“A prince who plays the flute,” I said, “rather than use his sword. This fellow may be worth a look.”
“You’re about to get your chance,” Lapin said. “Here he comes.”
I turned and saw a young man approaching. His clothing was travel-stained. His hair, the color of warm summer earth. And his eyes …
“I think we should be safe now,” he said. “Mother and child have been reunited.”
I watched as Lapin handed him back his sword.
“Lapin says you are a prince and that your name is Tern,” I said.
“Lapin is correct on both counts.”
“Tern,” I said. “That’s a bird’s name, isn’t it? What did he do, call you with the bells?”
“He did,” Tern answered simply. “But he tells me his heart was full of you when he played them.”
And at that, the waters of my heart became as clear as moonlight on a calm lake, and I discovered what it was that the flute had added. What my heart held now that it hadn’t before.
“You think you love me,” I said, and watched his eyebrows shoot straight up.
“I don’t just think it. I know I do,” answered Prince Tern, as fearlessly as any dragonslayer ever faced down his adversary. And now he looked me full in the face, his strange eyes meeting the strangeness of mine.
“Will you love me, do you think?” he inquired.
“I might,” I replied honestly. “In the meantime, I can tell you this much, though.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I love the color of your eyes.”
At this, he smiled. “What color do you see?” he asked.
“One that has no one name,” I replied. “For it is comprised of too many things to be called by only one. Your eyes hold all the colors in the world, I think.”
“And yours, of the heavens.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Lapin exclaimed.” Why don’t you just give each other a kiss and be done with it? I’m not sure how much longer I can stand this soulful carrying-on. I’ll just leave you alone for a while, shall I?”
And so he did.
A thing which, in the end, turned out to be just as well.
Partings
That’s right. I did it. I left them alone.
A thing you may wonder at, though, in all honesty, I think the wonder is that I didn’t even think twice about it, at the time.
If you could have seen them together. Seen the way they looked into each other’s eyes. I imagine that great explorers have this same look, upon finally sighting the new land for which they’ve spent their whole lives searching. A look of discovery and recognition, all at once. It seemed to me that I could almost hear their hearts change rhythm, striving to find the way to beat as one.
You’ve heard the saying, Two’s company, three’s a crowd? Of course you have. But I’ll bet you didn’t know I was the one who coined it. Well, I did. And this was the moment of its inception. The moment Mina and Tern first beheld one another.
It’s not as if I went very far, though it may have been farther than I intended. The truth is, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to where I was going. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself. A thing I am naturally somewhat embarrassed to admit, but which I must, for, without this confession, what happened next makes no sense at all.
When will I find love? I thought. Surely, my time had come. I was older than the Lady Mina by almost eight years. Not only that, I had been playing the bells, trying to get the music of my heart right, almost literally from the day I was born. Fond as I was of them, one would think, by the law of averages alone, that I would have called to me something other than just another bird by now.
And so I have, I thought. I called to Tern.
A thing completely unique in the history of the bells. But, nevertheless, a thing that had ended up being much more important to the Lady Mina’s heart than it was to mine.
It was at this point that I stopped my aimless walking and sat down with my back against the nearest tree. Above me loomed a rocky overhang. I took the bells and the hammer from the pack upon my back, settled the bells upon my knee, and cleared my mind. Then, I simply began to play, with no other desire than to hear the sound the bells made, to bring some consolation to my sore and lonesome heart.
I’d like to be able to tell you that the tune I played was sprightly and hopeful. But it was not. Instead, it was the most melancholy set of notes that I had ever brought forth. Filled not with hope, but with fear, and the fear was this: that the future would simply be a continuation of the present. That it would hold no more than the past had held.
You should be ashamed of yourself, Lapin! one part of my mind said. But the other part had a ready answer: No. Let your melancholy have its voice, for despair is just as true a thing as that which is its opposite.
And, through the conflict in my own mind, I came to realize a thing I never had before. Always before when I had played the bells, my mind had played an active part. Thinking of the future. Commanding my hands to sound out every hope my mind might conjure. Wondering what the next moment would bring. Would it be another bird, or might this be the song which would, at long last, summon my true love?
But now, abruptly, the battle of my wits had ended in a draw. And so my mind fell silent and withdrew from the fray, leaving behind the thing I should have been listening to all along, of course. To say nothing of playing it.
The music of my heart.
And if, in this moment, both my heart and the music I played were full of despair, what of it? It was the truth, just as true as the love for Mina which had filled my heart when I had played the bells and called to Tern. And so I played of my weariness of summoning birds no matter how beautiful they were, and the pain and pleasure it brought me to be able to call another’s true love forth but not my own.
I cannot tell you how long I played. I don’t think the heart keeps time the same way the mind does. But, at last, my hands slowed and then grew still, for my heart was still a heart and not a bottomless well. I lifted the hammer above the bells and let it hover there, as if deciding whether or not to play just one more note. And, in that moment, I heard a rustle from the overhanging rock above my head.
I wonder what kind of bird it is this time, I thought.
I looked up. The face of a young woman stared back down.
Dark hair swung over her shoulder in a single plait, so long it seemed to me I might have reached up to tug on the end, though she was high above me. She had eyes as green as the boughs of the tree beneath which I still sat. I felt my heart begin to pound like a fist against a stout oak door.
I don’t believe it, I thought.
My playing had called to another human being at last. Surely, she could be no other than my own true love.
Slowly, I got to my feet.
Speak to me, I thought.
And, as if she’d heard me, the young woman’s lips parted and she spoke thus:
“Have you lost your mind?”
He stared up at me like the imbecile I was pretty sure he had to be.
“What?”
“It was a simple enough question,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. A difficult thing to do when you’re calling across even the short distance which separated us.
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked once more. “Don’t you know the woods are filled with the Lord Sarastro’s soldiers? Do you want them to know where you are?”
“Of course not,” he answered automatically. Then I watched as his face paled. “Mercy upon us,” he exclaimed, and he spun around. “Mina and Tern.”
“You know where Mina is?” I asked. “Where?”
“Not far,” he answered as he quickly put away his set of bells. It was the sound of them that had brought me to him in the first place, though I’d been going in the opposite direction at the time. I wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but I was quite sure I didn’t have the time to think about it now.
“You have to get her out
of here,” I said.
“I intend to,” he said. “Just as soon as you stop talking.”
“There’s no need to get nasty about it,” I said. “Wait a minute and I’ll come with you.”
I eyed the distance from the edge of the rock to the tree under which he stood, gathered up my skirts, then jumped. I heard his startled exclamation from below as I embraced an armful of pine needles and rough tree bark. Heedless of what it might be doing to the fine garments I still had on, I clambered down.
“What?” I said when I reached the bottom. He was staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. “You never saw a girl climb a tree before?”
“Of course I have,” he answered back. “I’ve just never seen one fly through the air to do it until now. Are you finished playing twenty questions? If so, I suggest we get a move on.”
“I’m not the one who was making enough racket to bring the soldiers in the first place, you know,” I couldn’t help but remark.
“For your information—,” he began. But he never finished, for, at that moment, several things happened all at once, and all of them enough to chill the blood.
I heard a man’s voice cry out, followed by a quick and vicious clash of arms. A woman’s voice, raised sharply in fear. And then, a voice I knew too well.
“Do not harm her, by the Lord Sarastro’s command.”
Statos, I thought.
“Harm him, and you harm me, too,” I heard the Lady Mina say. But I had no time to wonder at the words, for the bell player beside me was starting forward.
“No!” I hissed as I caught him by the arm, I pulled back with all my might and still he dragged me halfway across the tiny clearing where we stood.
“No,” I said again, desperate to convince him now. “Think! Don’t just run off. If you go to her aid, they’ll catch you, too. Then there will be no one to help her.”
At this, he stopped, though I felt the way his body trembled, like a horse longing to lunge out and race.
“How can I help her?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“I do,” I said. “At least, I think so. Not far from here, there is a grove that is sacred to the magicians of the Lord Sarastro’s order. The lord intended his daughter to be married there this morning. Even if that no longer occurs, it is certainly where he will pass his judgment on her.”
“Them,” the one beside me corrected automatically. “Don’t forget about Tern.”
“I can’t forget about someone I didn’t even know was there,” I said.
All of a sudden, his gaze met mine, and I felt that he saw me truly for the very first time.
“You are Gayna,” he said. “The daughter of the Lord Sarastro’s forrester.”
“And what if I am?” I asked. “Now suppose you tell me who you are.”
“I am Lapin,” he answered simply. “I serve die Königin der Nacht, the Lady Mina’s mother. Do you truly wish to aid her?”
“I do,” I said. “And we’ve stood around talking about it long enough. Come on. Let’s go.”
The Brief Calm Before the Storm
They took Tern’s sword, then bound his hands before him, a rope passed between them so that he could be led like an animal. Statos himself tied a thick cloth around Tern’s eyes. His hands looked strange, quivering ever so slightly, the veins on the back of them raised, as if there flowed through them some powerful yet suppressed emotion. I realized then how tight was the leash Statos kept upon his self-control. But what he longed to do instead, what it was inside him he was afraid to let burst forth, that thing I could not tell.
When he had finished, he turned back to me. I held out my hands.
“Bind me also. For what you do to Tern, you do to me.”
“I will not,” he said. “This man is a stranger, but you are the Lord Sarastro’s daughter.”
“He isn’t a stranger,” I said. “Not to me.”
I saw something that looked like pain come and go in the blue of Statos’s eyes.
“Is that why you ran away?” he asked, as if he couldn’t help himself. “To meet your sweetheart?”
I gave a sudden laugh. For though that had hardly been my intention when I fled, it was nevertheless a reasonable enough explanation of what had actually occurred.
Color flooded Statos’s face. In the next moment, it went bone white.
“You think this is a matter for laughter?” he demanded.
“No,” I said. “Of course I don’t. But I say again, if you bind him, you must bind me. If not, I’ll refuse to budge from this spot and you’ll have to carry me like a sack of potatoes. But then you’ve done that before.”
“Mina,” Tern said in a low voice.
Statos spun toward him, then. And, in that moment, I saw what it was he held so tight and fast inside. Pain, first. But hard upon its heels was the desire to rid himself of it by inflicting it upon some other. And who better than Tern, who had materialized as if from nowhere and claimed all that Statos had so longed for?
“Let word be sent to the Lord Sarastro that his daughter is found,” Statos said after a moment. “Tell him we are on our way to the grove.”
The leader of the soldiers saluted smartly. With a flick of his fingers, he gave a signal which sent one of his men scurrying off. Then he turned to Statos.
“Her eyes, at least, must be bound, even if she is the Lord Sarastro’s daughter. For the location of the sacred grove is forbidden to all but the members of the lord’s order and those who most closely serve them.”
“I do not need to be reminded of that,” Statos said sharply. Then he pulled in a breath. “Give me a cloth and I will bind her eyes. But, by my command, let her hands remain free.”
The soldier gave a second salute. “It shall be as you wish.”
And so, for the second time that day, I made a trip in the dark. My eyes wound about with thick, rough cloth. My senses dulled save for the feel of Statos’s hands upon mine. How long I walked thus, I cannot tell. But just when I was beginning to feel so weary I couldn’t take another step, Statos halted.
“Let the Lady Mina be seated, for she is tired,” he said. “But let her eyes remain bound until her father arrives. The other, leave standing. Guard him well.”
Other hands moved me gently across what felt like a carpet of soft grass beneath my feet.
“Here is a smooth rock, my lady,” a voice said, and I thought I recognized the leader of the soldiers.
“I thank you,” I replied. But when his hands fell away, I made no move to sit.
“Will you not take some rest, lady?” he inquired after a moment.
“I will rest when Tern is permitted to,” I said, and heard Statos give an exclamation of impatience.
“Leave her to her stubbornness,” he called. “We shall see how long it lasts once the Lord Sarastro arrives.”
And with that, the clearing filled with silence.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked, though I was careful to keep my voice low. “Actually, before we get to that, how do you know where we are going? Surely the location of this grove is supposed to be a secret.”
“It is a secret,” Gayna said simply. She paused to hold a branch filled with sharply pointed leaves aside so that I might pass by, unscratched, then fell into step beside me. We had been traveling for several minutes, she leading, me following behind, swiftly and in silence. But, at last, my curiosity had gotten the better of me, a thing it has often done.
“None may know where it exists save the members of the lord’s order and those who serve them most closely. That is the Lord Sarastro’s law,” she went on.
“Oh, that’s just great,” I said. “Now I’m officially breaking the lord’s law. But you still haven’t answered my question. How do you even know where the grove is?”
She turned her head to regard me for a moment, as if trying to weigh how I might take the information she was about to impart.
“I followed the lord and his party one day,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. �
�Dressed as a boy. No one even noticed I was there, let alone that I wasn’t what I seemed to be. Men are often quite unobservant, you know. They see only what they wish to see.”
“Particularly those devoted to the sun,” I said, matching my tone to hers as closely as I could. “Their minds lack subtlety, for they look only for what is brightest.”
She was silent for a moment, “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she finally admitted. “But you could be right. While you, of course, are much less likely to be fooled, as you are accustomed to subtlety, being a servant of the Queen of the Night.”
“You catch on fast,” I said, and she smiled. “You still haven’t answered my first question,” I reminded her. “What will we do once we reach the grove?”
“How on earth should I know?”
At this, I stopped and put a hand on her arm to halt her.
“Wait just a minute,” I said. “You’re saying we’re going to rescue Tern and the Lady Mina but we don’t know how?”
“I didn’t know I was going to help her escape in the first place until I was actually doing it,” Gayna said. “So I’m hoping it will be enough just to get to the grove and wait for what comes along.”
“That’s very brave of you,” I said. “Not to mention foolhardy and terrifying.”
“All right, let’s hear your plan,” she said.
“What makes you think I’ve got one?”
She put her hands on her hips, and a long-forgotten image of my grandmother flashed across my mind.
“In that case, I think you should just shut up about mine,” she said.
“What do you mean yours?” I asked. “You haven’t got one either!”
“For heavens sake” she hissed. “Keep your voice down. What, precisely, would you like to do? Something, or nothing?”
“Something, of course,” I said. “I’d just like to know what it is ahead of time.”
“We do know what it is,” she said. “We’re going to help the Lady Mina and what’s-his-name.”
Sunlight and Shadow Page 11