The Black Swan

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Your keeper could have left you to make your beds in the mud!" Odile retorted, stung into a reply. "I do not expect thanks, but you may keep your scorn to yourself."

  Odette's cheeks flamed, and she bowed her head for a moment. When she lifted it again, Odile was surprised to see her expression was apologetic. "You are correct; I was wrong to accept a gift, then offer derision to the giver," she said quietly. "I was rude, and I beg your forgiveness."

  Odile nodded in acceptance and acknowledgment, still too surprised by Odette's reaction to reply. In all the time that Odette had been her father's captive, they had not exchanged words more than a dozen times, and none of those exchanges had led her to think of Odette as anything other than proud and aloof. Was she changing—or was Odile simply seeing more of the real Odette?

  She pondered that as the other girls settled into their chosen sleeping places, and dropped into dreams, lulled by the gentle warmth of the fire. Tonight Odile intended to get ample sleep herself. The girls were not going to wander off into the swamp, after all, so there was hardly a need to guard them.

  She dimmed the light of the fire, but not the warmth it created, nor the insect-chasing perfume; she gave it the semblance of a bed of red coals, just for the sake of familiarity. Outside the shelter, thick fog caught and held the moonlight before it ever reached the water, swathing the island in a soft, dim glow. As she watched the remains of the fire and listened to the steady breathing of the sleeping girls all around her, she was aware of Odette's gaze still centered on her.

  Finally, she turned her head slightly and met the dark eyes that watched her so warily. "What is it?" she whispered. "Why aren't you asleep? You'll need your rest for tomorrow, you know,"

  "Did you do all this—" a wave of Odette's hand indicated the shelter, "—because the sorcerer ordered you to?"

  The abrupt question caught Odile by surprise, and she answered honestly, before she had time to think. "No. He didn't give me any orders, but I knew we'd need a place to sleep, and I didn't see any other way of getting one than to create it myself."

  "No?" Odette's soft voice held a touch of irony. "You could have just built a cocoon of magic for your use alone—you could have left us to fend for ourselves and find our own place to sleep in the swamp."

  "I could have, but then you'd have been in no fit state to fly tomorrow, would you? The baron would be annoyed if you were too tired to fly." Odile wasn't certain she wanted Odette to presume she'd built this shelter out of altruism, so she deliberately kept her tone cool and unemotional.

  But didn 't I? At least a little?

  "You speak as if you are ashamed to admit you were willing to help us," came the soft reply. "And that, quite frankly, puzzles me. I wish I knew what you were really thinking."

  Odile couldn't think of an answer for that, and turned her gaze away from Odette's, pretending an indifference she did not feel. Eventually, the silence and warmth prevailed, and sleep claimed both of them.

  BY the time Odile woke, all of the swans but one were out of the shelter, foraging in the swamp, and morning sun glinted off the water outside, burning off last night's fog. The swan left sleeping was Lisbet, the same young one that had run into trouble yesterday; exhausted by her efforts, she still dozed. The scent from the fire still filled the shelter—which was a blessing, since the miasma of the swamp wasn't to Odile's taste.

  Odile stood up and stretched, touching the tips of her fingers to the branches overhead, but moving quietly so as not to startle the sleeping swan, who would react with a swan's instincts if she woke abruptly. She wouldn't think, she'd try to flee, and the blow from a swan's wings was strong enough to break a man's arm.

  So Odile made quiet, nonthreatening sounds as she stretched and moved about the shelter to limber up her limbs, stiff from a night spent on the ground. Lisbet woke easily, raised her head from where she'd tucked her beak into her back feathers, and looked around cautiously.

  It hadn't escaped Odile's attention that all of the grass on this little island had been nibbled down to within an inch of the roots. The swans had eaten their "bedding" once they'd awakened, just as Odette had cynically predicted—no harm in that, but they hadn't left anything for the late riser. So the others had a head start on feeding, which might once again put this little one at risk of lagging behind if she didn't get quite enough to eat. Odile weighed the alternatives and the consequences, and decided that a little expenditure of power now was warranted to prevent a similar expenditure at a point where it was more difficult for her to work magic.

  She had no need to join the others in foraging for wild rice and water weeds for her breakfast; every morning she used a little magic to "call" her breakfast from the manor. Sometimes the baron shared it with her, and sometimes he didn't, but she always brought in enough food to take care of both of them. She usually repeated the spell at the end of the day, once they'd taken a landing spot for the night; the fact that she forgotten to last night what with all the work she'd needed to do meant she was ravenous now. She was as much in need of sustenance as the swan.

  "Wait here," she told the swan, who had gotten gingerly to her feet; she obediently sat back down onto the grass. Odile was grateful that Lisbet was the one of the little swans who took orders meekly; it always irritated her when she had to force someone to accept something she was doing for their benefit.

  She banished the magical fire and knelt beside the warm hearth, readying her magic. She cupped her hands over the bare earth and concentrated, building a glowing sphere beneath them that lit up the shelter with the power of a tiny sun.

  Then, abruptly, the sphere vanished, and in its place were the items she had "called" from the manor. Rich, nutritious journey- cakes—excellent when fresh, as these were, but rather poor fare when they'd spent too much time in their parchment wrappings—were piled six high on a large patter. Beside them were a pat of fresh butter on a little plate, and a jar of honey, plates, a bowl of strawberries and manchette cake with beaten, sweetened cream poured generously over them, and a platter of thinly sliced ham and creamy cheese. There were far more cakes than Odile and her father could eat, which had been her intention; she took a double handful of them and crumbled them in front of Lisbet, who needed no encouragement to begin gobbling the crumbs. She reserved two cakes for herself, spread with the honey and butter, and two for her father, plain, and continued breaking the dense, crusty golden rounds between her fingers until all the rest were in a form easy for the swan to devour. Only then did she turn her attention to her own breakfast.

  As she began eating, a shadow fell over the opening to the shelter, and von Rothbart stooped and entered. He sat down on the grass beside Odile, helping himself to the food.

  "You were busy last night," he commented, layering the ham and cheese atop one of the cake rounds, then taking a bite. "I did not expect—all this—when I arrived this morning."

  "It was an efficient solution to the problem I was faced with, given that there was no solid land on which to rest," she retorted, keeping her tone level. "But not the one you would have taken?"

  "If I had been in your position, I would have kept them—and myself—as swans through the night," he replied. "Then there would have been no need for a shelter."

  She thought quickly; was he annoyed, and if so, would he be mollified by good reasons for her actions? "I had several problems here, at least as I saw it. I didn't know what sorts of animals roam this place, nor how dangerous they would be. As swans we would have no defense against something like a wolf or a bear that crept up on us while we slept, and no way to detect something that could seize one of us from beneath the water. But no land-walking predator would be able to cross easily to an island, and no water-dwelling creature could get at us on land. And if anything did try to swim across, we would smell like humans, not swans, and there would be the unfamiliar perfume from the fire that would further confuse the scent—" She handed him the second round of journey-cake, and finished her own, dividing the strawber
ries and cream between them. "I rather think that any night-hunter would fear that combination, and seek some easier prey," She considered a moment longer, as her father ate in silence, and decided to add a little something. "And—a mouse is not a human. I don't know that could have kept them all swans until your return. I knew that I could do all of this; I controlled the swamp creatures to build the land, and sped the growth of plants to make the shelter; that doesn't require as much magic as holding the transformation spell. Only my fire was purely magical."

  That was a lie; she knew very well that she could have kept everyone in their swan shapes—but he had already shown disapproval of her mastery of his spell, and this would be a test of sorts. . . .

  "Good; now I see what your reasoning was, and your actions were well thought out," he said, and there was a hint of approval in his voice, that made her lift her head a little, "An efficient use of power, much more efficient than trying to hold the shape- change spell over the entire flock. You were wise not to attempt so difficult a feat."

  Odile bowed her head in a dutiful nod to hide her expression, but she felt a momentary flash of anger that he considered her ability so minimal.

  "Why feed this one?" he continued, the approval replaced by suspicion as he gazed at the hungry young swan. "You spoil her—"

  "Not at all," Odile countered swiftly, daring to interrupt him. "She hasn't eaten or rested well and isn't as strong as the others. I had to support her for half the journey yesterday, or she would have dropped to the ground with exhaustion. Sleeping longer helped her, but that meant that she wouldn't have as much time to forage, so when the flock followed you today, she would be in difficulty again."

  "Ah. Another good solution." The suspicion was gone, and he actually smiled. "You prove that placing you in a position of responsibility was warranted."

  "Thank you, Father!" she replied, the smile and the words giving her a feeling of heady euphoria. She smiled back at him, her anger completely forgotten, "I want only to please you—"

  "And you do please me, more than ever," he told her, and picked up her hand to place a cool kiss on the back of it. "You are showing that you are worthy to be my offspring, and are truly your father's child."

  She finished her breakfast in a daze of happiness; he had not given her such a powerful reward in a very long time—not since she was a child and had first demonstrated she had inherited his magical powers, in fact! There was no further conversation between them, but then the baron was not one for much conversation even in his most expansive moods. He finished first and left the shelter, shortly after Lisbet ate the final crumb of cake and joined the rest of the flock in filling what little space was left in her stomach with water plants. When she had finished her own meal and sent back the empty dishes to the manor, he had already taken on his owl form, and was waiting in a nearby tree.

  Time to go. The flock had formed up at the far end of the pond; swans were heavy birds, and they would need every bit of clear water to get airborne. She gathered her powers around her, feeling them brushing against her skin as she stood with her arms poised above her head, the center of a whirlwind of force barely visible in the bright sunlight.

  She felt her forearms, hands, and neck lengthen, her legs and upper arms shorten, felt feathers appear to cover her like a garment reaching from her nose to her toes. The world appeared to loom taller as she shrank in height; her teeth vanished, her nose and mouth lengthened and hardened, her eyes moved to the sides of her head. Her sense of smell vanished (something of a relief, given the surroundings), her sight and hearing sharpened, and she now saw the odd colors at the edge of violet that only birds perceived. Her vision now encompassed three quarters of a circle around her; disorienting for a moment, until her mind accepted it.

  Then, the transformation complete, she shook herself all over, settling her feathers, and plunged into the water to join the rest of the flock.

  The great owl launched heavily into the air, laboring upward with powerful strokes of his wings. Odette spread her wings in the next moment and followed, in the half-flight, half-run that a water bird needed to become a bird of the sky. As she got halfway across the pond, the rest of the flock churning the water and air in her wake, she tucked her feet up and rose from the surface of the pond.

  Odile followed, last of all, well-satisfied to see that Lisbet was flying up with the rest of the flock, not lagging wearily behind. She looked back over her shoulder at the island she had created; it did look rather odd, the perfectly circular clump of tightly interlaced willows apparently rising from a pond of clear water in the midst of the swamp. She felt a bit of amusement, wondering what the baron had made of it when he first returned this morning.

  Well, although it would remain, an odd island in the swamp, it would gradually lose its peculiar appearance since she was not there to impose her will on it. Some of the trees would die; otters and muskrats would build dens in the bank and it would lose that perfectly circular shape. The trees that survived would drop all their unnaturally large leaves in the autumn, and when they regained their vernal cloaks next spring, they would bear the same foliage as any other willows. Within a year, two at the most, no one would know that a magician had made the place.

  And that is as it should be. It was one thing to impose her will on the place where she lived and spent most of her time; it was quite another to do so arbitrarily and permanently everywhere she happened to spend a few hours. At least, that was how she felt about it. She had no idea how her father felt; he'd never expressed his views on the subject.

  As they gained height and left the vicinity of the swamp, her experienced eye noted subtle signs, both in the cultivated fields and in the wilder lands, that the summer was coming to an end. Subtle changes in the color of the foliage that only a bird could see told her that the leaves of the trees were fully mature and only awaiting the touch of the first frost to put on their flaming colors, phoenix-like, so that they could die. The hayfields had been mowed, the hay gathered in; the grain fields had taken on the golden shimmer that presaged full ripening. Other crops would wait for that first frost, for they would continue to improve in size and ripeness until the cold killed them.

  But all these signs of the coming of fall made her uneasy about her father's plans. Surely he didn't intend for them to spend the winter away from the comforts of the manor? He'd never done that before—and while it was perfectly reasonable to set up an al fresco camp in the late spring, in summer, and even in early autumn, it was neither reasonable nor comfortable to do so in the dead of winter!

  But he knows that. He's as fond of his comfort as anyone could be.

  Her worries, however, were not soothed. Von Rothbart would suffer nothing in even the harshest winter; he had power enough and to spare to transport himself to and from the manor if he chose. But Odile didn't, not yet—and certainly the flock could not. While in swan form, they wouldn't suffer too much, provided that she could produce food for them, but how could he expect a group of girls clad only in the thinnest of silk to survive a single winter's night out-of-doors?

  Could Odette's challenge have made him forget all of that? Surely he didn't expect Odile to supply shelter against the winter's rage for all of them!

  No—he had this journey planned before Odette flung defiance in his face, she reminded herself. He had been on the hunt for weeks before Odette's little revolt. Whatever alterations he'd made to accommodate her hadn't substantially altered those plans. The way he had reacted, with an odd kind of pleasure, rather than annoyance, proved that.

  He must expect all of this to be over and done with before the end of autumn, she decided with relief. We '11 be fine. He probably knows she won't have a chance to test his promise on this quest—yes, that must be it. There probably isn't a susceptible male within miles of where we 're going, much less a suitable one to lift the spell.

  She knew him as well as anyone could know him; of all things he hated, the one he hated most was not being in control at all times.
There was even the slight possibility that he intended to allow Odette her attempt to regain her freedom, and either was entirely certain she had repented enough that it would succeed, or was equally certain that she was still so unrepentant that it would fail. In either case, he must have it all planned down to the very hour that would see her freed or bound forever.

  Wherever this was to be, it was not in any lands Odile had seen before; in fact, this was by far the farthest that she had ever gone from the manor. What could have tempted him into so long and potentially perilous a journey? Below her now there were more cultivated lands than wild; it would be harder and harder to find suitable places to stop overnight. She cast her glance downward, to the moving manikins of field workers at their tasks, bending and straightening and bending again. There was always the chance that someone down there was of noble birth, and a hunter—while they were out of bow shot now, they would not be when they came in to land or rose to fly. And a trained falcon could circle higher than the flock could go . . . falcons weren't normally set at swans, but some falconers were wont to test the skill and strength of their birds against a strong and difficult target.

  And there is always the chance that someone has dared convention and law to train an eagle. ... An eagle could easily bring one of them down—convention and falconer's law dictated that only an emperor could fly an eagle, but if one of the many little monarchs far from the Emperor's eye chose to claim such a bird, there was no one and nothing to stop him.

  She shivered, and now turned her wary attention upward, suddenly aware that she was going to have yet another responsibility, to guard against attack from above as well as stragglers. That's all right; I can make a bird miss her mark. I can even do the same for a bowman. And father's in the shape of an eagle-owl; no falcon would dare attack an eagle-owl, and I'm not sure a falconer could get even an eagle to make a try. While they might willingly harass an eagle-owl trying to rest in a tree by day, no smaller bird would challenge one already in the sky above her.