The Born Queen tkotab-4

by Greg Keyes

  "Don't ever try the same thing on me twice," Cazio advised, yanking the blade out.

  Hespero went down on one knee, then suddenly leaped forward. Cazio caught the blade and turned it in a bind, so close to missing it that the point dragged across his forehead. Hespero's low lunge exposed his back, and Cazio drove his sword down between his shoulder blades.

  Then he slipped on his own blood and fell. As Austra rushed to him, he put his hand over his wound and closed his eyes.

  Stephen cupped Anne's face in his hand and smiled ever more broadly.

  "Are you ready, little queen?"

  Anne felt as if her head were full of wasps, but she couldn't do anything but stare up at him with hatred.

  But then she felt new strength enter her, strength of a sort she had never known before. It came boiling up in her not from the sedos but from the awful depths surrounding all, the chaos from which the world had been born.

  My gift, o Queen, Qexqaneh said.

  Her lungs cleared. The weight vanished.

  The law of death is mended, the Skaslos said.

  Stephen staggered back. "No," he said.

  "Oh, yes," Anne said. "Certainly yes."

  Her right hand was the sickle of the dark moon, and her left was the hammer of old night, and with them she struck so that he fell in pieces and she hurled the pieces out into the abyss, and she stood and grew until the world was tiny beneath her.

  Now, the Kept murmured. Now, my sweet, you only need kill me, and all is done.

  Anne stretched her grin. "And how do I do that, Qexqaneh?"

  You are the rivers. You are the Night Before the World. Take me into you and destroy me. Give me oblivion at long last. You have my power. Now take my soul.

  "Fine," Anne said. "I'll do that, then."

  Cazio felt Austra stumble. He tried to put all his weight back on his own feet, but they just wouldn't take it.

  "Stop that," Austra said. "I can support you."

  "Not up the hill, you can't," Cazio said.

  "I have to get you to a leic," she replied.

  "I think it would be better if you went and found one," he said.

  "I don't want to leave you."

  "Then just sit here with me," he said.

  "That's stupid. You're bleeding."

  "It's not so bad," he lied.

  "I'm not a fool, Cazio," she muttered. "Why does everyone take me for a fool?"

  As they crossed the threshold of the crypt, Austra went rigid and gasped. Cazio looked to see what the matter was. Stephen Darige lay facedown a few feet away, but that didn't seem to be what she was looking at.

  "Oh, no," Austra said. She suddenly felt very warm-no, hot, so hot he couldn't keep his arm across her shoulders. He stood away, teetered, and had to lean against the mausoleum wall to stay on his feet.

  "No," Austra repeated. Her eyes suddenly incandesced, and yellow flame sprang from them.

  "Austra!" he screamed.

  She looked at him, and she wasn't Austra but a woman with fine, dark features and arching brows, then a Sefry with white hair. She was Anne, with flaming tresses. She was every woman Cazio had ever made love to, then every woman he had ever met. Her clothes had begun to smolder.

  "What's happening?" Cazio screamed.

  "She's doing it!" Austra said, her voice changing like her face. Then, more exultantly, "We're doing it!"

  The ground suddenly was colored with strange light, and Cazio looked up and saw a sun descending toward them, a ball of writhing flame and shadow that made the oldest, most animal parts of him quiver and long to run and never stop running, to find a place where a thing like that couldn't be.

  Instead he held on to the stone, panting, fighting the fear with all the life he had left in him.

  "Austra," someone said quietly.

  Stephen was standing a few kingsyards away. He didn't look good. For one thing, one of his eyes was missing.

  "Austra," he said. "You're the only one who can stop her. Do you understand? He's tricked her. He'll die, yes, but he'll take the world with him. Anne will go mad; it's too much power. You feel it, don't you?"

  "I feel it," Austra said. Her voice was that of a woman in the rising throes of passion.

  "Fight her," Stephen said. "You have claim to the power, too."

  "Why should I fight it?" Austra asked. "It's wonderful. I'll have the whole world in my veins soon."

  "Yes," Stephen said. "I know." He stepped closer. "I didn't know what he was, Austra. That was what I was missing. He's been waiting in his prison for two thousand years, planning this moment, building it, planting the seeds in all of us. He doesn't want to rule, he doesn't want to return his race to glory, he just wants to die and take everything with him. Can't you see it?"

  "Why should I believe you?"

  "Don't," he said. "Go see for yourself."

  Flames began to dance on her garments. She looked at Cazio, and for a moment her face was that of the Austra he loved.

  "Cazio?" she asked.

  "I love you," he said. "Do what's right."

  Then his legs went out from under him.

  Aspar would have laughed if he could, but the joy was there in the leaves and blossoms for anyone to see. He healed the broken, ended the hopeless, and pulled in the poison, spreading and diffusing it, changing it into something new. He found the heart of the Sarnwood witch and took her in, too, took all of her children in, and reckoned at last she understood, because she stopped fighting him and lent him her strength.

  Or perhaps it was that she saw what he saw, the deadly fire kindled in the west, the one thing that would stop life's rebirth and send everything to oblivion.

  The real enemy.

  He didn't need a summoning, not now, and so he moved his weight across the world, fearing it was already too late.

  Anne felt the black blood of the Kept flowing into her veins and cried out with glee, knowing that no one since time began had wielded might like this: not the Skasloi, not Virgenya Dare, no one. She was saint, demon, dragon, tempest, the fire in the earth. There had never been a name for what she was becoming. The Kept coiled around her as the life leaked from him, and his every touch sent shudders through her body, pleasure and pain so pure that she couldn't tell them apart and wouldn't if she could. Through his eyes she saw a hundred thousand years of such sensation and more, and the anticipation was its own luscious bliss.

  More! she shouted.

  There is more, the dying demon replied. So much more.

  Stephen tried to keep his focus, tried to stay in the world, but it was difficult with so much of him gone. Only the ancient, terrible obstinacy of Kauron had let him keep anything, but even that was fading, and soon Anne would notice her mess and clean it up.

  It depended on this girl. He ached to take Austra in his arms and drain the life and power from her; she was a vein that tapped right into the thing Anne was becoming, and he-if he had the gift-could bleed Anne through her. She would never see it coming.

  But he no longer had that gift. He was less than a skeleton of himself.

  He watched as she knelt by Cazio, murmuring, as her clothing finally exploded in blue flame and she was forced to step back from her lover to avoid charring him.

  "You can't heal him, if that's what you're trying to do," Stephen said. "You can't heal anything. Neither can she. Always a storm, never a gentle rain. Do you understand? But you are her weak spot."

  Austra stared at him with her blistering eyes for a moment, and then the flames began to subside, then smoke, until she was wreathed in dark vapor and her eyes shone like green lamps. Then she lifted toward the terror that hung above them.

  Anne felt an ebb in her strength and sought jealously for the source of it. Had she missed someone? Was Hespero still alive?

  But no, it was just Austra, bearing a fraction of her strength.

  If you die, the Kept said, she inherits all.

  She doesn't have the power to kill me, Anne said. And she wouldn't if she could.r />
  She can betray you more than anyone. You know that.

  "Don't listen to him, Anne," Austra said.

  "Of course I won't," Anne replied. "We'll rule together, won't we?"

  "Anne, Cazio is dying," Austra said. "Can you heal him?

  "No," she said. She hadn't realized until she said it that it was true.

  Seize the Vhen throne, Qexqaneh interrupted. Then you can heal any of these worms if that is your wish.

  "He's lying, Anne."

  "Why should he? He's sacrificing himself for me."

  "He's using you to destroy the world."

  "So he thinks," Anne said. "But I'm the one with the power now. Anyway, what's so great about this world? You're part of me now; you can see what vermin people are. I'll create another world. I already see how it could be done. We'll make it the way we want it, the way it ought to be."

  "That's crazy, Anne. That means killing everyone you've ever known, everyone dear to you."

  "Like who?" Anne screamed. "My father? Fastia? Elseny? My mother is dead, too; did you know that? Everyone I care for is already dead except you and Cazio, and my patience is wearing a little thin with you. Now, if you want Cazio to live, either join me or give up your gifts, because we've got one battle left, and I need all the strength I can muster. After that we can have everything, Austra, just the way we want it."

  Austra opened her mouth again, but then she looked beyond Anne.

  "I'll save you, Anne," she said.

  Anne turned.

  She stood in a field of ebony roses, the pearls of her dress gleaming like dull bone in the moonlight. The air was so thick with the scent of the blooms that she thought she would choke.

  There was no end to them; they stretched to the horizon in a series of low rises, stems bent by a murmuring wind. She turned slowly to see if it was thus in all directions.

  Behind her the field ended abruptly in a wall of trees, black-boled monsters covered with puckered thorns bigger than her hand, rising so high she couldn't see their tops in the dim light. Thorn vines as thick as her arm tangled between the trees and crept along the ground. Through the trees and beyond the vines was only darkness. A greedy darkness, she felt, a darkness that watched her, hated her, wanted her.

  "I've been here before," she told the forest. "I'm not frightened this time."

  Something pushed through the thorns, coming toward her. Moonlight gleamed on a black-mailed arm and the fingers of a hand, uncurling.

  And then the helmet came through, a tall tapering helm with black horns curving up, set on the shoulders of a giant.

  But this time, standing her ground, she saw it wasn't mail but bark, and the helmet was moss and horn and stone. And of the face she could only see the eyes, wells of life and death, birth and decay-need and vengeance.

  You have the power, the fading voice of the Kept told her. Kill him and complete yourself.

  Anne gathered herself, but her peripheral vision caught motion, and she saw Austra running across the field, running straight for the Briar King.

  If he gets her, you lose, the Kept said. You must kill her now.

  Anne stood, watching.

  Kill her, Qexqaneh said more urgently. Do you understand? Through her he can defeat us.

  Anne lashed out at Austra, and the girl stumbled. She tried to rip through the connection between them, recover her power, but she saw what the Kept meant, how intimate that connection really was. Killing Austra was the only way for Anne to be whole, to possess everything.

  She reached out, felt the life beating in Austra, knew the familiar smell of her, that little lock of hair that was always out of place, always had been since they were little girls. The Briar King reached for her, and Anne, hot tears in her eyes, started to squeeze Austra's heart.

  Austra stumbled to her knees. She looked toward Anne, her eyes mortal now, wide as saucers, just another Mannish beast that didn't understand why it had to die.

  Yes, the Kept sighed. Finally.

  Somehow Austra stood back up, even as the strength drained out of her, as Anne took her in. The sky dimmed as she diminished and then went away.

  "Our secret place," she heard Austra whisper in the darkness.

  But it wasn't complete darkness, and Anne saw they were again in the chamber beneath the horz. But now the sarcophagus was open, and in it Austra sat, back propped against one stone wall. She looked as she had when she was nine, a pale waif.

  "I knew better," the little girl said. "I knew better than to hope for anything for myself."

  "Stop whining," Anne said. "You had a better life than you could have ever hoped for, born as you were."

  "You're right," Austra said. "And I wouldn't trade it. You were always going to be the end of me, Anne. I knew that. You'll bury me here, and the circle goes on."

  "You didn't know," Anne accused.

  "Of course I did. I didn't know how it would happen. It nearly happened a dozen times when we were little."

  "That's nonsense. I loved you."

  "It's how you love," she replied. "It's how you love, Anne."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "You probably don't," Austra replied, closing her eyes. "I love you anyway."

  "He'll kill us both, Austra, if he gets you."

  She nodded tiredly. "I know you won't, but please let Cazio go. Can you do that for me?"

  Anne started to agree, but why should she? She didn't have to do anything Austra said or for that matter listen to anything she said. She was the only one who could make her feel like this, feel like…

  Feel like what? she suddenly wondered.

  But she knew that, too. When her mother-or Fastia, or anyone-disapproved of something she did, she knew she might be in trouble, but deep down she never actually felt bad.

  When Austra disapproved of her, she knew in her heart she was wrong.

  She didn't need that, did she?

  She felt the Briar King, his power swelling, reaching for what remained of Austra, tearing through the illusory tomb.

  Time was up. She had a heartbeat left to act, but it was all she needed.

  No.

  With a soft, chagrined laugh, Anne released her hold. The Briar King took Austra and loomed up to the sky. The Kept screamed once as he was ripped from her and hurled into the oblivion he craved, and then she felt as if all her veins had been opened, and the scent of black roses filled her lungs until there was nothing else.

  EPILOGUE

  THE DAY the last Skasloi stronghold fell began the age known as Eberon Vhasris Slanon in the language of the elder Cavarum. When the language itself was forgotten by all but a few cloistered scholars in the Church, the name for the age persisted in the tongues of men as Everon, just as Slanon remained attached to the place of victory in the Lierish form Eslen.

  Everon was an age of human beings in all their glories and failings. The children of the Rebellion multiplied and covered the land with their kingdoms.

  In the year 2223 E, the age of Everon came to an abrupt and terrible end.

  It may be that I am the last to remember it.

  I was dying when the Briar King came. When the battle was done, he lifted me in his hand of living vines and opened those eyes of his upon me.

  I knew my friend, and he knew me, and I wept at what he had given up, but more at what he had gained. He took me away, and in his long, slow way he mended me. He meant well.

  Of all that died and lived that night, only I was left with the sight, and it was a faint reflection of what I once had. Like Aspar's Grim, my one eye can look beyond the horizons of days and leagues-but never again at my command.

  The hour of treasured shadows had just struck in Vitellio, and in the little town of Avella, that meant everyone from the carpenter to a shopkeeper-or anyone who had sense-had found shade and a light snack. This was true even now, when the days were shorter and the shadows longer. Fewer duels were fought over the prime spots, and thus it was that this deep in the month Utavamenza, Alo was abl
e to rest in the shade of the fountain of the Lady Fiussa without much fear of molestation, even given the current climate in town and the well-known fact that his skills with the sword were far from perfect.

  He enjoyed the wine as best he could, knowing it would be his last for a while. He could wish for some bread to go with it, but he might as well ask Fiussa to weep sapphires.

  He dozed on and off in the weakening autumn sun. A horse clopped across the stones of the piato; a girl sang from her window. He dreamed of better days.

  He opened his eyes and found Lady Fiussa gazing down at him. She was young, fair, very pretty.

  Only the lady ought to be naked, and this woman was dressed, oddly enough, as a man, in breeches and doublet, complete with riding hat.

  "Lady," he said, scrambling to his feet.

  "Hush," the girl said. "Are you the one they call Alo?"

  "I am," he said. "I am very much he."

  "That's good," she said. "I have something for you from an old friend."

  She had a charming accent, Alo noticed.

  "What is it?"

  She held something out for him. It was a key.

  "Zmierda," he swore. "That's Cazio's key. The key to his triva. Where did you get that?"

  "It's a long story," she said. "He wanted you to have it."

  "Is he well?"

  She looked away, and Alo felt his heart sink.

  "It was kind of him," Alo said, "but it won't do me any good. Some of Chiuno's thugs are using it. They broke in a while back."

  "Chiuno?"

  "The new lord of Avella," he said. He lowered his voice. "A bandit, really. But with the Church in civil war and the Medicii all hurrying to take sides, little towns like ours get forgotten. I'm leaving myself this afternoon."

  "I see," she said.

  "Lady, who are you?"

  "My name is Austra," she replied.

  "Can't you tell me anything else about my friend?" he asked.

  But she smiled a faint, enigmatic smile and walked away, mounted a scruffy-looking horse, and rode out of town on the Vio aza Vero.