Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  “Bodies grow with eating and exercise,” Moon replied. This was ground she felt sure of. “Do you think the king and the queen did those for him?”

  The King of Stones threw back his cowled head and laughed, a cold ringing sound. It restored Moon to sensible terror. She stepped back, and found herself against a tree trunk.

  “And his soul?” said the King of Stones at last.

  “That didn't belong to his mother and father,” Moon said, barely audible even to her own ears. “If it belonged to anyone but himself, I think you did not win it from Her.”

  Silence lay for long moments in the clearing. Then he said, “I am well tutored. Yet there was a bargain made, and a work done, and both sides knew what they pledged and what it meant. Under law, the contract was kept.”

  “That's not true. Out of fear the king promised you anything, but he never meant the life of his son!”

  “Then he could have refused me that, and died. He said ‘Anything,’ and meant it, unto the life of his son, his wife, and all his kingdom.”

  He had fought her to a standstill with words. But, words used up and useless, she still felt a core of anger in her for what had been done, outrage against a thing she knew, beyond words, was wrong.

  So she said aloud, “It's wrong. It was a contract that was wrong to make, let alone to keep. I know it.”

  “What is it,” said the King of Stones, “that says so?”

  “My judgment says so. My head.” Moon swallowed. “My heart.”

  “Ah. What do I know of your judgment? Is it good?”

  She scrubbed her fingers over her face. He had spoken lightly, but Moon knew the question wasn't light at all. She had to speak the truth; she had to decide what the truth was. “It's not perfect,” she answered reluctantly. “But yes, I think it's as good as most people's.”

  “Do you trust it enough to allow it to be tested?”

  Moon lifted her head and stared at him in alarm. “What?”

  “I will test your judgment. If I find it good, I will let you free the prince of Hark End. If not, I will keep him, and you will take your anger, your outrage, and the knowledge of your failure home to nurture like children all the rest of your life.”

  “Is that prophecy?” Moon asked hoarsely.

  “You may prove it so, if you like. Will you take my test?”

  She drew a great, trembling breath. “Yes.”

  “Come closer, then.” With that, he pushed back his hood.

  There was no stone helm beneath, or monster head. There was a white-skinned man's face, all bone and sinew and no softness, and long black hair rucked from the hood. The sockets of his eyes were shadowed black, though the light that fell in the clearing should have lit all of his face. Moon looked at him and was more frightened than she would have been by any deformity, for she knew then that none of this—armor, face, eyes—had anything to do with his true shape.

  “Before we begin,” he said in that soft, cool voice. “There is yet a life you have not asked me for, one I thought you'd beg of me first of all.”

  Moon's heart plunged, and she closed her eyes. “Alder Owl.”

  “You cannot win her back. There was no treachery there. She, at least, I took fairly, for she greeted me by name and said I was well met.”

  “No!” Moon cried.

  “She was sick beyond curing, even when she left you. But she asked me to give her wings for one night, so that you would know. I granted it gladly.”

  She thought she had cried all she could for Alder Owl. But this was the last death, the death of her little foolish hope, and she mourned that and Alder Owl at once with falling, silent tears.

  “My test for you, then.” He stretched out his hands, his mailed fingers curled over whatever lay in each palm. “You have only to choose,” he said. He opened his fingers to reveal two rings, one silver, one gold.

  She looked from the rings to his face again, and her expression must have told him something.

  “You are a witch,” said the King of Stones, gently mocking. “You read symbols and make them, and craft them into nets to catch truth in. This is the meat of your training, to read the true nature of a thing. Here are symbols—choose between them. Pick the truer. Pick the better.”

  He pressed forward first one hand, then the other. “Silver, or gold? Left or right? Night or day, moon—” she heard him mock her again, “— or sun, water or fire, waning or waxing, female or male. Have I forgotten any?”

  Moon wiped the tears from her cheeks and frowned down at the rings. They were plain, polished circles of metal, not really meant for finger rings at all. Circles, complete in themselves, unmarred by scratch or tarnish.

  Silver, or gold. Mined from the earth, forged in fire, cooled in water, pierced with air. Gold was rarer, silver was harder, but both were pure metals. Should she choose rareness? Hardness? The lighter color? But the flash of either was bright. The color of the moon? But she'd seen the moon, low in the sky, yellow as a peach. And the light from the moon was reflected light from the sun, whose color was yellow although in the sky it was burning white, and whose metal was gold. There was nothing to choose between them.

  The blood rushed into her face, and the gauntleted hands and their two rings swam in her vision. It was true. She'd always thought so.

  Her eyes sprang up to the face of the King of Stones. “It's a false choice. They're equal.”

  As she said the words, her heart gave a single terrified leap. She was wrong. She was defeated, and a fool. The King of Stones' fingers closed again over the rings.

  “Down that trail to a granite stone, and then between two hazel trees,” he said. “You'll find him there.”

  She was alone in the clearing.

  Moon stumbled down the trail, dazed with relief and the release of tension. She found the stone, and the two young hazel trees, slender and leafed out in fragile green, and passed between them.

  She plunged immediately into full sunlight and strangeness. Another clearing, carpeted with deep grass and the stars of spring flowers, surrounded by blossoming trees—but trees in blossom didn't also stand heavy with fruit, like a vain child wearing all its trinkets at once. She saw apples, cherries, and pears under their drifts of pale blossom, ripe and without blemish. At the other side of the clearing there was a shelf of stone thrust up out of the grass. On it, as if sleeping, lay a young man, exquisitely dressed.

  Golden hair, she thought. That's why it was drawn in so lightly. Like amber, or honey. The fair face was very like the sketch she remembered, as was the scholar's hand palm up on the stone beside it. She stepped forward.

  Beside the stone, the black branches of a tree lifted, moved away from their neighbors, and the trunk— Not a tree. A stag stepped into the clearing, scattering the apple blossoms with the great span of his antlers. He was black as charcoal, and his antler points were shining black, twelve of them or more. His eyes were large and red.

  He snorted and lowered his head, so that she saw him through a forest of polished black dagger points. He tore at the turf with one cloven foot.

  I passed his test! she cried to herself. Hadn't she won? Why this? You'll find him there, the King of Stones had said. Then her anger sprang up as she remembered what else he'd said: I will let you free the prince of Hark End.

  What under the wide sky was she supposed to do? Strike the stag dead with her bare hand? Frighten it away with a frown? Turn it into—

  She gave a little cry at the thought, and the stag was startled into charging. She leaped behind the slender trunk of a cherry tree. Cloth tore as the stag yanked free of her cloak.

  The figure on the shelf of stone hadn't moved. She watched it, knowing her eyes ought to be on the stag, watching for the rise and fall of breath. “Oh, what a stupid trick!” she said to the air, and shouted at the stag, “Flower and leaf and stalk to thee, I conjure back what ought to be. Human frame and human mind banish those of hart or hind.” Which, when she thought about it, was a silly thing to say, sin
ce it certainly wasn't a hind.

  He lay prone in the grass, naked, honey hair every which way. His eyes were closed, but his brows pinched together, as if he was fighting his way back from sleep. One sunbrowned long hand curled and straightened. His eyes snapped open, focused on nothing; the fingers curled again; and finally he looked at them, as if he had to force himself to do it, afraid of what he might see. Moon heard the sharp drawing of his breath. On the shelf of stone there was nothing at all.

  A movement across the clearing caught Moon's eye and she looked up. Among the trees stood the King of Stones in his gray armor. Sunshine glinted off it and into his unsmiling face, and pierced the shadows of his eye sockets. His eyes, she saw, were green as sage.

  The prince had levered himself up onto his elbows. Moon saw the tremors in his arms and across his back. She swept her torn cloak from her shoulders and draped it over him. “Can you speak?” she asked him. She glanced up again. There was no one in the clearing but the two of them.

  “I don't—yes,” he said, like a whispering crow, and laughed thinly. He held out one spread and shaking hand. “Tell me. You don't see a hoof, do you?”

  “No, but you used to have four of them. You're not nearly so impressive in this shape.”

  He laughed again, from closer to his chest this time. “You haven't seen me hung all over with satin and beads like a dancing elephant.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that. Can you stand up? Lean on me if you want to, but we should be gone from here.”

  He clutched her shoulder—the long scholar's fingers were very strong—and struggled to his feet, then drew her cloak more tightly around himself. “Which way?”

  Passage through the woods was hard for her, because she knew how hard it was for him, barefoot, disoriented, yanked out of place and time. After one especially hard stumble, he sagged against a tree. “I hope this passes. I can see flashes of this wood in my memory, but as if my eyes were off on either side of my head.”

  “Memory fades,” she said. “Don't worry.”

  He looked up at her quickly, pain in his face. “Does it?” He shook his head. “I'm sorry—did you tell me your name?”

  “No. It's Moon Very Thin.”

  He asked gravely, “Are you waxing or waning?”

  “It depends from moment to moment.”

  “That makes sense. Will you call me Robin?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “I do, please. I find I'm awfully taken with having a name again.”

  At last the trees opened out, and in a fold of the green hillside they found a farmstead. A man stood in the farmhouse door watching them come. When they were close enough to make out his balding head and wool coat, he stirred from the door; took three faltering steps into his garden; and shouted and ran toward them. A tall, round woman appeared at the door, twisting her apron. Then she, too, began to run.

  The man stopped just short of them, open-mouthed, his face a study in hope, and fear that hope will be yanked away. “Your Highness?”

  Robin nodded.

  The round woman had come up beside the man. Tears coursed down her face. She said calmly, “Teazle, don't keep 'em standing in the yard. Look like they've been dragged backwards through the blackthorn, both of them, and probably hungry as cats.” But she stepped forward and touched one tentative hand to the prince's cheek. “You're back,” she whispered.

  “I'm back.”

  They were fed hugely, and Robin was decently clothed in linen and leather belonging to Teazle's eldest son. “We should be going,” the prince said at last, regretfully.

  “Of course,” Teazle agreed. “Oh, they'll be that glad to see you at the palace.”

  Moon saw the shadow of pain pass quickly over Robin's face again.

  They tramped through the new ferns, the setting sun at their backs. “I'd as soon . . .” Robin faltered and began again. “I'd as soon not reach the palace tonight. Do you mind?”

  Moon searched his face. “Would you rather be alone?”

  “No! I've been alone for—how long? A year? That's enough. Unless you don't want to stay out overnight.”

  “It would be silly to stop now, just when I'm getting good at it,” Moon said cheerfully.

  They made camp under the lee of a hill near a creek, as the sky darkened and the stars came out like frost. They didn't need to cook, but Moon built a fire anyway. She was aware of his gaze; she knew when he was watching, and wondered that she felt it so. When it was full dark and Robin lay staring into the flames, Moon said, “You know, then?”

  “How I was...? Yes. Just before...there was a moment when I knew what had been done, and who'd done it.” He laced his brown fingers over his mouth and was silent for a while; then he said, “Would it be better if I didn't go back?”

  “You'd do that?”

  “If it would be better.”

  “What would you do instead?”

  He sighed. “Go off somewhere and grow apples.”

  “Well, it wouldn't be better,” Moon said desperately. “You have to go back. I don't know what you'll find when you get there, though. I called down curse and banishment on your mother and father, and I don't really know what they'll do about it.”

  He looked up, the fire bright in his eyes. “You did that? To the king and queen of Hark End?”

  “Do you think they didn't deserve it?”

  “I wish they didn't deserve it.” He closed his eyes and dropped his chin onto his folded hands.

  “I think you are the heart of the land,” Moon said in surprise.

  His eyes flew open again. “Who said that?”

  “A guard at the front palace gate. He'll probably fall on his knees when he sees you.”

  “Great grief and ashes,” said the prince. “Maybe I can sneak in the back way.”

  They parted the next day in sight of the walls of Great Hark. “You can't leave me to do this alone,” Robin protested.

  “How would I help? I know less about it than you do, even if you are a year out of date.”

  “A lot happens in a year,” he said softly.

  “And a lot doesn't. You'll be all right. Remember that everyone loves you and needs you. Think about them and you won't worry about you.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “A little.” Moon swallowed the lump in her throat. “But I'm a country witch and my place is in the country. Two weeks to the east by foot, just across the Blacksmith River. If you ever make a King's Progress, stop by for tea.”

  She turned and strode away before he could say or do anything silly, or she could.

  Moon wondered, in the next weeks, how the journey could have seemed so strange. If the Seawood was full of ghosts, none of them belonged to her. The plain of grass was impressive, but just grass, and hot work to cross. In Little Hark she stopped for the night, and the blond boy remembered her.

  “Did you find your teacher?” he asked.

  “No. She died. But I needed to know that. It wasn't for nothing.”

  He already knew the prince had come back; everyone knew it, as if the knowledge had blown across the kingdom like milkweed fluff. She didn't mention it.

  She came home and began to set things to rights. It didn't take long. The garden wouldn't be much this year, but it would be sufficient; it was full of volunteers from last year's fallen seed. She threw herself into work; it was balm for the heart. She kept her mind on her neighbors' needs, to keep it off her own. And now she knew that her theory was right, that earth and air and fire and water were all a part of each other, all connected, like silver and gold. Like joy and pain.

  “You're grown,” Tansy Broadwater said to her, but speculatively, as if she meant something other than height, that might not be an unalloyed joy.

  The year climbed to Midsummer and sumptuous life. Moon went to the village for the Midsummer's Eve dance and watched the horseplay for an hour before she found herself tramping back up the hill. She felt remarkably old. On Midsummer's Day she p
ut on her apron and went out to dig the weeds from between the flagstones.

  She felt the rhythm in the earth before she heard it. Hoofbeats, coming up the hill. She got to her feet.

  The horse was chestnut and the rider was honey-haired. He drew rein at the gate and slipped down from the saddle, and looked at her with a question in his eyes. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but she knew it was a question.

  She found her voice. “King's Progress?”

  “Not a bit.” He sounded just as she'd remembered, whenever she hadn't had the sense to make enough noise to drown the memory out. “May I have some tea anyway?”

  Her hands were cold, and knotted in her apron. “Mint?”

  “That would be nice.” He tethered his horse to the fence and came in through the gate.

  “How have things turned out?” She breathed deeply and cursed her mouth for being so dry.

  “Badly, in the part that couldn't help but be. My parents chose exile. I miss them—or I miss them as they were once. Everything else is doing pretty well. It's always been a nice, sensible kingdom.” Now that he was closer, Moon could see his throat move when he swallowed, see his thumb turn and turn at a ring on his middle finger.

  “Moon,” he said suddenly, softly, as if it were the first word he'd spoken. He plucked something out of the inside of his doublet and held it out to her. “This is for you.” He added quickly, in a lighter tone, “You'd be amazed how hard it is to find when you want it. I thought I'd better pick it while I could and give it to you pressed and dried, or I'd be here empty-handed after all.”

  She stared at the the straight green stem, the cluster of inky-blue flowers still full of color, the sweet ghost of vanilla scent. Her fingers closed hard on her apron. “It's heliotrope,” she managed to say.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Do...do you know what it means?”

  “Yes.”

  “It means ‘devotion.’”

  “I know,” Robin said. He looked into her eyes, as he had since he'd said her name, but something faltered slightly in his face. “A little pressed and dried, but yours, if you'll have it.”

  “I'm a country witch,” Moon said with more force than she'd planned. “I don't mean to stop being one.”