Saelil's hands knotted into fists. "You wanted a star."
"I wanted not to marry that fat idiot, Murel," Linana said, "and asking for something impossible seemed the best way to keep that from happening. But now that you've actually brought a star, I suppose Father will make me go through with it." She hesitated. "I don't suppose I can talk you into transporting the wretched thing back to where it came from?"
Anger surged through Saelil. Four good men had died for this foolish quest! Her own family were imprisoned somewhere in the palace, hostage to the Kalip's whims, and now she stood perilously close to flaming death herself, all to fetch back something the girl had never actually wanted!
Her face seemed to frighten Linana, who cowered behind the divan. "I just want to have a real life—like you," she said. "I want to see the world and go on adventures."
"Then tell your father that," Saelil said as heat built and built in her hands and feet. Sweat soaked her tunic. Her hair crackled dangerously. "Or just leave. Life is not going to find you inside this gilt box!"
She opened her right eye just a crack. The opposite wall caught fire. Hastily, she closed her eye again. Inside her breast, the star spun merrily, throwing off painful multicolored sparks. "Stop that!" she told it.
Stop me yourself.
"Go away," Linana said, "before you burn down the whole palace!"
Voices cried out down the hallway. No doubt, someone smelled the heavy roiling smoke.
Saelil heard the door burst open. "What are you doing to the First-Born Daughter?" a female voice said.
Saelil flailed for Linana, staggering around the divan, hands outstretched. "Giving her what she asked for!" She grazed a slender arm, then caught hold of a wrist and held tight.
Linana cried out and fought to free herself.
"Tell your father to release my brothers!" Saelil said, shaking the girl. Flames roared inside her head as though she were stoking an immense bonfire.
Linana screamed with pain and then Saelil let her go. She opened one eye just enough to glimpse the reddened skin circling the girl's wrist. Shame flooded through her. She had hurt a child. That was unworthy of her training.
Inside her head, the flames died back a bit.
Burn her up! the star said. Burn them all!
"What is this!" the Kalip shouted. "What are you doing to my daughter?"
Saelil turned toward the voice. "I have brought her a star, mighty Kalip, as you commanded."
"Where is it?" he said from the doorway, apparently afraid to come closer.
"Release my family," she said, "and I will show you."
"How do I know that you really have it?"
Saelil's anger flared and the flames within leapt high again. She stretched out a hand and touched the divan. It burst into oily flames.
"Stop that!" the Kalip shouted.
The star laughed. Let me eat them all!
"That's why you came with me, isn't it?" she murmured to it. "You want to burn up the world!"
And this time I will!
Fire roared inside her head as the star fought to escape the bounds of her flesh. She shuddered and then she could see it behind her eyes, blue wrapped in red, yellow, green, gold, orange, purple, all the colors of a star's heart. "You have no business up here in the world of men. You should go back to the lake."
That noisome puddle?
"The skies, then."
Even the sky cannot hold me!
She glimpsed the edges of a memory that was not hers, a long dark fall, plunging into a half-frozen lake, immersion in the chill watery silence for such a long time, furious and bored beyond imagining—until the first of the Kalip's emissaries came to the shore looking for a star—
"You didn't just fall, you were cast out of the sky," she said, placing spread fingers on her breast as though to hold the star in. "The other stars exiled you."
Flames leapt again behind her eyes. I will—return.
She should take it back to the lake. Saelil saw that now. It must return to the cool dark and its make-believe halls. "This was a mistake," she told the Kalip and Linana. "I am going back to the mountain before anyone else is hurt."
She opened herself to the colors again. They sprang into life all around her, long flowing bands of reds, blues, golds, yellows, greens, golds, purples. Blue had brought her here, so most likely she would need another color to take her back to that cold little lake under the waterfall. She turned to a band of scintillating emerald, tasting its tartness, smelling fresh-cut grass.
"Not with my star!" the Kalip roared. He seized her with both hands.
She tried to free herself, but the Kalip shook and shook her until the star within her breast blazed up, brighter than the sun, then splintered. Suddenly she was not one Saelil, but seven, each concealing a different colored star in her heart. Emerald Saelil opened her eyes. She still stood in Linana's chambers. Six other versions of her face gazed back at her, each with different colored eyes.
She placed a hand on her breastbone, feeling the star still burning inside her, but now not quite so fiercely.
The Kalip had fallen to his knees, staring in horror and pain at his burned hands. "Papa!" Linana cried.
Rose-Red Saelil, just to Emerald's right, bent to gaze into his eyes. "Let my brothers leave the palace," she said and knew then that strength of the red star was persuasion.
Tears were running down his face. He nodded, then, with a trembling wave, dispatched guards to see that it was done.
"As I told you, great magicks always extract a price," Sky-Blue Saelil said, helping him back onto his feet. She let the power of the blue star seep into his mind so that he calmed and knew that the alteration would last through the brutal ruler's life. Star-touched, he would never again be the same man.
Emerald Saelil placed shimmering green hands over his burned ones and released just the slightest spark of green energy into his ruined flesh. The burns sparkled, then the Kalip cried out and held his hands up. They were scarred, but healed.
Linana sobbed. "Take the wretched thing away! Papa shouldn't have listened to me! I never wanted it in the first place!"
Yellow Saelil reached for her sister-selves. Her strength was that of unity and she saw how to bind them together even though their bodies had separated.
"We must go back to the lake," all seven said in unison.
No! cried the sundered star. I wish to travel the surface and experience all that has so long been denied me!
It was dangerous, the Saelils thought, but now perhaps not as much so, cleaved into seven pieces like a fine diamond, each with its own innate potent quality. "But," the selves said, "if we do not put the star back into the lake, we can never again be one."
The bands of color shimmered around them like garish currents in some unimaginable sea. Gold Saelil held out her glittering hands. "I now possess understanding," she said, "which allows me to speak the language of any living creature. Such would be wasted under the chill waters of the lake."
"And I have joy," Orange Saelil said. She touched Linana's shoulder and the girl stared at her in wonder, tears forgotten. "What use is joy beneath the waves? I doubt fish and snails have any need of it."
The six turned to Purple Saelil. Tears welled up in her purple eyes. "My fragment is sorrow," she said, "which also has its place." She sighed. "Think, sisters. If we return the pieces to the lake, the star will once again be whole, lying in wait for the next human foolish enough to covet its magick."
And someone would go up to the heights on just such an errand, they all knew, once this story spread through the towns, hamlets, and countryside, as it surely would. The greedy star would just take more and more lives until someone else succeeded in transporting it back down the mountain, then freed it to "burn up the entire world" as it so ardently desired.
Even now, the Saelils could feel how the fragments yearned to be reunited, how they were each about to burn their way out through the fragile bonds of flesh as long as they were in such close
proximity.
Emerald Saelil gasped and backed away. "We must go, sisters," she said. "Now and faraway!"
"In different directions!" Gold Saelil said.
"And never meet again," Purple Saelil said. "If even two of the fragments reunite, the world will be in danger."
Yellow Saelil cried out as the yellow star in her breast blazed, reaching hungrily for its fellows, seeking once again to be whole. She turned and ran from Linana's chambers, from the palace, from the town of Quernon itself.
Very dimly, she felt the rest also leaving the palace, each setting out on a different path, the star fragments fading to quiescence as their fellows separated.
Your journey will be hardest, the star within her said. The strength of yellow fire is unity, but you mean to deny me any opportunity to ever again be whole.
"If you were whole, you would take many lives," Yellow Saelil said. "This way, you can see new lands, meet people, maybe even one day find another star also walking the Earth."
There are others?
"Do you think you are the only star ever to fall out of the heavens?" Yellow Saelil said. She placed a hand on her breast, comforting the star as though it were a querulous child. "Each night, we will keep watch on the skies and see if one of your fellows does not follow you to the ground."
If it does, it will be very angry.
"Then we will console it and teach it how to exist down here with its fellows," she said.
The yellow star was quiet then, and in some small measure, content. They had made a start at accommodation, the two of them. She could only hope her sister-selves, scattering across the world, were doing as well.
With a sigh, Yellow Saelil and her star sat on a hillside with a clear view of the sky and waited for night with its vast field of stars.
Sooner or later, another one would come calling. Together, they would see that this star had a better welcome.
A Wall To Keep The World Out
Helen E. Davis
Ann Sharp and I saw Disney's movie "Beauty and the Beast" together. As we discussed it afterward, we were in complete agreement on one thing: "Forget the handsome prince; we'll take the library!" This story has a prince who would probably agree with us about the library, but somehow the people around him don't quite appreciate his love of learning.
Helen E, Davis lives in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband, two children, and two and a half cats. She has self-published two printed novels and two installment novels on the web. This is her third professional short story sale. Her website is www.sff.net/people/dragonwriter.
His eyes were blue, the deep, clear blue of a cool pond on a hot day, Kyrlia noted above their crossed weapons. Raccan's long face was smooth, not wrinkled with age, and the hands that wielded the staff were strong. His hair, pulled back into a long, white ponytail, had fooled her—but now she saw that it was not the brittle white hair of old age, but that rare fine hair of blond beyond blond.
"What do you want?" he asked as he thrust her back several steps.
Her breath caught—wizards and their damn spells! "I'm supposed to kill you."
"And then?" Raccan asked. He smiled as he pushed her back. "What else did His Majesty hire you to do?"
"We're to rescue Prince Salace." She lifted her rapier.
"Trivial. Why didn't he send his elite guard?" Raccan shifted his staff, the better to block her blow. Then he looked her in the eye, and all that blueness wrapped around her and hugged her tight.
This was a spell, she told herself firmly, shaking off the distraction. "Prince Salace—where is he?"
"He's in the library. North tower, second floor, you can't miss it. The room is filled with books. All my books." He sighed.
Kyrlia rushed him, but the move was half-hearted. "Why did you take him?"
He blocked her. "I didn't. He came on his own."
"But King Illich told us...."
"Ah. Now I see why he used mercenaries." Raccan wove a sign with his free hand. Behind him, a hidden door opened in the wall. He stepped through and said, as the door closed, "North tower, second floor."
* * * *
"You let him escape?" Baylin stared at Kyrlia over crossed arms. Her older cousin was shorter than she, but heavily muscled. Scars from a shattered pitcher pitted his cheek and chin, a memento from a failed relationship. "All you had to do was slip in, sneak up, and put the stiletto into his neck. What's so hard about that?"
"The room was warded." She crossed her own arms against him. "Maybe the hall, as well. He was waiting when I walked in. But he told me where to find the Prince. The boy is in the north tower, on the second floor."
Baylin looked across the small, bare courtyard, where the only thing that moved was a dust devil. The hot desert sun had bleached the ground white. Four stone walls enclosed the keep, and a tower stood at each corner. Various outbuildings crouched by the walls, silent, as if the wizard lived alone. The door to the north tower stood ajar and unguarded. "He's setting a trap for us."
Edor, the younger cousin, peered into a small crystal ball half-hidden in his narrow palm. His slender, youthful face came in handy for charming barmaids and judges. "According to my seer stone, there are no traps out here."
"Not all traps are magical," Baylin snapped.
"So we'll be careful," Kyrlia said. Glancing into a water barrel standing next to the wall, she saw her face reflected in the smooth surface. A face way too thin, way too sharp. Tendrils of hair had escaped from her braid and floated around her face like flying serpents. Dust from the long journey smudged her face and her clothes. She scooped up a handful of cold water and quickly scrubbed her cheeks.
Both Baylin and Edor stared at her.
"What? Hasn't a woman the right to clean up?"
Edor tilted his head. "Never thought of you as a woman before."
"Right now, we are mercenaries," Baylin stated. "Not women or men. We've a wizard to kill and a boy to rescue. And since the wizard has escaped, let's get on to the boy—we'll have another go at the wizard later. Do you have the Freedom Spell?"
"Do you want to use it now?" Edor pulled out a leather envelope from his side pouch. The spell, created by a Royal Wizard, had been fed to a chicken who then laid it in a half-sized egg. Spoken words activated the spell, which was then released by crushing the egg. As the only one of the three who could read, Kyrlia carried the parchment with the words written down.
"Let's find the boy, first. We grab him, free him, and then go out by the sally door. Inja is waiting with the cart. Got that?"
Kyrlia and Edor nodded.
"Good. Now stay on your guard—remember what the king said: this is a dangerous and vicious wizard."
* * * *
"Kill Raccan first," King Illich had said. "His death will dissolve his magical traps. Then, to free the boy, you must read the words and crush the egg—in that order. When you find the boy, you may also find that Raccan has put some sort of statue spell on him—one of his specialties, you understand. Do not worry—my wizards will restore him."
Why would the traps dissolve when the statue spell would not? Krylia wondered. How could a man with such calm blue eyes cast such an evil spell on a boy?
* * * *
At the north tower Edor passed his seer stone all around the door, then shook his head. No magical traps. Cautiously Baylin nudged the door wide. Nothing crashed down. He peered inside, then poked his broadsword through the doorway. Still nothing.
The storeroom within looked safe, but could have hidden dangers. The only light came from the two doors on opposite sides of the room. The farther one apparently gave onto a stairway that curved up between the inner and outer walls of the tower. There were boxes and barrels to conceal guards, hanging bunches of dried herbs that might have covered murder holes, and impenetrable shadows. Edor looked at his seer stone and mouthed, Nothing.
Baylin made his way across the room, then beckoned. Body tensed like a bowstring, Kyrlia followed. Edor came after. Then the trio crept up the stair, w
ith Baylin probing and testing every step. Kyrlia tensed at every breeze and started at doves cooing beyond the arrow slits.
"Hold," Edor whispered, just as a door to the second floor came into sight. He raised his seer stone, now a cloudy white. "There's a spell here."
Kyrlia frowned at the color. Red or black meant that the spell was dangerous, while blue indicated a beneficial spell. But white? "What kind is it?"
Baylin frowned. "That would be the holding spell, the one we have to break. But not yet. Not until we search every inch of this tower for traps."
With that he continued his slow progress upwards, then stepped through the doorway. Suddenly he cried out. Kyrlia and Baylin rushed after, then stopped short to keep from knocking him into a thick amber wall that cut off most of the room. Only a padded bench and half a table stood outside it, while the rest—shelves of books, long tables, and ornately carved chairs—were within.
A teenaged boy read at one of the tables, his face pale in the brightness of a lamp. His clothes were rumpled and his hair uncombed, but otherwise he looked unharmed and healthy. He rocked back and forth as he read, and his hand tapped the table.
"Hello!" Kyrlia called to him. "We've come to rescue you!"
There was no response.
"He can't hear us until we free him." Baylin turned to his brother. "Are there any other spells in here?"
Edor held up his seer stone. "No."
"We'll use the Freedom Spell now. Kyrlia—as soon as the wall goes down, take charge of the boy. Keep him out of the way as we deal with Raccan."
Deal with. Kill. Kyrlia went cold as she thought of his life's blood spilling across his fair hands, his white hair. "Maybe he won't try to stop us. He told me, after all, where to find Prince Salace."
Baylin snorted. "It's a trap—but we're the ones who will be waiting. The spell, now."
As the one who could read, Kyrlia carried the parchment. She studied it, running the sounds of the strange words through her mind, while Edor prepared to crush the egg.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXV Page 15