The Robin And The Kestrel bv-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  The only thing that makes it important is that Rune came from there, Gwyna thought cynically, thinking of the women in the marketplace and the three bullies they had left damaged. Of course, she had_she hoped_inflicted some emotional damage on the women who deserved it, with her descriptions of Rune's fame and prosperity. I hope that hen-faced bitch is so envious of Rune that she chokes on her dinner. I bet she's the one that set those bullies on us. I hope she nags her husband about silk gowns and carriages until he beats her senseless. I hope that fool I scared into incontinence is her husband, and I scared him into impotence as well! She kept her feral snarl to herself. Vindictive? Oh, a tad.

  She knew better than to say any of this out loud. Jonny, bless his sweet little heart, was not vindictive. He believed that concentrating on revenge simply reduced you to the level of your persecutors. Gwyna believed in an old Gypsy proverb: Get your revenge in early and often. You might not have another chance.

  Maybe that was why the Ghost fascinated her so. Was he somehow working out some bizarre scheme for revenge? If so, on who, and why? Was he choosing to let some people by, people they never even heard of because they were unaware that they had been in any danger at all?

  Or was he a strange revenant from the distant past, from the time when this Old Road had been in use? Could something have called him up out of that past to haunt this stretch of roadway? Could his reasons and motives, or need for revenge, be buried so far in the past they no longer had any relevance?

  Or if this creature was strange enough, could they even understand his reasons, much less his motives?

  An owl called up above her, and she sighed. No point in following that line of speculation. He had to be understandable; there was no point in this, otherwise.

  Well, he's enough like us to enjoy our music.

  The track grew steeper, and she felt the strain in her calf muscles. Too bad she couldn't ride, but if she let the horses try to pick their own way, they might get hurt. She glanced back at Jonny; he was watching all around them, nervously expecting the Ghost to pop up at any moment.

  She didn't think that was likely; the Ghost and things like him often picked specific times to appear. Sunset, midnight, moonrise, or moonset seemed to be the most often chosen. Since people had been caught out on this track by the spirit after dark, not knowing that it was there, and since Rune had climbed Skull Hill without seeing the Ghost and had to actually wait for it to appear, Robin guessed that it probably appeared at midnight or moonrise. Tonight the two would be almost simultaneous; midnight and moon-rise within moments of each other.

  And they would be at the top long before either. There would be plenty of time to rest her aching legs and eat a little. Time enough to park the wagon and ready the instruments. Time to think about what they were going to play, what they were going to say. Everything needed to be perfect for this performance.

  After all, it was going to be the performance of a lifetime... and it had better be the best performance of their lives. She had the feeling that the Ghost would not accept anything less.

  "You might as well eat something," Robin observed, biting into her bread-and-cheese with appreciation. Mother Tolley did, indeed, make very good bread; firm and sweet, with a chewy crust. About the only thing good in that whole town, she decided. Unless Annie Cook's skills match Rune's memory. The tasty bread settled into her stomach comfortably, and she took another bite.

  "C-c-can't," Jonny replied, nervously fingering the tuning-pegs on his harp as he watched the shadows for any sign of the Ghost. There was nothing, and had been nothing since they had parked the wagon here. And if Rune's story was accurate, there would be plenty of warning when the Ghost did arrive; it was not going to sneak up on them when they weren't looking. Likes to make an impressive entrance. I wonder if it was an actor once?

  They were at the very top of the hill, with the slash of the road going right across the clearing at the very peak. As overcast as it was, even with the lamp burning, you couldn't see a thing beyond the darker forms of trees and shrubbery against the slightly lighter sky. A cool breeze blew across the clearing, but it held no hint of moisture, and no otherworldly scent of brimstone or the fetor of the grave, either.

  Robin shrugged as she caught Jonny's eye. "This would steady your stomach," she suggested. "It's going to be a long time until dawn. You're going to need a little sustenance before the night is over."

  "I g-guess s-so," he said, after another long moment. But he groped after her hand, then seized the slice of bread-and-cheese she handed him without looking at it, and wolfed it down without tasting it, his eyes never leaving the clearing in front of their wagon.

  With the help of the lantern, Gwyna thought she'd identified Rune's rock_that is, the one Rune had been sitting on when the Ghost appeared to her. They had parked the wagon with the tail of it facing that rock and the clearing in front of it. She figured it was the most likely place for the Ghost to manifest. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

  Jonny was not taking the waiting well. He was as tight as a harp strung an octave too high, and if she hadn't seen him in crisis situations and known that he handled them well and settled once the crisis was upon them, she'd have been very worried about his steadiness.

  Her stomach was fluttery_hence the bread-and-cheese_and her shoulders were tight. But her senses seemed a hundred times sharper than usual, and everything happened with preternatural slowness. She heard every cricket clearly and knew exactly where it was; she knew where the owls were hooting, and about how far away they were. She felt the breeze across her skin like a caress; she tasted the bitter tannin of dead leaves, the promise of frost in the air. All of it was very immediate, and very vivid.

  She wanted this to happen; she had not felt so alive for weeks. That was what performance nerves did to her; she'd felt exactly like this when they'd gone in to confront Jonny's uncle, King Rolend. Afterwards, she might shake and berate herself for doing something so risky_but now, there was only the chill tingle of anticipation and_

  And the moon was rising!

  She caught the barest hint of it, a mere sliver of silver at the horizon, before it was covered by the clouds. But that was enough_and enough to tell her that the chill tingle she felt along her nerves was not anticipation. It was something else entirely.

  Magic? The crickets!

  The crickets stopped chirping abruptly, with no warning. They had not faded away; no, they had stopped entirely, leaving behind a hollow and empty silence that seemed louder than a shout. The breeze dropped into a dead calm.

  Then, in the very next moment, a wind howled up out of nowhere, just as Rune had described, a wind carrying the chill of a midwinter ice-storm. It flattened their clothing to their bodies and if Robin had not taken the precaution of binding her hair up for travel, it would have blinded her with her own tresses. This was not a screaming wind_no, this wind moaned. It sounded alive, somehow, and in dire, deadly, despairing pain. A hopeless wind, a wind that was in torment and not permitted to die. A tortured wind, that carried the instruments of its own torture as lances of ice in its bowels.

  It whirled around them for a moment, mocking their living warmth with deathly cold, as they huddled instinctively close together on the wagon-tail. There was more than physical cold in this wind; the hair on her arms rose as she realized that this wind also carried power. Not a power she recognized, but akin to it. The antithesis of healing-power... malignant, bitterly envious, and full of hate. The horses were utterly silent, and when she looked back at them, she saw them shaking, sides slick with the sweat of fear, and the whites of their eyes showing all around.

  She didn't blame them. Now, now that it was far too late, she realized what an incredibly stupid thing she had done. Whatever had made her think she could bargain with this thing? This wasn't a spirit_it was a force that was a law unto itself. She shook with more than cold, she trembled with more than fear. She had walked wide-eyed into a trap. Her own confidence had betrayed her. Her guts clenc
hed, and her throat was too tight to swallow; her mouth dry as dust and her heart pounding.

  The wind spun out and away from them; in the blink of an eye it swirled out into the clearing, gathering up every dead leaf and bit of dust with it. In a moment it had formed into a column, a miniature tornado, swaying snakelike in the middle of the clearing.

  There were eyes in that whirlwind; not visible eyes, but something in there watched her. She felt those eyes on her skin, felt them studying her and searching for weaknesses, hating her, hating Jonny, hating even the inoffensive horses. Hating every living thing, because they were alive and it was not.

  She couldn't take her eyes off the whirlwind, and Rune's description quite vanished from her mind. All she could think of were the words of the song.

  ...then comes a wind that chills my blood And makes the dead leaves whirl....

  But the song had said nothing about how the leaves glowed with a fight of their own. Nor about the closing in of malignant power as it surrounded her and increased until it choked her.

  Each leaf glowed in a distinctive shade of greenish-white, the veins a brighter white against the shape of the leaf, somehow calling to mind things rotting, things unhealthy. The leaves pulled together within the center of the whirlwind, forming a solid, irregular shape in the middle of the whirling wind and dust, a shape that was thicker at the bottom than the top, with a suggestion of a cowl crowning it all.

  The shape grew more distinct by the moment as the wind whipped faster and faster until the individual leaves vanished into a glowing blur. Then the odd shape at the top of the column was a cowl, and the entire form was that of a hooded and robed figure, somehow proportioned in such a way that there was never any doubt that this thing was not, and had never been, human.

  Exactly as Rune had described.

  ... rising up in front of me, a thing like shrouded Death....

  Oh, it looked like Death in his shroud, all right_worse, it felt like Death. The wind died; it had, after all, done its work and was no longer needed. Robin had never felt so cold, or so frightened. Her heart seemed lodged somewhere in her throat, and her fingers were frozen to her instrument_

  It's doing this, not you! The thought came sluggishly, up through a thick syrup of fear. This thing is making you afraid! Didn't you feel the power? Fight it! Fight it, or you won't be able to speak! And if you can't speak, you can't bargain, and you certainly can't sing!

  With the thought came determination; with the determination and the sheer, stubborn will came the realization that the fear was coming from outside her! She clenched her jaw as momentary anger overcame the fear_

  _and broke it!

  It was gone, all in that instant, and once broken, the spell of fear did not return. She sat up straighter; she was free! Her stomach unknotted; her heart slowed. Her throat cleared, and she was able to breathe again.

  The last of the leaves settled around the base of the robe. The figure within that robe was thin and dreadfully attenuated; if it had been human, it would have been nothing but bone, but bone that had been softened and stretched until the skeleton was half again the height of the average human male. Elongated. That was the description she was searching for. And yet, there was nothing fragile about this thing. The cowl turned towards them, slowly and deliberately, and there was a suggestion of glowing eyes within the dark shadows of the hood.

  The voice, when the thing spoke, came as something of a surprise. Robin had expected a hollow, booming voice, like the tolling of a death-bell. Instead, an icy, spidery whisper floated out of the darkness around them, as if all the shadows were speaking, and not the creature before them.

  "How is it"_it whispered_"that you come here? Not one, but two musicians? Have you not heard of me, of what I am, of what I will do to you?"

  Robin felt the pressure of magic all around her, as the Ghost tried to fill her with fear and make her flee. But the fear failed to touch her; she sensed only the power, and not the emotion the Ghost sought to use against her. So it did not know she had broken its spell!

  Time to enlighten it.

  "Of course we have heard of you!" she said, clearly and calmly. "The whole world has heard of you! Listen _"

  Her fingers picked out the introduction to "The Skull Hill Ghost." And she began to sing.

  I sit here on a rock, and curse my stupid, bragging tongue,

  And curse my pride that would not let me back down from a boast

  And wonder where my wits went, when I took that challenge up

  And swore that I would go and fiddle for the Skull Hill Ghost!

  As she sang, she exerted a little magic of her own; warm and loving magic, Bardic Magic and Gypsy magic and the magic of one true lover for another. She sent it, not at the Ghost, but at Kestrel, all of it aimed at breaking the spell of fear that held Jonny imprisoned in his icy silence as she had been imprisoned a moment before.

  The warmth must have reached him, for as she reached the chorus, he shook himself, and suddenly his harp joined the jaunty chords of her gittern as his voice joined hers in harmony.

  I'll play you high, I'll play you low

  For I'm a wizard with my bow

  For music is my weapon and my art_

  And every note I fling will strike your heart!

  That was a change from the original wording of Rune's contest-song; more of a metaphor for the life-and-death battle she had waged to save herself from the Ghost and a life of grim poverty than the original chorus had been.

  Robin continued in the "Rune" persona, with Kestrel coming in with the Ghost's first line_in a cunning imitation of the Ghost's own voice.

  "Give me reason why I shouldn't kill you, girl!"

  She watched her audience of one as closely as she had ever watched any audience; had she seen the spirit start with surprise at hearing his own words?

  She responded as Rune.

  "I've come to fiddle for you, sir _"

  Kestrel came in_and again, his voice was not a booming and spectral one, as Wren usually sang the part, but in that deliberate imitation of the Ghost's true disembodied whisper.

  "_Oh have you so?

  Then fiddle, girl, and pray you fiddle well,

  For if I like your music, then I'll let you live to play_

  But if you do not please my ears I'll take you down to Hell!"

  The cowl nodded, ever so slightly. And the pressure of magic eased off.

  Now Robin concentrated on the music, and not the Ghost. She had his attention. Now she must keep it.

  The song was a relatively short one, meant for a Faire audience that might not linger to hear an extended ballad. The last verse came up quickly.

  At last the dawnlight strikes my eyes, I stop and see the sun_

  The light begins to chase away the dark and midnight cold_

  And then the light strikes something more, I stare in dumb surprise_

  For where the Ghost once stood there is a heap of shining gold!

  Then she and Kestrel swung into a double repeat of the last chorus, laughing and triumphant.

  I'll play you high, I'll play you low

  For I'm a wizard with my bow

  And music is my lifeblood and my art

  And every note I sing will tame your heart!

  They finished with a flourish worthy of Master Wren himself. The Ghost regarded them from under his hood with a speculation and surprise that Robin felt, just as she had felt the fear he had tried to force on her.

  "Well," it whispered, the voice now coming from beneath that cowl and not from every shade and shadow in the clearing. "So, the little fiddler girl survived. Did she thrive as well as survive?"

  There was more than a little interest in that question. And not a hint of indifference. He remembered Rune, and he wanted to know about her.

  "She continues to thrive, sir," Robin said boldly. "Your silver bought her lessons and instruments, and brought her to the Kingsford Faire and the Free Bards. She got a Master from the Free Bards, and then m
ore than a Master, for she wedded him and earned her title of Master and of Elf-Friend as well. They sing for a King now, and wander no more."

  "A good King, I am sure," came the return whisper. "She would settle for naught else, the bold child who dared my hill." Then amazingly, something that sounded like a hint of chuckle emerged from beneath the cowl. "It is, I trow, hard to find a rhyme for 'silver'_and that 'heap of shining gold' tells me why, on a sudden, a fool or two a year has come to dig holes in my hill when they never did before."

  "And they f-f-find?" Jonny asked, boldly.

  "Rocks. And, sometimes, me." Again the chuckle, but this time it chilled and had no humor in it. Once again, she sensed the power coiled serpentlike behind him, a power that quickened to anger at very little provocation. So before he had time to be angered at the song, at them, she spoke.