Cygnet

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He put the faceted ball into the fire. His voice stilled finally. Around him the night was soundless, in the slow, lightless empty hours between midnight and dawn. The fire flared, flared again, washing silver, crimson, black. The small dark ball in the heart of it began to glow.

  The eyes around him blinked suddenly out, like vanishing stars. He heard the sighing passage through the underbrush of many small, invisible animals. Then he heard something else: a blood fox’s sharp bark in the distance. Another answered, just behind his back.

  He heard that as from a distance, too. Everything seemed detached from him: the heat of the fire, the burns on his hands, his dry aching throat, the appalling, lonely silence of the night. More eyes ringed the fire, some high as his knee and higher, others close to the ground. All were a smoky, red-tinged amber.

  The ball in the fire had turned clear as glass, red as blood.

  He did not touch it. The fire sank around it, yellow again. He stood up. A great blood fox walked into the light. The fur on its massive shoulders was bristling. Its eyes were cloudy, yellow with the fire. It was dancing a little, singing its high, eerie whine before it barked and attacked. The shadow stretching from its hind paws beyond the fire’s circle was not an animal’s.

  “Shadow Fox, fox shadow,” Corleu said to it. His voice was so hoarse it might have been the blood fox’s growl.

  “Hide your face, hide your shadow.

  Red star, blood star,

  Find your face, find your shadow,

  Find your heart and follow.”

  He reached into the fire, drew out the star that hid a pearl of blood in its heart and caught fire in all its glittering facets.

  The blood fox stood silent as the trees around it. Its eyes burned into Corleu’s; they seemed suddenly faceted, like the Blood Star. For a moment, his detachment vanished under that inhuman gaze; he wanted to wrap the dark around him like a cloak and slip away before he became a human swarm of blood foxes, furious with him for disturbing the Delta night.

  The Blood Fox faded away. A darkness formed where it had been, shaped a man in the firelight, a patch of night with a face that shifted, blurred, re-formed. Corleu stared at it, his thoughts reeling between terror and wonder; he felt as if he were falling again through that long, black, starry night in the Gold King’s house.

  “You have something I want,” the shadow said. Its face stilled enough to form: long, sharp-jawed, red-browed; then the lines of it fractured again. Its voice was deep, husky, a blood fox voice. Corleu swallowed.

  “I made it for you.”

  A shadowy hand reached toward it, passed through it, darkening it briefly. At the cold touch Corleu, trapped between shadow and fire, would have backed into the fire if he could have made himself move. He glimpsed eyes, amber flames swarming across them.

  “What do you want for that?” the shadow asked with a snap of teeth.

  “Just—just a small thing.”

  “That’s a small thing. That’s my heart you hold in your hand. Be careful what you ask for, or I’ll set a blood fox shadowing you to nuzzle out your heart.”

  “I’m not—It’s not for me I’m asking.”

  “Who then? Who sent you?”

  “The King in the dark.”

  The shadow made a complex sound, part human, part blood fox’s curious whine. “So the King goes hunting… You put your heart’s blood into that. Into my heart. You want something worth that much to you. Corleu. That’s your name. You’ve said my name now and then in your life.”

  “I’m sorry I ever learned to talk,” he said starkly, and the shadowy face gave a lean, sharp-toothed grin.

  “There is no idle chatter in the world. So here you stand with my heart in your hand, asking nothing for yourself?”

  “I’m to be paid later.”

  “To be paid. Or to pay?”

  His voice shook. “Both.”

  “I know that King, with his heart of fire. He stalks everyone’s days. What does he want? What small thing?”

  “Something hidden away in secret for safekeeping. The Gold King told me to go to Withy Hold, offer the Lady there a peacock feather and ask. She told me to take fire and ask the Dreamer on the top of the world. Dreamer told me to ask you. All of them gave me pieces of a puzzle, none of them a whole answer. So I made this for you.” It burned in his hand with cold fire. He wiped at sweat and smoke on his face. “I need you to finish the puzzle.”

  “How small is this thing that sent you wandering the world?”

  “Small as the heart of something wild that flies by night over Ro Holding.”

  The shadow was still; even the lines hinting of bone-structure stilled briefly, and gave Corleu a clear glimpse of its honed, red-furred, feral face. It made a soft whistling noise, like a branch keening on the fire, and blurred again. “He’s been thinking, that King… And you are feet and hands and eyes to find it. What of yours does he hold hostage?”

  “My heart,” he whispered.

  “Give me mine. I will tell you what I know.”

  “How?” he asked, his heart pounding in sudden hope. “How do I give it?”

  “Lay the Blood Star in the fire.”

  Corleu knelt close to the flames, let the prism slide among them. Just before the flames closed over it, he saw the jumbled patchwork of a man in all its facets.

  The shadow stepped into the fire. Flames flared high above his head, closed like the petals of a burning flower. Corleu flung himself back, watched, breathless, as the flames swirled and parted, died down again and the Warlock stepped out of them.

  He stood over Corleu, grinning his fox’s grin, lean-flanked, his shoulders bunched with muscle, the hair on his head and body the red of the blood fox’s pelt. He tossed black, broken pieces of the prism in his hands, juggled them a moment into a whirling black circle.

  “The thing you seek is well hidden, even from that King’s gold fingers, which go everywhere. But I have heard, in all my eons of wandering, dragged after a Blood Fox with its nose to the wind and its ear pricked to every whisper: The thing you seek will be reflected in the eye of the Cygnet.”

  “Reflected in—But what does that mean?” he cried. “It’s only another riddle!”

  “That’s all I know.”

  He let the pieces of the prism fall into one broad palm. Then he covered them with the other. When he opened his hands again, the black glass had fused into a swan in flight.

  He dropped it into the fire. It exploded, flinging glass, burning wood, shards of flame, into the night. Corleu, still crouched, ducked behind his arms. All around him he heard the whisper and crackle of leaves as the animals scuttled away.

  “Thanks,” the Warlock said. “I’ll remember you.”

  “The web. The eye. The Cygnet.”

  Nyx was pacing. Corleu, slumped in a chair, watched her. It had taken him the rest of the night to return, and for what, he wondered bitterly, as he climbed the shivering stairway near dawn. What he sought was only tale. Just a story, a lie, to set him moving, rousing all the sleeping powers in the Holds. The thing was a dream, a lure to catch a Wayfolk fool, to trap his thoughts, keep his eyes from seeing what his hands were waking.

  He said as much to Nyx. She stopped mid-step, looked at him with her cold, searching, inscrutable eyes.

  “If you think that, you are a fool. The thing itself is of more power than what you are waking. Why else would it be so carefully hidden?”

  “What’s to be done, then?”

  “Be quiet and let me think…” She paced barefoot, a heavy gown of grey velvet swinging as she turned. She had been awake all night, he judged; her eyes looked luminous, and her temper was short. “If these powers disturbed Ro House enough to catch Meguet’s eye, then that’s where they all will gather. The place where the Cygnet flies, day and night. That’s the place of power that draws them: Ro House. Tell me again.”

  He told her wearily, for the hundredth time. “A secret at the center of the web, over which Cygnet flies, day
and night. That was Blind Lady.”

  “The Dancer.”

  “The thing sought lies always in the same place, but always in a different place, and that place is never far from the Cygnet.”

  “The Warlock.”

  “The thing you seek will be reflected in the eye of the Cygnet.”

  “Cygnet. Cygnet. Cygnet.” She whirled, to contemplate him again, her arms folded, her mouth taut. “The thing you seek, Corleu, belongs to the Cygnet, I would guess. An ancient power that’s waking other ancient powers. Not even Chrysom hinted of anything like this. I want it, as badly as I do not want the Gold King to keep it.”

  “You’re still not forcing me to tell you.”

  “That wouldn’t be finding it, would it. You’d never see Tiel again, and you would hate me, and refuse to find this thing at all. Then we’d have chaos on our hands at Ro House. If not already. Ro House… A web. The Cygnet flying…” She stood still then, still as one of the carved, dead trees in the statue grove, her hands open at her sides, her head bowed, contemplating her reflection in the water. He couldn’t hear her breathe. Finally he heard the statue speak. “The maze.”

  “What?”

  She lifted her head, her face white, still. He had never seen such color in her eyes. “Chrysom’s maze. The black tower. The Cygnet pennant that flies on the tower roof, summer, winter, day and night. The secret of where to find this thing is at the center of Chrysom’s maze.”

  “Where is that?” he asked wearily. “Where do I go this time?”

  “To the house of the Holders of Ro Holding.”

  Two

  MEGUET stood at the edge of the lake beyond the thousand-year-old wood, watching the swans. Iris had brought the house back to the Delta; the swans, casting black and white shadows on the surface of the water, wove a tranquil dance among themselves. Used to flight, they seemed unsettled by the flight of Ro House. Meguet, drawn out of sleep by a dream of them, had slipped out at dawn. Every image in the dream, every word, had transformed itself into swan, until their elegant, masked, enigmatic faces had crowded into her mind. She had carried all their faces across the misty pastures, past the dark, dreaming wood. Finally, at the lake, the swans had shifted from her mind into her eyes: The great company clustered in the lake as usual, busily feeding. She felt her mind empty of them, grow still, peaceful.

  A swan detached itself from the group in the middle of the lake. It glided toward the shore where Meguet stood. She watched it thoughtlessly. It was huge, as black as if it had flown straight out of midnight. Its smooth, steady drift toward her was soothing, almost a dream itself. It drew quite close, so close she could see the dark, steady gaze of its reflection. She blinked, surprised, for the swans kept to the far shore. It breasted the shallows, came on, its graceful head lifted as if to meet her eyes. Fully awake now, she watched it, not moving, not breathing. It stirred the muddy bottom, so close she might have touched it, or it her, extending its strong, quick, dangerous neck.

  It roused so suddenly that she started. For a moment the air was black with feathers. Its wings beat; rising, it drew a wet wing tip across her lips. Darkness thundered around her, tangled in her hair. She caught her breath; lifting her face, she saw the sky again. Sunlight shot across the lake. She tasted lake water on her lips, felt it on her face. The great swan had vanished, like the night, into light.

  She turned finally, startled, wondering. Sunlight raced across meadow, pasture, illumined the back towers, but could not reach across them to Chrysom’s tower, still shrouded in its darkness. As she looked at it, wings filled her mind again: dark crow wings rustling with uneasiness.

  In the west tower, all the kitchen chimneys were smoking. The first of the Hold Councils was due soon. A messenger, arriving to request a guide through the swamps for a Council, assorted family, curious kin, retinue, bag and baggage, had spent a night wondering where Ro House had gone. The house was back the next morning. Meguet, greeting the messenger, had seen him torn between asking and appearing lunatic. “Hunter Hold Council,” he said, and the household bustled with preparations.

  Meguet, walking into that tower in search of breakfast, found the Holder, surrounded by half the tower staff. She caught Meguet’s eye, sent them all flying, and gestured Meguet into an antechamber.

  It was a tiny room off the main tower door, close as a bear cave and chilly even in midsummer, with a double thickness of stone. Even the chairs were stone: ledges beside the fire, in the windowless walls. There Moro Ro had taken council with Chrysom, where not even a mouse could overhear without being seen.

  The Holder swung the door to with a thud that cut short all sound. It was, Meguet thought, like being entombed.

  “Tell me what you dreamed,” the Holder said abruptly. She looked pale, edgy; Meguet tensed at the question.

  “I dreamed of swans.”

  “Living or dead?”

  She felt the blood leave her face. “Living.”

  “I dreamed all my children were dead.” She turned, grabbed the poker, toppled the neatly burning pile of logs on the grate so that they nearly slid onto the floor. “Rush dreamed that Nyx had become something so terrible that he did not recognize her. He shouted at me this morning because I refused to let him ride upriver with you. If this is something—” She stopped, began again. “If this is something of Nyx’s doing, I can’t let him go there.”

  “No,” Meguet said flatly, and the Holder looked at her, hope waging against suspicion in her eyes. “I would sooner suspect the Gatekeeper of intending harm to this house.”

  “Then what is troubling this house?” the Holder demanded, her voice rising in relief. “Even Iris was in tears this morning. Iris hasn’t cried since she was two. I haven’t even seen Calyx. She shut herself up in Chrysom’s library.”

  “The Dancer is troubling this house. The Dreamer of Berg Hold. We brought her with us.”

  “But how? How did she get in? The Gatekeeper never left the gate, he never opened the gate—that was my command.”

  “I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes wearily. “I don’t know how she got in. Maybe she followed me off the mountain top. I couldn’t even stop an unarmed Wayfolk man from getting away from me. How could I stop the Dancer?”

  “You’re supposed to know such things! It’s your heritage, your duty to protect the Cygnet.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “Then, where were those in you who should advise you? Weren’t you listening to them?”

  “I thought—I thought so. Maybe I haven’t learned how yet.”

  “You’d better learn fast. We have the Hunter Hold Council on our doorstep and a mad dreamer under our beds. What’s next?”

  “Worse,” Meguet said tightly. The Holder’s eyes widened.

  “What worse?”

  “The Warlock.”

  The Holder pulled a pearl out of her hair and flung it across the room. “Send the Gatekeeper to me.”

  Meguet gave him the message, then sat in the turret, watching the gate and waiting for him. A company of hunters rode out; no one requested entry. The Gatekeeper returned soon, his face impassive. Meguet asked him, as he joined her:

  “What did you dream?”

  “Of you.” He reached across, took her hands, warmed his own. “No good watching for the Warlock.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll get in. Like the Dancer, he’ll come when he comes.”

  Meguet slumped back against the stones. “Did you tell the Holder that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  “No. I told her Dancer must have danced herself over the wall, because I kept a lizard’s eye on that gate night and day in Berg Hold. What did you dream?”

  “Just swans.”

  He smiled his quick, tight smile. He leaned forward, kissed her gently. “Don’t blame yourself so.”

  “If we hadn’t gone to Berg Hold—”

  “The Dancer would have come to us here.” He watched her. “A
nd if, and when the Warlock comes?”

  She shuddered. “Don’t say it. Words come to life, these days.”

  “What then? What are they gathering for, like crows on a carcass? What’s in that maze but a wizard’s time-picked bones?”

  “It’s a place to hide.”

  “For what? Until when?”

  “I don’t know!” she flared. “Don’t push at me with questions, I am so tired of hearing that answer from myself. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” He was silent; she raised her eyes finally, found a curious, dispassionate expression in his light eyes.

  “You beg such questions,” he said abruptly. “If only because you’re the one in this house thinking for the house. And you get angry with me because I see that.”

  “I told you,” she said helplessly, “I am part of this house. A lintel, a casement, a stone seat in a stone wall, some old walled-up grate that hasn’t been on fire since Chrysom’s time.”

  “A lintel.” He pulled her hands to his mouth. “An old grate. A tower, more like. Chrysom’s tower, strong, mysterious and covered with roses.” He opened her hand against his mouth, said, breathlessly, head bowed, “Will I come to you, or will you come to me?”

  “Come to me.” She opened her other hand, laid it against her eyes. “At least in the tower you can see the gate.”

  “For whatever use.”

  “The Holder should send for Nyx.”

  He removed her ring finger from his mouth. “Nyx.”

  “She could fight a Warlock. She’s a sorceress.”

  “And bog witch, which is of more use. They don’t fight clean.” He kissed the center of her palm, then relinquished her hand. “She’s coming home for the Council. So I heard. Gossip about Nyx doesn’t stand around idle.”

  “I think,” Meguet said, “that won’t be soon enough.” She rose, edged past him. “We’ve given the yard enough to talk about this morning. I’m leaving tomorrow to ride upriver.”