Heart of Valor - V1 Dec 2004

by Lisa Jane Smith

  Charles, slowly, did.

  “Charles Edward, the Quislai and their chosen are not subject to the Council’s law. If you wish, you may leave this place.”

  Charles’s hand, as if involuntarily, went to his forehead where Elwyn’s mark shone faintly. He turned to Alys and Janie and Claudia, looking uncomfortable.

  “What’s he mean?”

  “He means you can get off,” Janie hissed. “You can walk out of here right now.”

  “And what about you guys?”

  “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

  Charles stared a moment, and then a rather odd smile tugged at his lips. He faced the Archon again.

  “No thanks,” he said, tonelessly. “If it’s all the same to you, I guess I’ll just stay with my sisters.” He stepped back, his blue eyes cool and proud. Alys took his hand and he let her.

  What was it in the Archon’s face? Regret, again? Reluctant admiration? It didn’t matter; he was turning to Morgana now.

  “Know this, that Morgana Shee, wielder of the Sun Gold, exile of Findahl, is found guilty of returning to this world against the Council’s express decree, of teaching the Wild Arts to humans, and of inciting humans to defy the Council’s law. These charges have been proved. Morgana, have you anything to say?”

  “Yes.” Morgana’s voice was clear and unhurried. She had her back to Alys, her storm-cloud hair in disarray about her shoulders, her slight body drawn up into one pure line of scorn. “The proof of the charges lies all too clearly before you. I am here, therefore I am guilty. I have never asked for mercy from the Council—and never expected sense from it, either. But, I warn you, one of your magistrates is guilty of far greater crimes than I. And, I tell you, those four humans are infants whose wills are subject to my own. They are not responsible for their actions.”

  “Primitives seldom think for themselves. That has been taken into consideration.” But Alys saw the sadness in those old, dark eyes. Ice ran up and down her spine. Death, she thought. The penalty for humans who enter the Wildworld is death.

  “Know this,” the slow, resonant voice was continuing, “that Thia Pendriel, wielder of the Ice Silver, Magistrate of Findahl, is found guiltless of charges regarding her departure from this world and this night’s disturbance. These acts were done in accordance with the Council’s law and to restrain a known criminal.” Alys stared in unbelief as an attendant stepped forward as if to undo the golden chains on Thia Pendriel’s wrists. She turned to the others: Charles looked dazed, Claudia bewildered and frightened. Only Janie, teeth gnawing her lower lip, met her eyes.

  “Why not?” she said to Alys, shrugging slightly. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Breathing hard, Alys tried to clear her throat. Her voice still came out hoarse and rushed and tremulous.

  “What about all the other things she’s done?”

  The attendant paused. Every eye in the room fixed on Alys.

  The dark-haired young man with the panther lolling in front of him broke the silence. “There are no other charges against her.”

  “Well, maybe there should be. Or is it all right in this world to try to murder people, and to steal Gems of Power, and to plot with sorcerers like Cadal Forge—”

  “Cease!” said the woman who sat on one side of the Archon, but Thia Pendriel spoke before she could go on.

  “Magistress Zoe, I am as ignorant of these charges as you.

  But I would hear them and answer them. I want there to be no doubt about the wisdom of the Archon’s judgment.” Her voice was as courteous as ever, and so reasonable that Alys almost found herself believing the words. “Now, child, speak.”

  Alys swallowed and began with difficulty. “You plotted with Cadal Forge to come into our world and take it over.”

  Light gleamed of? the circlet as Thia Pendriel slowly shook her head. “No,” she said gently. “I won Cadal Forge’s trust so I could discover his plans. I tried to forestall him, and, failing that, followed him into your world to bring him to justice.”

  “You stole Heart of Valor!”

  There were exclamations, not merely disapproving, now, but angry.

  “Heart of Valor is one of the Forgotten Gems, destroyed long ago in the wars before the Time of Chaos.”

  “Cadal Forge had it, and you stole it—”

  “Child,” said Thia Pendriel gently, “If I had a Gem of Power, would I be here?” She lifted her bound hands in a small gesture of helplessness.

  Yes, thought Alys, because you’re getting away with all of it, aren’t you? With everything you want.

  “You sent creatures down after us. A shape shifter and hundreds of elementals. They nearly killed us.”

  “I

  did this?” the tall councillor said softly. “I? And how do you know that?” Alys looked at Janie for support, but Janie was staring into space, eyes narrowed.

  “You let Merlin out of the tree. And he has a Gem, too.”

  Furious, she bit her lip hard in anticipation of the councillor’s answer. No proof. They knew perfectly well what Thia Pendriel had done, but there was no proof of any of it. As Janie had said so often, Thia Pendriel was smart.

  “I have no idea of who or what you are talking about,” said Thia Pendriel steadily, looking straight at her.

  The woman beside the Archon, Magistress Zoe, leaned forward, face grave. “You speak again of the Gems of Power, young one. How can you know anything of them? They were all lost countless years ago, all but the three which are watched eternally by the Guardian here in the Serpent’s Lair. They belong to no one, and no one, not even the Archon himself, could steal them from a Feathered Serpent.”

  “Those aren’t the Gems I’m talking about! I’m talking about Heart of Valor and Mirror of Heaven—”

  “Both lost.”

  “No they aren’t!” But we are, thought Alys. Whatever it was Thia Pendriel wanted to do, she was succeeding with a vengeance. It was the word of four damp, grubby human criminals against hers.

  The Archon put an end to it. “We have listened to your accusations. Have you any proof of what you say?”

  Alys looked at the others miserably and hissed, “Where’s Merlin? If we could find him, they’d believe us. And wherever he is, he’s got Mirror of Heaven. And what about Heart of Valor? Where is if?”

  There was no answer from any of them, though Janie’s head came up abruptly.

  Slowly, Alys turned back to the Archon. But before she could speak, Janie did. Those purple eyes were no longer distant but blazing.

  “Yes!” she said. “We do have proof! Or, at least, we can prove what we say.” She reached a hand into her pocket and brought out a rather squashed plastic bag. Alys, wildly, wondered if she’d gone mad. “This is Worldleaf.”

  The Archon’s face betrayed his surprise. “Worldleaf! How long has it been since that has grown in Findahl?”

  “I don’t know. Morgana has had hers stored for centuries. We,” said Janie carefully and precisely, “have only used it for persuading other people to believe us when we tell them the truth. But I don’t see why it couldn’t be used the other way around, to detect falsehood. Now, suppose”—she took a step toward Thia Pendriel—“I give this to the Archon, and you tell him your story again—”

  Pandemonium broke out.

  SEVENTEEN

  Mirror of Heaven

  The thin gold chains around Thia Pendriel’s wrists snapped like spider webs and a red light shone between her fingers. Alys knew what it was even before Janie spoke. Heart of Valor.

  “She

  had it, of course.” The tall councillor, moving more swiftly than Alys would have thought possible, snatched up her Silver Staff. Just an instant behind her, Janie dove. Alys thought she was going for the virtue wand, but instead Morgana’s staff was suddenly flying through the air. Morgana caught it and as the gold sparks swarmed through it her chains fell free. She turned it on Thia Pendriel, but two of the councillors, the dark man and Magistress Zoe, had their staffs alo
ft and raised against her. Allies of Thia Pendriel, Alys realized, profoundly shocked. The rest of the Council seemed also to have been shocked into stillness, but in an instant all that changed. Alys had a confused impression of swirling robes, diving serpents, shouting voices. Thia Pendriel was running, with Morgana after her. “Made” elementals, the creatures Janie had called boojums, were suddenly all around—silky eels and creeping slugs and trembling icicles of fire. Alys dove beside Janie and grabbed the sword and then tried to grab Janie, too.

  “Come with me!”

  “I have to go to Morgana!”

  “Janie, no! Listen to me—” But Janie twisted away and was gone. Smoke or fog was rolling into the room in great swirling clouds, lit with the hyaline colors of sorcerous energy. Hands fell on Alys from behind and she screamed, and spun to see Charles. She seized him by the arm and then grabbed hold of Claudia. She could just barely make out a dark rectangle of doorway in one curving wall. They burst through into the night outside. Fog billowed after them.

  “Sit down and stay here! Charles! Where’s Morgana?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see anything!”

  The fog had engulfed them, full of colored light. No, not fog, mist, thought Alys. She looked around wildly. “Janie! Janie, I need you!”

  Something dropped on her out of the roiling vapors above. She threw up a hand to ward it off, and it coiled down her arm, wings collapsing to a flexible ridge along its back.

  “My lady Alys …”

  “It’s you!”

  Alys was dumbfounded. This was no illusion, this was her own serpent, looking just as it had when it had left her last year. Its blue and coral body poured itself back up her arm so that black-bead eyes could gaze lovingly into her face. “Oh, it really is you! You don’t know how much I’ve missed you—” She broke off, tensing, her voice changing. “Or— how much I need you. Right now! Can you help me?”

  The serpent hissed softly. “Lady, I owe you my life. Whatever you wish, I will do. You know that.”

  “Then take me to the Serpent’s Lair. Quickly. ” She whirled back on Charles and Claudia. “You two stay here. If you see Janie and Morgana tell them where I am. I’m going to try to stop him.”

  “Stop who?” But she was already plunging back through the door, the serpent a flicker of blue and coral ahead.

  She could barely follow it in the turbulent mist, but she sensed it was leading her through a pair of huge doors behind the dais. The mist thinned out in the downward-sloping passage beyond, until it was merely a swirling whiteness around her knees, obscuring the floor. She could feel that it was no longer slick marble but something like granite, which gave her traction. She ran until the corridor opened out into a chamber.

  It was an enormous, lofty room, apparently carved out of the natural rock of the hill, and lit by torches in holders on the walls. The roof was supported by gigantic pillars of the same rock, which seemed to have been left in place when the chamber was excavated. The mist was not high enough to obscure the piles of gold and silver and raw stones on the floor. It looked exactly like the sort of grotto in which one would find a Feathered Serpent—or a host of them—but her own serpent was heading for a large archway at the back of the room. She struggled through the heaps of precious stuff which barked her shins like rocks.

  Through the arch was another cavern, identical to the first except that the ground here was piled high with weapons. A third room held golden utensils for food and drink, and what looked like sorcerous implements. Winded and bruised, she paused an instant at the entrance to the fourth chamber.

  This arch was higher than the others, and the light was blocked by a large wall a few steps inside. Alys put a hand to the wall, which curved up and away from her, and was surprised at its texture. It was warm and rough and gave slightly beneath her fingers. She looked right and left, uncertain.

  “Is there a way to get past this? To get inside?”

  The serpent alighted on her shoulder, tail coiled around her arm. “We are inside,” it said. “But I can guide you to the center if you wish.” At her nod it took off straight up, as if to get its bearings, then swooped down again to lead her down the left-hand path.

  The curving wall on her right came very close to the granite wall on her left at times, and she had to turn sideways to slip through. She was in some kind of a labyrinth, she realized, whose corridors wound in and out around the natural stone pillars. The warm wall bewildered her: under the blue smokeless torches it shone purple and black and it seemed to get lower as she went on. When she came at last to a place where it looped over itself, two great cylinders crossing, she pulled up short, stiffening.

  A soft voice spoke in her ear. “You can climb over here, my lady. The center is just beyond.”

  Gingerly, she put a foot on the lower curve. The roughness gave her fingerholds and toeholds to boost herself up, and she was able to reach the top and sit astride it. Breathless, she twisted to see the other side.

  “No. Oh, no.”

  She shut her eyes a moment, turning away. The labyrinth was a serpent. An enormous serpent, far too big to be able to leave the cavern. Its loops and whorls, weaving in and out among the pillars like a Celtic knot, formed a living maze.

  Had

  formed a living maze. It was dead now. Its eyes, like great slabs of obsidian, were milky and glazed. A little blood, black in the torchlight, ran out of its forehead between them and pooled on the floor. A slim figure draped in a blue cloak was standing nearby. “Go.” She hissed the word and made the flinging gesture the guard had used to launch the serpent. She had almost gotten it killed once before; that was one thing which must not happen now.

  “For help?”

  “Yes, yes, if you like. Just go. ” To her enormous relief it obeyed, gyring away.

  Crouching low over the dead Guardian’s back, she stared down at the figure. It—he—was standing in what appeared to be the very center of the chamber, within a ring of low blue flames which burned like Janie’s salt circle at home.

  Wards, thought Alys. And he’s turned them off. The man’s head was bowed slightly over a pedestal which rose from the floor and seemed to have been carved out of the raw granite like the pillars. On top of the pedestal was an ivory casket. She saw the glint of silver in one of the man’s hands, the flash of gold in the other.

  Scarcely breathing, she measured the distance between herself and him. Could she slip down and make it to the central island without being heard? Could she cross the ring and stab before he sensed her and turned? Agonizing seconds dragged by as she debated until something inside her began to laugh grimly.

  Not in the back.

  She slid down the warm curving wall to land on her feet. Slowly, without a sound, she walked to the edge of the fire.

  “Merlin.”

  He turned around.

  Alys drew her breath in sharply. She knew what he looked like; the fragments of dreams told her that. And she recognized the face she’d seen above the nest of wires in Morgana’s visioning sphere. But she was still startled— wonderstruck—as she had been when she’d first seen Elwyn. He might be only half Quislai but his beauty was still unearthly. His hair was Elwyn’s color and his eyes—

  His eyes. They were silver, too, but so dilated it was like looking into void.

  Something that flashed gold hit the ground at his feet. Something glinting silver was raised in salute.

  Settling her jaw, Alys lifted her own sword, imitating the gesture.

  *

  A winged form whiplashed out of the mist above Charles’s head.

  “Wait! Where’s Alys?”

  The serpent paused in its flight. “She is in the Serpent’s Lair, preparing for battle. She has sent me to find aid …”

  “What’s she battling? The Serpent?”

  There was a shocked hiss. “Of course not. It is a sorcerer I have never seen. He has great power, but the Lady Alys—”

  “—has gone crazy! She can’t fight magi
c! Come on— we’ve got to get somebody who can.”

  Claudia huddled against the wall as he left, eyes shut, arms locked around Benjamin. She wished, more than anything in the world, even more than she wished to be home, or to be with her mother, or to be in bed realizing that this was all a dream, that Benjamin was the vixen. The vixen always took care of her, protected her, told her what to do. The vixen would tell her what to do now.

  Outside the great dome of the white room, violence raged unabated. Shadows loomed out of the mist, the ground shuddered, and the dull rumble of thunder was a continuous background to sudden sharp cries and explosions. Now, above it all, rose the Fava-se-rá of the Wild Hunt.

  Claudia whimpered. The terrifying sound was getting closer and closer. Janie had said not to run from it, but she wanted to run, to get away. She had to get away. She couldn’t stand it.

  What would the vixen say, if she were here?

  Get away, then,

  a dry little voice seemed to say in her mind. But don’t run. But Alys had told her to stay—

  Alys! Alys doesn’t know everything. She didn’t know the Hunt was coming.

  Claudia hesitated, then stood, Benjamin still locked in her arms. He was stiff and trembling with terror. The sound had paralyzed him, so that even his faint and faltering powers of communication were lost, but his glazed eyes pleaded with her dumbly.

  “We’re going to walk away, now,” she whispered. “Don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be all right.”

  She kept talking to him as, head down, step by step, she made her way back toward the white room.

  *

  Merlin came at her with incredible swiftness. As in the mad struggle with the bobcat-thing, rational thought was suspended and her body took over. The sword seemed to help, telling her what to do. She dodged, parried, and blocked— not gracefully, but adequately. The flash of silver and the ring of steel filled the air.

  She didn’t have a chance, of course. At some deep level she knew this. Not only was she hopelessly outclassed in swordsmanship, but her opponent had all the advantages of strength and reach and weight. And with every stroke of his weapon the Gem shimmered blue. She had no chance at all of winning, and she had no choice but to try.