. Hammering at the door. All urged Ingrid to motion, but all she could do was stand and stare. With all she had seen so far, nothing equaled this bright miracle.

  “Hurry, Majesty,” said Avanasy. “Ingrid, come quickly.”

  There was no way she could brace the door against the hammering, so Ingrid ran to Avanasy’s side. He cupped his hands and held them to help boost the empress onto the windowsill. The young woman bit her lip and murmured something, perhaps a prayer, perhaps another spell. She stepped onto the bridge of gossamer and moonlight. For a moment, Ingrid’s lungs refused to draw air.

  But it held. The shining span of fairy tales and impossibilities held as strong as mortared brick under the empress’s bare feet. Eyes ahead, and lips still moving, Medeoan strode up the gentle arch, her shadow standing out stark and black on its glowing surface.

  “Ingrid.”

  Behind her, the door splintered. She jumped hard at the sudden shock of noise, and scrambled up onto the sill. She could see the ground plainly through the thin veil of maiden’s hair and moonlight, dozens of yards below. The door crashed open, wood cracking and iron bands slamming against stone.

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Ingrid hiked up her skirts, fixed her gaze on the empress’s back, and ran.

  The moonlight bridge did not yield the least bit under her hurrying feet, nor did it make any sound. She ran in eerie silence, hearing only her own breathing and the diminishing shouts of the soldiers who had broken into the cell. The motion of her black shadow caught her eye, but she forced herself not to look. If she looked down now, she would be lost, and she knew it.

  Something whistled past her ear, and Ingrid screamed and involuntarily jerked sideways. A familiar, welcome hand clapped onto her shoulder, righting her balance, and she saw an arrow arch past, falling to earth on the right of the glowing span.

  Avanasy looked down at her, and his face was hard with strain. She said nothing, but took his hand, and together they ran. In a few strides they reached the empress, Avanasy catching her with his other hand. Another arrow whistled through the night. Ingrid ducked, but Avanasy didn’t even flinch. He just strode on, holding them solidly anchored on either side of him.

  Then she heard another voice call out. This was no soldier shouting orders or profanities. This was a voice like thunder, like storm wind. She could make out nothing of what it said, but around her the air shivered with sympathetic vibration.

  The night exploded into a cloud of shrieks and battering, clawing things. Ingrid screamed and threw up her hands, to beat the hundreds of tiny shadows off, to keep them from her eyes. They screamed back at her in a million tiny voices. Birds, she realized, as her hands flailed out. Birds, with beaks pecking and claws catching her flesh, scrapes and pinpoints of pain setting her blood flowing. Wings and feet snarled themselves in her hair, pulling on it from the roots. They battered at her clothing, tugging at it as if they sought to tear it from her body. She couldn’t see, and she couldn’t move for fear of putting a foot wrong and plunging to the ground. She crouched down, striking out feebly, only to have her fingers bitten over and again.

  “Disperse!” roared Avanasy over the din and pain. “By blood and moon’s fire, I order you be gone!”

  The birds screamed again in one last wrenching chorus. Something wet touched Ingrid’s cheek, but the birds were gone. She risked a look up. Avanasy stood tall in the moonlit darkness. Dark blood ran down his hand, and his chest heaved from trying to draw enough air. Ingrid realized it was blood spatter that had touched her. She pulled herself to her feet. She wanted to get away from here, she wanted to be on the ground again. She had enough of miracles, and she wanted this over. For that there was only one course. She caught Avanasy’s sleeve again, and they ran once more, all three of them, across the gossamer road into darkness.

  But the world below was not done with them yet. Another arrow, this one shining like the bridge beneath their feet, shot straight up, several yards ahead of them, arching high over their head. At first, Ingrid thought it trailed a rope that would ensnare them, but then she saw how the “rope” shimmered and gleamed. Then, she felt the heat of it.

  Fire. A bow of fire arched across the moonlight bridge. A few seconds later, another arrow shot up, this one through the weaving of the bridge itself, and then down again. Medeoan balked, and Avanasy drew back, and a second bow of fire joined the first at a ninety degree angle.

  “What are they doing?” demanded Medeoan. “I can feel heat …”

  “Breaking the bridge?” Avanasy knuckled his eyes. “There’s something but I cannot tell what.”

  “You can’t see it?” cried Ingrid. Two more arrows whistled through the night, one more from below, trailing another rope of fire to arch across the bridge, the other from straight behind, making Medeoan leap sideways, coming down perilously close to the edge of the bridge.

  “What is it, Ingrid?”

  Before she could answer, something tugged at her skirt. Looking down automatically, Ingrid saw an arrow sticking from the billowing silk, and even as Avanasy yanked it free, another shining arrow shot up, adding another strand to the net of fire in front of them.

  And she saw what they were doing. The arrows from behind and the net before. If they stayed where they were, they’d be picked off like birds on a branch. If they ran forward blindly, they’d be burned to death. If they jumped … they would be shattered on the ground.

  “It’s a net,” said Ingrid, her words choking her. “Mary Mother of God, it’s fire.”

  “I can’t see it!” shouted Medeoan. Frustration and fear tore at her words.

  “Nor can I,” replied Avanasy calmly, and Ingrid could feel how much that calm was costing him. Another arrow whistled overhead, but barely. “But I feel the heat. Ingrid you’ll have to lead us.”

  Ingrid bit the inside of her cheek and tasted blood. She snatched up her hems in one hand and Avanasy’s hand in the other. Another arrow arched overhead, trailing its rope of fire behind it, adding another strand to the web. Moonlight and firelight blended starkly together, dazzling her eyes and making her skin shine red and white.

  “Step exactly as I do.”

  Swallowing so much fear she felt heart and belly would split open from the pressure, Ingrid strode forward. Another arrow, another strand of fire, shot up straight in front of her, and she had to jump back. She could hear the sizzle of the magical flames now, and their heat licked at her skin, breaking sweat out on her brow. She dodged the fiery strand, and the next, and the next. Cloth ripped near her, and she knew another arrow had come too close. Behind her, Avanasy cursed, and Medeoan cursed. She did not look back. She dodged under the last arch and looked out and saw nothing but the unbroken bridge ahead. The impossible span of moonlight suddenly seemed the safest thing she had ever known and she ran, forgetting Avanasy’s hand, forgetting the young woman they had come so far to save, forgetting everything but the need to get away from the arrows and the fire; she bolted into the darkness, her only guide the shining road at her feet.

  Slowly, slowly, she realized the moonlight arch had begun
to slope down. Her bedazzled eyes could make out some landmarks ahead of her; trees lifting from the darkness, and another light. A lantern held high by a man waiting at the foot of their bridge.

  Lien. The man was Lien and the trees were in Lien’s garden. They had made it.

  The glow of moonlight gave way to the springy darkness of grass. Gasping with relief, Ingrid missed her step and tumbled to the ground. The cool dampness of night’s dew bathed the hundred small wounds she had taken. She lay there panting for just a moment, not caring for the dampness soaking rapidly through her fine silken clothing, before Avanasy’s arms scooped her up and pulled her close, pressing his body tightly against hers for a long moment.

  Eventually, Ingrid and Avanasy were able to loosen their hold on each other, and turn toward the others. The first thing Ingrid saw was the utter shock on Medeoan’s face. Suddenly ashamed she took another step back. She could not read the look on Avanasy’s face, and did not at this time care to try. Instead, she looked up in the direction from which they had come.

  The bridge of moonlight was already gone. No trace of it lingered to shine against the night sky.

  “Was it a dream?”

  Avanasy shook his head. “No dream, but a working of great skill.” Pride filled his voice. “Imperial Majesty, may I make known to you our host, Lien Jinn, and his niece Cai Yun Shen.”

  Lien and Cai Yun bowed deeply. The empress blinked dazedly in the lantern light. She seemed reluctant to take her gaze from Avanasy’s face. Her bewilderment tightened Ingrid’s throat. But at last, she gestured to Lien and Cai Yun to stand.

  Something was wrong with Lien, but it took Ingrid a moment to realize what it was. Instead of his silken robe, the old sorcerer wore only a short coat of unbleached cotton with dark cuffs and short trousers to match. A dark cap covered his hair and he wore sandals on his feet instead of his soft shoes.

  “I thank you for your hospitality to my advisor … advisors,” the empress was saying. “And now to myself. I am in your debt.”

  “Your Imperial Majesty honors my home with your presence.” Lien bowed. “But I fear we may not stay. The Nine Elders have many ways to track such sorceries, and may already be on their way here. We must be gone as soon as possible.”