Kingfisher

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  What else could it do? he wondered.

  The blade glinted at him, a metallic glance, as though reminding Pierce where it belonged, where he needed to take it next.

  “Oh, all right,” he breathed. He slid it back into the sheath in his jacket and realized then how quiet the restaurant was.

  He was alone in the kitchen. He wandered through the vault; its bottles were mostly intact though those precipitously fleeing through it had left some shard-laced puddles on the floor. The restaurant itself was a bigger disaster: tables knocked askew, chairs overturned, tablecloths and broken plates and little edible jewels scattered across the floor. The diners had long gone; Pierce had heard the knights’ bikes begin to roar, along with some sirens, during his struggle with the knife. Sage was nowhere Pierce could see, which, he realized, was pretty much the place she inhabited whenever he looked for her. The screen door sagged on its hinges, swaying back and forth in the breeze. The entire place looked as though it had dropped its own mask, exposed its warped floors, chipped paint, the bare, flickering bulbs, all its warts and wrinkles, for everyone to see.

  It was completely empty. Not even his father or his brother had waited for him. He stood aimlessly in the wreck, perplexed, and felt the phone in his jacket vibrate.

  He pulled it out, found a message from his brother: At police station. Starving. Will call when they let us out. Cheers!

  He walked along the bay to the Kingfisher Inn and was greatly relieved to find one familiar face at the bar.

  He slid onto the stool next to Merle, pulled the knife out of his sleeve, and laid it in front of them. “I don’t think it needs me anymore,” he said to Merle, and to Tye, who reached for a glass and began filling it.

  Merle smiled. “You did well with it. The knife fit the hand that wielded it. In this case, both the hands.”

  “Where is Carrie?” Pierce asked. “The restaurant was completely empty when I finally got the knife out of the table. Did everyone but me get arrested?”

  Tye was smiling, too, as he set the frosty glass down in front of Pierce. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t find you. The knife was guarding you.” He picked it up with both hands, reverently. “I’ll just put this back where it belongs. We’ll need it tomorrow.”

  Merle took a sip of his own beer. He looked different, Pierce thought: a weight off his shoulders, a few centuries out of his eyes. “Carrie and I slipped out through the fuss in the street,” he said. “Nobody noticed our shadows. There were reports called in of weird events at Stillwater’s: people screaming, running out the doors, somebody stabbed, people disguised as knights looting the place. Lots of disorderly conduct. It didn’t look very orderly at the police station, either, so we walked on by. Everyone recognized your father. He and your brother were taken along as witnesses. It will be a while before all that gets sorted out. I found Carrie’s friend Zed Cluny and sent Carrie with him to get a decent meal.”

  “Good.” Pierce took a sip, felt the cold seep through him, and shivered suddenly, shaking memories loose in his head. “What was all that? Stillwater? Those three women? What did they do to him? And what does it all have to do with this place?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “That’s all right. Sounds like I’ll be here for a while.”

  He caught up with Leith and Val several hours later, eating pub food at a brewery around the corner from their motel. Val, whittling down a mountain of deep-fried seafood and talking on his cell, flashed a grin at him. Leith, looking weary and relieved, pulled him into a hug, then dragged the nearest stool closer to his. “Sit down. Have you eaten?”

  Pierce nodded. “I’ve been with Merle at the Kingfisher.”

  “How did he miss being pulled in with the rest of us? He was running around in wolf shape one moment, and talking to those three women in the next as if he had grown up with them.”

  “Maybe he did.”

  “I could swear—actually, I might have at the station—that the oldest of them was Lady Morrig Seabrook, the king’s aunt. What she was doing in Chimera Bay tracking down that malevolent chef absconded from some depraved fairy tale I cannot begin—” He didn’t try, just rendered himself speechless for a moment with a slab of steak.

  “What happened to the Knights of the Rising God?”

  “They got charged with theft, destruction of property, violation of an ordinance against loud noises within city limits, and a few more things. Then someone recognized Prince Ingram, and the whole business started all over again. Neither Merle, nor Merle’s daughter, nor Stillwater’s wife were on hand to testify that the knights were not stealing those machines, nor did they wreck the place, and the diners who actually saw what happened to Stillwater kept contradicting one another.” He chewed another bite, gazing incredulously back at the endless afternoon. “Where was Merle when we needed him? And where were you?”

  “It took me some time to get that knife out of the table. I wasn’t going to leave it there. When it finally decided to let me free it, everyone had vanished.” He caught sight of the expression on Val’s face, one he didn’t recognize, even after days of close company, dealing together with mysteries, enchantments, and other assorted crises. “Who is Val talking to?”

  “Your mother.”

  —

  They waited for her in the Kingfisher Inn the next afternoon. Leith, as tense as Pierce had ever seen him, kept trying to leave.

  “She won’t want to see me.”

  “She does,” Val insisted. “She said so.”

  “She said that to please you. She didn’t mean it.”

  “Well, I want you here,” Val said patiently. “I haven’t seen her since I was a child. Stay to please me.”

  They were sitting on one of the sagging velveteen couches in the bar. Luckily, Pierce thought, most of the old springs were shot, considering the edgy, restive fidgeting on either side of him. He wondered, studying Leith, if bravery in the face of impending angry spouses counted in the code of knighthood, especially when the knight was in the wrong. He wouldn’t have blamed Leith for justifying his absence as a kindness, to give Val and Heloise more time to talk. But Val wanted his company and would recognize any excuse for the abject cowardice that it was. Their father, who could have faced a living wyvern without flinching, had to force himself to stay put.

  A woman walked alone into the bar; their three faces turned at once. But it was not Heloise. It was no one, Pierce thought at first, no one he knew, just a young woman with drifting hair, and a thin, tired face. She went to the bar; Leith and Val went back to fidgeting. Pierce watched her. Something in her movement, her tall grace, the tilt of her head within her lank, untidy hair, made him rise abruptly.

  He crossed the quiet room. It was nearly empty in the midafternoon, too early yet for the Friday Nite gathering. She was talking softly to Tye, who said, as Pierce joined her, “You should talk to Ella. I know she’s been needing more help, but I don’t know if she’ll admit it yet.”

  Pierce said, “Sage?”

  She turned quickly, startled. He smiled; she didn’t, couldn’t yet, he guessed. She was very thin; her gray-green eyes were haunted by what she had seen. The lovely, heavy, champagne-gold hair he remembered looked dry and unkempt. The beauty of her face existed only in his memory as yet: it was hollow, pained, shadowy with sadness.

  “Pierce,” she breathed. Something in his eyes brought the faintest color to her face, the barest hint of a smile.

  “You were amazing,” he said. “Yesterday. What you did with that knife.”

  “You took it out, showed it to me.”

  “I stole it. From this place, actually. I never knew why before.”

  “It’s a powerful magic,” Tye said. He was cutting fruit into a blender, pulling peaches, strawberries, oranges out of his enchanted garden behind the bar. “It goes where it wants, finds who it needs, does what it must.” He
scooped ice into the blender and splashed liquid from some bottle over it, adding a scent of melon. “Pierce is right. You were brave to recognize what you had to do.”

  “I don’t feel brave,” she said ruefully. “I’m just a woman who lost her husband, out looking for a job.”

  Tye ran the blender, poured the thick, colorful concoction into a glass, and passed it to her. “Good riddance to the husband.”

  She nodded at that, raised her glass. “Good riddance. Thank you, Tye.”

  “So you’re looking for work here?” Pierce said.

  “I thought—it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I used to be able to cook. At least I think so. Before I met Todd.” She swallowed a sip of fruit and ice, then another. “I had forgotten what tasting is like,” she sighed. “This is so good. It’s like learning to walk again, remembering my life before. Todd fed me enough real food to keep me alive, but he made it taste so dreadful, I never wanted more.”

  “Do you have a place to stay?”

  “He owned the old bank building; we lived upstairs. It’s mine, now. For what that’s worth. I hate being in it. But I’m not afraid of it. I might clean it up, open it again. But first I need to find out what I can do in a kitchen.”

  I can cook, Pierce thought, and saw, with wonder, his life take yet another turn. He had left this magical backwater once; life had brought him back. He had found the family he needed, but he did not need to become a knight. He could sand a floor, paint a wall, put a restaurant back together, help create new memories in the face of the woman beside him.

  “Ella’s in the kitchen, probably prepping for tonight,” Tye said. “She’s between meals. Why don’t you go and talk to her? She’ll be happy to see you, anyway, after what you did to help get rid of Stillwater. She was getting pretty worried about Carrie. Take that with you,” he added, as Sage put the glass down. “It’s good for you.”

  She smiled then, a thin, tremulous thing, but genuine. Pierce watched her cross the dim room, push open the kitchen doors to a sudden stream of light. He lingered, riffling through his own memories of her, letting thoughts roam idly between past and future.

  “Do for you?” he heard Tye murmur; he shook his head. Then he heard Tye’s voice again, still soft but oddly shaken. “Holy shit.”

  His mother walked into the bar.

  He heard the couch lurch as the two knights rocketed to their feet. She nearly walked past Pierce without seeing him, so riveted she was by her tall, flaming-haired son with his ice-blue eyes, and by the darker shadow behind him. Then she seemed to feel the tug from the bar, the pull of heartstrings, and her attention veered. So did her step. Pierce felt his throat close as she came to him, threw her arms around him.

  “I have missed you so much,” she exclaimed, kissing his eye, his jawbone. “I had no idea you would get into so much trouble in such a short time. I chased that demented sorceress clear up into the northlands.” She lowered her voice, pitched it to his ear. “Is that your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “So strange. I almost didn’t . . . I suppose we’ve both gotten older.” She loosed Pierce, took his arm, walked to Leith through the twenty-odd years of distance between them both. She stood silently, gazing with wonder at Val. She turned to Leith; Pierce saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. “When I was so busy not forgiving you, I forgot that one day I would need to ask our sons to forgive me. One because he never knew you. The other because, for all those years, I hardly knew him. Forgive me?” she said to Val.

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked, and she stared at him, tears sliding down her face. Then she laughed, and he put his arms around her.

  “I could tell you,” she told him. “I know it well.” She stretched out one hand to Leith, still holding her son. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for this.”

  Gradually, as they sat and talked, the bar began to fill. Smells wafted from the kitchen, rich, briny, pungent with herbs and spices. Carrie came in, waved at Pierce, smiling for once before she vanished through the swinging doors. Pierce recognized faces from his first Friday Nite ritual: the father and son who held the doors open, the young priest who carried the gaff. A few knights wandered in, including, he saw, a couple of marauders from Stillwater’s. They looked subdued; they spoke quietly, very politely to Tye, who relented and gave them what they wanted. A party of elderly couples entered, and behind them, another knight, whom Pierce remembered immediately as the first he had ever seen.

  The knight with the hair like lamb’s wool and the eyes of balmy, tropical blue, carried his wine over to the family gathering on the couch, and toasted them with it.

  “Sir Gareth May,” Leith said. “This is Heloise Oliver. The mother of my sons.”

  “Strange how I knew that the moment I saw you,” Gareth said to her, smiling. “That hair, those eyes—such generous gifts to your children. I see this is the place to be for supper tonight.”

  “You weren’t in town earlier, Sir Gareth, were you?” Val asked.

  “No. I just got here and saw a few familiar crests in the parking lot. I stopped on impulse. I’m on my way back to Severluna.”

  “So soon?” Leith said. “Is there trouble?”

  Gareth shook his head. “No. Suddenly, it didn’t seem very important, going off looking for something so vague and mysterious when what I really want is where I left her.” He heard himself and flushed a little, but Heloise nodded.

  “That seems by far the most sensible thing I’ve heard yet about this odd quest.”

  “Thank you. I keep smelling the most wonderful things . . . Where do we find them?”

  “Just wait, Sir Gareth,” Pierce suggested, watching Carrie come out and hand the key to Merle, and the priest turn away from friends to follow him. The sentinels, the golden-haired father and son, moved to their places beside the door. “The magic will come to you.”

  Two other knights wandered in before the ritual began. Pierce pulled their faces out of memory: Prince Daimon and the formidable Dame Scotia Malory. They both looked unsettled, wary, Pierce saw with surprise. They moved cautiously across the room as though the unexpected might take shape at any moment out of the worn floorboards. They returned greetings absently; their smiles faded quickly. Beside the bar, they stood very close together, finding comfort in one another’s presence. He wondered, amazed, what power, what magic had crossed their paths to leave those shared memories of uncertainty and awe in their eyes.

  The crowd, recognizing familiar signals, began to quiet. Faces turned, bright with anticipation; people rose from chairs and couches and barstools, their eyes on the closed doors. Pierce stood up; Leith, behind him, rested a hand on his shoulder.

  The doors opened. The gasps and murmurs of astonishment and pleasure that rolled through the gathering welcomed the tall, white-haired, green-eyed woman beside Hal Fisher, who held his arm, accepting the weight of his halting steps, as the ritual began.

  Pierce, moved by the smiles on the aged, tranquil faces, watched them until Val gripped his arm suddenly. Startled, his eyes shifted, were caught by the odd pot Carrie was carrying, not the seriously decorated silver soup tureen he expected, but something plain, a trifle battered, looking as though it had been around and well used for any number of centuries. As he wondered at it, a bronze glow illuminated it, gliding over its surface like a secret smile of its own making.

  He had no idea why, a few moments later when the solemn gathering grew vociferous and merry, his brother could not stop laughing, or find any known language to explain.

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