Shadow and Thorn

by Kenley Davidson

  Porfiry squirmed harder.

  “I really don’t think Zara would approve of any rearranging,” Alexei reprimanded the warrior firmly. “She’s far more compassionate than you are.” Actually, he rather thought the opposite was true. “But I doubt she would object to forced labor. Until I can re-enchant a hearthstone or two, there is plenty of wood that will need to be chopped.”

  If Alexei was any judge, Porfiry would find the idea of chopping wood a greater threat than any nebulous discussion of creative persuasion. And the wretched man knew Alexei too well to believe that his cousin would be party to any form of torture.

  When Malichai set his burden down in the warmth of the kitchen, Wilder was already there, pretending she had never left.

  “Why is he here?” the girl asked innocently. “Is Malichai going to get him to tell where he put the Rose?”

  “Don’t waste your innocence on me,” Silvay reprimanded her sternly. “I know you heard everything. Where were you hiding?”

  Wilder just grinned.

  “Well I won’t chop your wood,” Porfiry snapped. “And you won’t torture me either. But I’ll tell you if you promise to get me out of here.”

  “Oh?” Alexei sat and spread his hands in front of the fire. “Why would I do that? I believe Athven has earned the right to do with you as she pleases.”

  “What she pleases is to eviscerate me,” the smaller man snarled. “And you’ll never find what you want without me.”

  “The Rose is broken,” Alexei replied coolly. “Why should I care if we find it?”

  “I heard you talking,” Porfiry muttered. “I know you think it could still be active. And it’s your only chance to get rid of him.”

  No need to say who “him” was. “But what makes you think there’s anything I can do about your fate?” Alexei asked. “I can’t imagine Athven would be very happy with us if we rob her of justice, and it isn’t as though we can open the doors without her cooperation.”

  “There’s a chance she’ll listen to you,” Porfiry said sullenly. “And if I help her get the Rose back, she might decide to let me live.”

  “I can’t stop you from lying to yourself,” Alexei told him, “so by all means, cling to that hope with every shred of self-deception you possess. The Rose has nothing to do with this, whether it is restored or no. It is Athven who matters, and how do you propose I go about convincing her that she doesn’t want to murder you?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Porfiry spat. “But if you want your precious Rose, you’ll do it.”

  “Or, I will wait until a bargain is made between Zara and your master, and then Athven will kill you and I won’t care.”

  “You’ll be bowing to the bastard prince forever without it.”

  “And you’ll be dead.”

  They locked eyes.

  Porfiry looked at the floor first. “If it works, the Rose will know who I am. It might throw me out along with my… Tremontaine.”

  So that was it. “The Rose won’t touch you, cousin. You’re Erathi. If it was going to throw you out, it would have done so before you had a chance to destroy it.”

  “Maybe,” Porfiry whispered. “But it’s the only chance I have. Now that I’ve betrayed it once, it might make an exception.”

  “If you tell us where it is,” Alexei said slowly, “I will do my best to restore it. If you are correct, it will instantly banish you from the kingdom and you will be safe from Athven forever. If you are not correct, there is nothing I or anyone else can do.”

  Porfiry studied the toes of his shoes, face pale and pinched with fear.

  “You won’t get another offer,” Alexei reminded him sternly. “Now where did you put it?”

  “I threw the pieces down the kitchen cistern,” Porfiry answered in a low voice, still looking at the floor.

  “The cistern?” Alexei echoed, jumping to his feet and slapping his forehead in frustration. “Why didn’t you just smash them to bits while you were at it? The top of the cistern is too narrow for anything to pass! I doubt we can even fit a bucket!”

  “Does he mean the well?” Silvay asked.

  “No.” Alexei dropped back into his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and groaned. “There is a well, and it has a magic-powered pump that fills various cisterns on the ground floor. The kitchen cistern was dug out fairly broad and deep, but because it is so close to the outside wall, they narrowed the access point behind the scullery so that the bottom couldn’t be tunneled into and used to gain entry during an invasion.”

  “Seems paranoid for people who didn’t think much of war,” Malichai commented thoughtfully.

  “More paranoid than a talisman that prevented anyone who didn’t like us from crossing our borders?” Alexei inquired. “I assure you, my early ancestors were often preoccupied with questions of self-defense.”

  “But can we get the pieces back?” Silvay asked.

  “We can try.” Alexei rose with a sigh. “But that cistern was designed to be impassable. And we could drag the bottom of it for years and never be able to lift a single piece, let alone three.”

  “Let’s go look!” Wilder jumped up and raced from the room.

  “Isn’t she a little too excited?” Alexei asked Silvay, eyebrow cocked. “I did just say it’s going to be impossible.”

  She smiled mysteriously. “Don’t forget that you are not the only one here, Alexei.” Her words were a gentle reprimand. “We all have our part to play. And Wilder is a prescient.”

  Alexei subsided, shamed by her reminder. He had forgotten. But that had never been his talent, matching gifts with one another to create a sum that was greater than its parts. He had always had to focus too closely on his own, apparently to his detriment.

  “You’re right,” he acknowledged, flexing his fingers and striding towards the scullery. “I should have remembered. But I hope she doesn’t get her hopes up too far. Of all our unlikely adventures thus far, this may be the most unlikely of all.”

  “Then you should feel encouraged,” Malichai told him seriously, picking up Porfiry again while ignoring the smaller man’s vociferous protests. “In epic adventures such as this one, it is always the most improbable of events that brings about a resolution.”

  “Yes,” Alexei said dryly, “and it is always the handsome prince who wins the lady’s hand and carries the day. Let us hope that our adventure strays a little from the well-worn path, shall we?”

  “Are there other plans for the lady’s hand, then?” Malichai asked innocently.

  “Shut up,” Alexei replied, “before I decide to practice my enchanting skills on your voice.”

  When they got to the scullery, Wilder had already removed the cover and was leaning much farther over the hole than Alexei was comfortable with. The shaft was as narrow as he had feared, leaving room for little more than the pump that ran down the center. There was perhaps a single hand-span on either side. If they could find a way to remove the pump, they might be able to lower a bucket.

  “Are you sure there were only three pieces?” he asked his cousin skeptically. “I can’t imagine how they were small enough to fit.”

  “They fit,” Porfiry said shortly, glaring at Malichai and straightening his tunic. “I didn’t intend for them to be retrieved.”

  “I told you I’d be needed,” Wilder said cheerfully, removing her shoes and sitting on the edge of the cistern.

  “What? No!” Alexei grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “I am not going to let you simply crawl into a well. You’ll only get stuck, and if by some miracle you don’t, you could drown.”

  “I won’t drown,” Wilder protested indignantly. “I can swim, and besides, the water in there probably isn’t deep. The pumps haven’t been working for ages.”

  “Then you might suffocate,” Alexei insisted.

  “No, I won’t,” Wilder contradicted. She pulled away, swung her legs over the edge and wrapped them around the pipe that housed the hand pump.

  “Stop!” Alex
ei lunged for her, but she was already shimmying down into the dark, so Alexei was forced to grab her shirt collar. “Silvay? Do something!”

  “Why?” She folded her arms calmly. “It is Wilder’s right to do as her gift bids her.”

  “So we’re just going to let her drop into an unknown hole in the ground?” Alexei couldn’t understand why no one else was worried.

  “For an enchanter, you’re remarkably dense,” Silvay remarked. She left the room and came back holding an unmarked crystal. She handed it to Alexei. “You can provide enough light for her to see what she’s doing. It’ll be easy enough for her to climb back out using the pipe.”

  “Forgive me if that doesn’t make me feel better,” Alexei muttered. “Malichai, do we have any rope anywhere handy?”

  “I’ve got a bit with my gear.” The bearded man trotted off to fetch it.

  “Wilder, wait where you are, if you can,” Alexei called down. It didn’t look as though stopping her descent should be difficult. The diameter of the cistern was small enough that he still wasn’t convinced Wilder would fit, and, at the least, she would be forced to hug the pipe tightly in order to make any progress. “I’m going to make you a light.”

  Perhaps he should have doubted. It was his first attempt at an enchantment using an unprepared object. His talisman had been second nature, and the crystal lanterns were even simpler, as they were intended to be reused. This crystal could still be anything he chose. But the urgency of the task left him no room to remember that he had ever questioned his own skill. He merely held it in his hand and opened his mind to its natural structure.

  Years of painstaking practice came rushing back, and the work seemed easier than it ever had. The lack of depth perception in his physical vision did not seem to hamper his ability to grasp the threads of magic and rearrange them as he willed until they snapped into the form he needed and a soft, golden glow brightened the little room.

  A sense of rightness and purpose welled as Alexei looked at the tiny crystal and remembered how it felt to do what he was born to do.

  “Here.” He reached down to Wilder and waited while she adjusted her grip to allow for the stone. “Be careful, for the love of Erath, and don’t try to be stupidly brave. If you feel stuck or grow lightheaded, we’re pulling you out.”

  When Malichai returned with the rope, they made a loop and lowered it so that it rested around the girl’s shoulders. Once she wriggled both arms through, bracing against the wall, they pulled it tight, and Wilder was able to continue her descent.

  It was not far. The narrowest part of the cistern was only about ceiling height. After that, it widened abruptly and dropped to the floor. A jerk on the rope and a splash was their only warning that Wilder had not only wriggled through, but had let go of the pipe and simply jumped into the water.

  “It’s c-c-c-old!” Her shriek echoed up to where they waited, and Alexei and Malichai nearly bumped heads trying to make sure she was all right. “But it’s not deep. I can touch.”

  “We’ll have to find another way to get drinking water,” Alexei muttered.

  Malichai laughed. “Trust you to think of dirt at a time like this. The poets always leave out the parts with dirt.”

  “Well, here’s your chance to set the record straight,” Alexei said. “There is always dirt. Of one kind or another.”

  “But nobody who is clean and warm and well-fed wants to hear about that part,” Malichai protested.

  “Which is the problem with epic poetry,” Alexei retorted.

  “Going somewhere?” The sound of Silvay’s voice brought their heads up with a snap. Silvay had drawn one of her daggers and stood in the doorway, holding it level with Porfiry’s heart.

  He scowled and muttered imprecations under his breath but backed away, his hands at his shoulders.

  “Alexei has sworn to keep you safe, but I doubt Zara will care what we do if you try to escape again.”

  Porfiry hissed a curse and slumped back against the wall.

  “Pull me up!” Wilder called. “But slowly. Or you’ll break my head.”

  They complied. One hand on the rope, one hand over her head, Wilder eased into the shaft. When they had pulled her high enough, she handed them a fist-sized chunk of something hard and dripping wet…

  Alexei fell to his knees as the chunk of crystal dropped into his hand and he felt the weight of its years and its magic. It was not much to look at. There was no evident beauty in the uneven edges of its petals, no appeal in its random arrangement. The sharp corners on one side were proof of the veracity of Porfiry’s story—it had indeed been broken. But what he held in his hand was evidence that hope was not entirely lost. It was only a piece of the whole, but it still sang. If Alexei focused deeply, he could hear a single note of what had once been a resonant harmony.

  “That’s it?” Malichai was staring at the crystal with a skeptical twist to his lips. “I know I’m no fit judge, but yon rock doesn’t look so valuable as all that.”

  Alexei glanced at Wilder, who was peering over the lip of the cistern, a wide grin on her face. “All right,” he said, smiling. “I’m sorry I ever called you a grubby little boy. I’m sorry I doubted your gift. You were right—you were needed. Do you think you can find the others? I promise never to doubt you again.”

  “You better not!” Wilder narrowed her eyes at him sternly before lowering herself back down.

  It didn’t take long. Two more trips to the bottom of the cistern and the complete jagged remains of the Crystal Rose lay dripping on the floor.

  “Now what?” Wilder asked, swinging her legs over the edge of the cistern, panting a little with the effort of her climb. “Can you fix it?”

  Alexei wished it were so simple. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can hear it, but the notes are fractured. It is doubtful that the original enchantment would survive my efforts to restore the Rose’s shape. The pathways, though, might be made whole enough that a new enchantment could take hold.”

  “Then it will be just like it was?” The faith shining in Wilder’s eyes crushed Alexei’s enthusiasm.

  “No,” he told her, holding back the tide of sorrow he felt at the admission. There was no time to mourn. “I am not now nor could I ever have been an enchanter with the skill of Nar. And I am out of practice. All I can do is try.”

  “What do you need us to do?” Silvay asked.

  “Keep Porfiry out of trouble, and try to prevent Rowan from finding out where I’ve gone,” Alexei told them seriously. “I will be in the workshops, testing the pieces, looking for a way to restore them. If Athven tells him what we’ve done, there’s little we can do about it, but I believe she will wait to find out if I can fix it. If she can have Rowan and the Rose, that will be her goal.”

  “What about Zara?” Malichai’s face was troubled. “Will he try to change her mind as he did mine? Is there any way we can help her?”

  “I don’t know.” Alexei felt his hands clench at the thought, but he knew what she would want. She had given him this chance and he would not waste it. “Look out for her. If she shows any signs of acting differently than the Zara we know, tell me. Unless we have evidence that Rowan has broken the truce, we are bound by it.”

  “I’m not bound to be accommodating,” Malichai mentioned innocently. “I only said I wouldn’t hurt them. The bargain said nothing about making them wish they were dead.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Do you suppose the Andari prince enjoys heroic ballads?”

  Zara had to admit that, in spite of his reputation, the former prince could be charming when he chose. She took him on a carefully edited tour of the main areas of the castle as he exclaimed over its beauties, marveling and awestruck by turns. Zara purposefully avoided the towers and did not take her guest into the workroom where she had first felt the beginnings of a connection with the once dour and distant Alexei.

  It seemed like ages ago, that moment when he had first unbent sufficiently to share somethin
g of his past, and accidentally let slip enough emotion to prove that he was no monster, only as human and hurting as she was.

  And now she was depending on him to help her defeat the true monster who walked by her side, golden hair glimmering in the torchlight. Rowan’s expression grew ever more animated as he examined the treasures that Athven had held in stasis for twenty-six years.

  “Do you not find it awe-inspiring,” he exclaimed, “to see the wonders that can be accomplished with magic? That such a being as Athven can exist, that stones can give heat and light, that lives and minds can be changed without the need for blood or pain… this is the final piece of a puzzle I have been seeking to solve all my life.”

  “And what puzzle is that?” Zara asked, if only because he was expecting it.

  “How to wield power without discontent,” he answered immediately, the fervor in his gaze suggesting that, for once, he told the truth. “What the Erathi accomplished here—this could change the world.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed, hearing the echo of her own words in his impassioned declaration. “There is certainly much potential for good. But in the end, it seems a very limited sort of power to me.”

  “How can it be limited?” he protested. “Magic is only limited by the imagination of the one who uses it. Just as we are only limited by the bounds we choose to put on our actions. It is when we let others bind us by their judgments and doubts that we lose our strength and our ability to change the world.”

  “So you accept no judgment but your own?” Zara asked, suppressing a shiver.

  “Why should I?” Rowan sounded genuinely puzzled. “By what right does any other being judge what I do, even had I not been born to rule?” His expression grew distant. “It is hard to believe there was a time that I was genuinely angry over the theft of that birthright. Now I have realized it was simply a necessary step into a larger world. I was not meant to be confined to one simple kingdom. There is so much more to see and do, so many kinds of power I had never even tasted before I left my homeland.”

  Zara led him into the reception hall and lifted her torch. “But why chase after power? You are young and gifted. If you have given up your kingdom for good, you have no one to rule, so why not turn your talents to other causes than acquiring power?”