The Black Swan

by Mercedes Lackey

  And why, do you suppose, is that? a tiny voice asked in the back of her mind. Could it be that Odette was right—that you and she and all of the swans have never been anything to your father but a reservoir of power he could dip into at will? Could it be that this was the only value you ever had to him, other than being a convenient puppet, spy, and bait for a trap?

  Yes. Oh, yes. Anger, now sullen, smoldering, and heavy, stirred in her again, uncoiling from her gut like an ancient dragon newly awakened.

  Yes, she answered her own voice. Odette was right. There was no reason why she should be so depleted—unless her father had stolen her power to in turn fuel the spell to steal her body.

  In a blinding instant of chilling epiphany, it all came clear to her, and found voice in three poisonous words.

  I... hate him.

  There had never been love, there had never been care, or pride, or anything but the same cold calculation a farmer uses when admiring a calf he is raising for slaughter, or a cow who gives unusually rich milk. She had never been a person to him, only a possession—and no one worries about the feelings of a possession. No one loves the calf destined to become veal.

  How long had he been using her? She stared at that face, that familiar face, knowing that at any time she would have sold her soul for his approval—knowing that if he had ever come to her and asked for her help she would have given it without a second thought. Would I even have betrayed Odette after she and the others became my friends? With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew that, had her father said and done the right things, she might have. She might very well have, if he had offered, not only approval, but affection. And had he been an iota less arrogant and self-confident, had only a second thought about his own power and ability, he might have done that. "Help me, my daughter," he might have said, "I depend on your help to unmask this traitorous queen, to prove to Odette she is not ready and her suitor is not worthy. I cannot do this alone, I need the daughter I love to work with me at my side."

  And if he had, it would have been just as false as this mask he wears now. Everything he had ever said or done was with the intention of getting more from her than he pretended to offer, even in illusion.

  Her anger built again, and with it, some of her strength—but she was clearer in her mind now, and determined to hoard the dearly won power. No more flailing against the walls of her prison; now she would hold her power in reserve, and wait. He could not hold her forever . . . eventually he would have to drop the spell, if only when he revealed his true intentions to the queen and her son.

  And meanwhile, she would use her anger to destroy the connection between them that made it possible for him to take what he willed from her.

  Siegfried returned, the dance complete, and beckoned to her to dance with him, alone. Now, sensitive to the nuances of the magic imprisoning her, she felt the pressure increase around her. Her body rose—she willed it to walk stiffly, unnaturally, but it did no such thing. It moved gracefully, and far more seductively than she ever could have on her own.

  They danced, and if she had been in control of herself, she would have fled in sickened and acute emotional pain. This "dancing" was none of hers!

  Siegfried seemed oblivious to the fact that his demure and modest beloved had somehow transformed into a seductress, a mate-devouring Lorelei, entrancing her would-be spouse into her clutches with the promise of passionate carnal love. Her body moved in subtle ways she hadn't dreamed possible, and she went from writhing in anger to squirming in shame.

  Siegfried, blinded by love, blinded also by sorcery, gazed at her in abject adoration. Nothing she did broke the spell of enchantment or disturbed his lovelorn gaze.

  Is this how Father sees women? she cried out in anguish. Even me? How could he think of her like this? She had never done anything to make him believe she was a Jezebel like this!

  But he was willing to use her however he wished, so why shouldn't he degrade her as he chose? If he thought of her as a fatted calf, why not think her a man-eating whore as well?

  If she could have wept, her tears would have burned furrows down her face, so bitter were the dregs of degradation that she drank at that moment. Those unshed tears drowned every last bit of feeling she had for her father, washed it away in hate-filled revulsion.

  This dance, too, came to an end, to the polite applause of the court and the disgruntled glances of her "rivals" and their entourages. Siegfried caught her hand and kept her from returning to her seat when the music ended; she felt tension building to a climax.

  Siegfried, don't! Look at me! See me, not the illusion!

  She thought at that moment that nothing could have made her feel worse—until a ghost of movement caught her attention, and she looked over the heads of the courtiers to the windows.

  Peering into the hall, with a face as pale as one drowned, eyes black with pain, hands beating in utter futility against the glass, she saw Odette.

  And Siegfried, spell-bound and spell-blinded, saw . . . nothing. Nothing but her.

  He gestured grandly for silence, and the crowd hushed obediently. "Tonight you are gathered here to honor my natal day," he said proudly, "but also to honor my choice of a bride. Out of all of the lovely maidens who have graced our court with their gracious presence this night, I regret that I can wed only one." He looked about with a fatuous smile on his face, and Odile screamed inside her mind.

  Look! Look! Oh, you fool, you idiot, look and see! Look at my father, your mother, and see the trap they've laid for you!

  "I wish that I could grant each and every one of you a prince and a kingdom of her own," he continued, as Odile's body smiled on. "But only one maiden has won my heart, and it is to her that I will pledge my troth, now and forever."

  As the real Odette watched in horror from the window, and Odile screamed soundlessly behind her own eyes, Siegfried dropped to his knee beside the Black Swan.

  "This is she!" he cried, taking her hand in his and kissing it. "This is the maiden, and no other, that I will take to wife, the enchanting daughter of Baron von Rothbart!"

  And into the silence that followed—Eric von Rothbart laughed.

  Only then, as von Rothbart roared with triumphant laughter and the storm broke above the castle, did the spell slip. Just a little—but just enough.

  With a strangled cry, Odile shattered the spell holding her, and shattered the illusion von Rothbart had wrought. She leaped away from Siegfried, toward the fatal window—she whirled, and Siegfried saw her real face.

  And behind her, the tortured face of Odette in the window, gazing at him in despair.

  Lightning flashed, and thunder rattled the windows; with a cry of absolute agony that echoed from floor to the rafters of the hall, Odette reached for Siegfried from the other side of the glass, reached for him, and was stopped by the glass.

  The cry should have shattered the coldest heart, but von Rothbart only roared with laughter again, as Odette melted into the Swan Queen, whirled with another cry of despair, then spread her wings and allowed the tempest to carry her away.

  Now von Rothbart spoke, his voice full of contempt as the crowd stood, numb and silent. "So, Prince Siegfried, this is how you keep your word? You vow yourself to Odette, then swear to Odile before the sun rises a second time?"

  He might have saved his breath for he was speaking for the benefit of the crowd, not to the prince; Siegfried was already at the door of the hall, calling Odette's name as he ran. No one tried to stop him; they all seemed turned to stone with shock.

  Only Odile could still move, and she picked up her skirts and ran, right on his heels, driven by that once-beloved voice.

  CLOTHILDE'S cup of pleasure was full to the brim, without room for a single drop more, as Siegfried fled into the tempest, wildly calling out after someone only he had seen. She didn't understand what the baron meant by his taunt, but she didn't particularly care. Nor did she care why the baron's daughter had run off after him. As the courtiers milled in confusion
, as the storm increased in fury and lightning struck the trees just outside, she stifled her laughter behind her hand, hoping that she could feign being horror-struck instead of hysterically pleased.

  He '11 never be king! Was her only thought at the moment. They think he's mad—they'll never accept him as king! The throne is mine—mine—mine!

  But the storm had a will of its own—and the power to set every plan at naught.

  A flash of blinding light that filled the Great Hall changed her elation in an instant to primitive terror. The thunder that struck at the same instant drove her backwards to cower, trembling, beneath the canopy of the throne. A sudden burst of wind shook the glass, threatening to collapse the windows, and a second lightning strike nearby sent half the court screaming out of the hall to seek shelter somewhere less exposed. In the next instant, the windows shattered in a shower of shards, and the storm winds drove the rain into the hall. The wind swept away the warmth and perfumes, replacing it with cold and the faint scent of brimstone. All the candles blew out at once, leaving no illumination but the continuous lightning.

  Only von Rothbart stood in the center of the hall, defying the storm—or was he conjuring it? Those courtiers who had not fled cowered against the walls, while lightning struck again and again, while the winds howled insanely about the chamber, Clothilde huddled in her throne, her heart pounding as loudly as the thunder that drove her back against the wood; the very stones beneath her feet shivered. Icy cold bit to the bone, but she could not move; fear, and von Rothbart's glowing eyes, held her where she was as her rich garments were whipped wildly by the wind as if the heavy velvet were as light as gauze, and the canopy tore away from the frame above her.

  "Daughter of Eve, temptress and betrayer, you play traitor to your perfidious son as you did to his father. " Von Rothbart's voice was impossibly clear over the thunder, as if he spoke mockingly into her ear. He moved ponderously toward her, step by deliberate step. "As your tainted blood runs true in your son, he in turn betrays his own vows, a blackguard poisoned in the womb by his harlot mother!''

  How could she hear him? She was near-deafened by the booming of the storm, the banshee wailing of the wind, yet every word burned in her ears!

  "Your poison must be purged" von Rothbart went on, his eyes shining with demonic glee, raising his hands above his head to emphasize his words. "Never again will you betray another, for death is the wages of sin! Look up, witch, and see the Hand of God bringing your punishment to the very walls of your iniquitous den!"

  He gestured upward, and her eyes followed his gesture involuntarily. She saw a white-hot bolt of lightning race in through the broken window and strike the wall above her head, at the Point of the archway that sheltered the dais. Helplessly paralyzed, unable to move to save herself, she watched a fierce, white frre race along the seams of the stonework. Thunder shook the stones to their foundation; she saw them moving.

  Half the arch trembled, rocked, and fell. She watched the massive blocks of stone descend, and did not comprehend what was happening until it was too late.

  She could only watch, clutching the arms of her throne in impotent terror, as the stones hurtled toward her; her mind, her ears filled with the screams of her courtiers mingled with the howls of the wind, and the sound of von Rothbart's mocking laughter blending with the thunder.

  ODILE did not follow Siegfried once past the doors of the palace; at the moment, he was unimportant. Nothing he could do would change what he had already done, however unwittingly.

  It was Odette she followed, leaping into the arms of the storm winds and transforming herself as she did. She spread her wings wide and let the wind bear her up; the Black Swan was strong enough to ride the worst tempests, her wings powerful enough to make the wind serve her purpose. Odette, transformed out-of- time back into her swan shape, again fully under von Rothbart's magic, could only be fleeing back to the flock. He would not let her escape him now.

  Odile drove her wings with powerful, deep strokes of her shoulders, and grimly followed on. Without her father draining her, there was no exhaustion; had fury not settled into her heart, she might have found exhilaration in riding the winds. But there was room for only two concerns in her thoughts tonight, and both of them centered on her father. He would not succeed in destroying Odette. And Odile would make him pay for his own double betrayal. The thousands of ice lances of rain beating down on her would not even slow her down; the lightning spears could not frighten her, nor the thunder shake her determination.

  She pushed on, using the wind to add to her speed, following instinct rather than sight in rain so thick as to be blinding. She concentrated solely on flying, speeding through the skies, leaving no room for thought.

  Abruptly, the rain ended; she blinked ice water out of her eyes, took her bearings, and kept going, but now she did not have to work so hard to stay in the air.

  The winds are slacking. . . . That, and the end to the rain told her she had come to the edge of the storm. When she broke through into moonlight, she caught sight of a far-off glimmer of white that could only be Odette, and a farther gleam of moonlight on water that was her—their—goal. They were nearer the lake than she had thought.

  She lost sight of Odette briefly when the swan descended below the tree-line, but she already knew where the Swan Queen was going. Now her wings began to feel heavy, as heavy as her own heart. What would Odette say—what must she be thinking? Would she ever believe that Odile had been coerced, tricked, and betrayed, just as she was?

  It does not matter what she believes, so long as I can make it right.

  She arced down to the water and back-winged at the last possible instant, to make her landing as short as possible, and as near to the shore as she could. Odette was not there, but furtive glimpses of white among the trees gave her all the clue she needed as to where the flock was.

  She drove herself up onto the shore and transformed on the run; one moment, waddling awkwardly, the next, running surely on two swift feet, the clearing before the tree shelter her goal.

  But when she saw what awaited her, she stopped abruptly on the edge of the clearing, one hand on a tree trunk.

  Moonlight poured down on the clearing, as if the moon was trying to pour balm on a heart wounded past healing. In the center of a fluttering, helpless group of maidens, Odette lay prostrate on the ground, weeping. Her sobs, so deep, so full of absolute despair, shook answering sobs from Odile's throat; the Black Swan's eyes stung and swam, and a sick lump lodged in her throat.

  Half the swan-maidens wept with their leader, the other half tried in vain to console her. Nothing any of them could do or say made any difference, and Odile recognized in her disconsolate weeping the desolate sound of someone who wanted only the release of death, for there was no more hope in the world for her ever again, only pain.

  Suddenly, it was no longer important to Odile that Odette understand her role as unwilling fellow victim. Whatever she felt was insignificant compared to the despair that held Odette's heart in its stygian darkness.

  So she stayed, frozen, at the edge of the clearing, unable to go to Odette but unable to leave. Hours crept by, the moon traveled slowly across the sky, and still Odette wept, as if she could fill the sea with her tears, and still not weep enough.

  THE moment he saw Odette, and saw who he had really pledged to wed, Siegfried's guilt and grief drove him in an instant past sanity and into a kind of focused clarity that made him see that he had only two choices at this moment—either to give up and drive his own dagger into his heart, or to follow Odette and attempt to save her, somehow. Stricken, he watched her take on swan form and be wrested away by the tempest outside. With thunder and von Rothbart's laughter deafening his ears, he ran-- ran—seeing only her despairing eyes, feeling his heart torn an bleeding by what he had done to her.

  He must have found the stables, he must have had the sense in his frenzy to select a horse, because in his next moment of clarity, he discovered himself on the back of the faste
st courier- horse in the herd, racing headlong through the storm on the road to the lake. Rain lashed him, lightning blinded him, thunder deafened him, and none of these things held him from his wild gallop. Not even concern for the horse induced him to slacken his pace. Lightning struck the road in front of him, and the horse shied. The moment it faltered, he urged it on, cruelly, with whip and spur, wresting its head around and cutting at its flanks. Maddened by pain and the tempest raging about its head, the horse responded with hysterical energy, somehow keeping its feet as it pounded through the darkness.

  He was not in much better condition than the horse, driven by the whip and spur of his own tattered emotions; soaked to the skin, numb with cold, eyes burning, muscles aching, and the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. Only the lightning flashes showed them the road ahead of them; there was the sharp scent of ozone in the air whenever a bolt struck too near to the road.

  Abruptly they broke out of the storm into moonlight; he shook the last of the rain out of his eyes and shouted to the beast to encourage it. The beast responded to better conditions and the prince's continued goading by putting on more speed, though no mortal horse could have matched Siegfried's never-ending demands. Whenever it tried to slow, he spurred it savagely. The black-and-white landscape swept past him, the lathered horse strained beneath him, he never seemed to get any nearer to his goal, and the nightmare ride stretched on with no sign of the end.

  Odette! Sweet Jesu, what have I done?

  Hours—days—years later, the horse plunged into the blackness of the forest. It did not get as far as the lake, for its strength gave out. Finally, the poor beast could no longer answer to the demands of whip and goad. It stumbled, recovered as he fought to wrench it to its feet, then stumbled again and went to its knees.

  He knew the horse was done when it stumbled the second time and was ready when the horse failed beneath him. He tumbled off its back, falling heavily to the ground and bruising his shoulder. Somehow, he got to his feet and raced headlong into the tree shadows, leaving the horse to live or die on its own.