by Tanya Huff
* * *
“Say, Jack, doesn’t he look familiar?” Standing just outside the elevators, PC Patton pointed with her chin at the man walking out of Social Services.
PC Brooks frowned. “Isn’t he …”
And then a pair of bright blue eyes swept the thought, and all thoughts connected to it, away.
“You look lost, officers,” he said, stopping before them. “Can I help?”
Lost was the word for it all right; once past the public sections, Toronto City Hall became a hopeless rabbit warren. “We’re looking for a Daru Sastri.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.” And he looked most terribly sorry. “She’s out of the office now and there’s no way of knowing when she’ll be back.”
“Do you know where she’s gone?”
“Out in the city somewhere, that’s all I know.” He smiled. “Would you like to speak to someone else?”
“No.” PC Patton sighed. Out in the city somewhere. Great. “It had to be her.”
The Dark Adept Watched them get back into the elevator and enjoyed their disappointment. He hoped whatever they’d wanted Ms. Sastri for had been important.
The forest ended suddenly. One moment they were pushing past—or in Papa Bear’s case, plowing through—the underbrush and the next moment they were looking out at a prairie that stretched to the horizon.
“Well, son, this is as fah as Ah go.” Papa Bear absently scratched himself behind one ear, claws digging deep into the thick pelt and coming up with something many-legged and squirming which he absently flicked away. “Too much sky out theah foah me, but if ya’ll follow the sun, things should come out all right.”
“Follow the sun,” Roland repeated, peering up into the vaulting dome of blue that was the sky. His eyes, grown used to the shadowed light of the forest, watered and he blinked rapidly to clear them. The sun, almost directly overhead, burned hotter and higher than the sun at home.
“Good luck to ya, Master Bard.” Papa Bear clapped him carefully on the back.
By clutching at the nearest tree, Roland managed to keep his feet. “I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done …”
“Heck, ‘twern’t nothin’.” The huge bear looked embarrassed. “Ya’ll just put us in a song someday.”
“I will,” Roland nodded. “You can count on that.” He stood for a time, watching Papa Bear stomp back to the cottage—and to Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and a yellow-haired kid who hadn’t shown up yet—then he stepped out onto the grassland.
Walking was easy and he thankfully lengthened his stride. The grass grew to about ankle height, one blade pretty much like the next, stretching as far as he could see in any direction but back. The weight of the forest slipped off his shoulders like a discarded cloak and he left it lying where it fell, letting the sun wrap the memories in a cushioning layer of light. Heat seeped into the tattered places in his mind, warming and soothing, and as he walked he thought about nothing at all.
When a roll of the land dropped the forest out of sight, Roland sat and ate the lunch Mama Bear had packed for him. Then, still in a haze of heat and light, he stood and walked on, his shadow streaming out behind him.
Pain across the bridge of his nose brought him back to awareness. He reached up, touched his face gently, and swore. The skin, he knew, would be a bright, tight red. He squinted down at his forearms, just beginning to burn.
“I might have known,” he muttered. “Nothing around here comes without a price.” Now firmly back in the world, he sighed and did the only thing he could; he kept walking. A very short distance later he realized the price was higher than he’d thought. He’d seen no sign of water and he was suddenly very thirsty.
“Follow the sun and things should come out all right,” he mocked, licking dry lips. “All right for who?” With every step, he could feel the sun sucking moisture out of him. The honey and biscuits lay like a lump in his stomach and the sweet aftertaste only intensified his need for a drink.
He stood equidistant from the two cathedrals, enjoying the way his presence washed out whatever influence for good they might have. They were symbols of the Light, but he was a piece of living Darkness and against him they didn’t stand a chance. Leaning against a storefront, he waited for the enemy’s third companion. Although his servant had been unable to take an impression, it turned out not to matter for the impressions of the other two were filled with her image.
“Rebecca,” he murmured the name and considered what he knew. Were she merely an innocent he would take great delight in her destruction, but she was a simpleton as well and that saved her. What pleasure could there be when the victim remained unaware? No, he would disrupt the careful structure of her world, upset the balance she needed to deal with life, and send her weeping and wailing back into the arms of the Light as a further burden and distraction.
A slow smile spread across his face as he thought of the Light Adept so cruelly caught on the horns of a most exquisite dilemma. If he went out, the people he claimed to care so much about got hurt, used, twisted by their desire for the Light, their desire for him. Yet if he stayed in, his search was curtailed, not stopped but certainly not as effective.
“I am a genius,” he murmured, and straightened as he saw his prey approaching.
Because it was what she did, Rebecca looked in all the pawnshop windows, but she hardly saw the jewelry although it sparkled gaily in the afternoon sun trying to attract her attention. The Darkness had sent Roland away and she didn’t have the heart for pretties. She reached the last of the windows and frowned. Something was missing. A watch with two huge emeralds caught her eye. Two minutes past three it told her.
Past three.
What had happened to the bells?
Rebecca’s heart began to beat hard, the way it did when things went wrong.
What had happened to the bells?
Three minutes past three, said the watch.
Four minutes past.
Five minutes past.
What had happened to the bells?
Unable to stand it any longer, she whirled about and stared from one tower to the next, panic rising. “Ring,” she pleaded.
“Ring.”
And the Dark Adept felt the bells move within his hold. He tightened his grip. They trembled and moved again.
“That’s impossible,” he snarled.
Slowly, bit by bit, the bells pulled free. He fought them, but he couldn’t stop them and when at last they rang they rang him as well, pealing inside his head, clanging and clamoring until he cried out and clapped his hands futilely over his ears. He felt his weapon against the enemy fall, knew the enemy felt it, too, and all but shrieking in frustration, he fled.
Rebecca sighed in relief as the pattern of her world continued unchanged. The watch in the pawnshop window must have been wrong.
As the sun began to go down, the air grew chill, the heat of the day quickly dissipating. Roland shivered, his thin T-shirt now much the worse for wear, and, swaying slightly, he stood glaring into the setting sun. He didn’t know how long he’d been heading toward the gray bulge in the distance, but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Suddenly his legs gave way and he sat, heavily, on the grass.
This is ridiculous, he thought, swallowing blood. The fall had driven his teeth through his tongue and he was crazily thankful for even that much moisture. It’s only seven. I left the bears’ cottage at about eleven. Only eight hours. I can’t be this thirsty. But he was, thirsty and tired and sunburned and cold.
The sun dropped below the horizon and the temperature plunged another few degrees. Hunched in on himself, Roland wondered what pleasures the night would bring. Werewolves. Vampires. Ghouls. A herd of stampeding dragons. Just because he hadn’t seen any wildlife didn’t mean it didn’t exist. And in this place it would likely come out after dark. Of course, I’d have to survive the exposure long enough for it to get to me.
He looked up at the sky and shivered again, but not from the cold this time. All aroun
Eventually, his head fell forward and, exhausted by despair, he slept.
The harp woke him, sending a note singing into the night. Roland jerked his head up and wondered for a moment where he was. Then he remembered, and moaned. The whole wretched experience hadn’t been a dream.
The moon had risen while he slept and rode high and full in the starless sky. Each blade of grass on that seemingly endless prairie stood out, silver edged against a tiny, perfect shadow. If he strained, he thought he could make out the darker shadow of whatever it was he’d been using for a landmark.
In the distance, he heard the rumble of thunder. It drew closer, growing in volume and intensity.
“Wait a minute,” he lurched to his feet, eyes wide and breathing quickened, “that’s not thunder, that’s …”
A double line of horsemen pounded out of the darkness, the moonlight setting the silver inlaid in their armor and their tack on fire. Roland stood paralyzed while they raced closer and closer until, at the very last second, when the beasts and the riders filled all sight and sound and smell, the lines split and swerved off to either side to continue their gallop in a mad circle about him.
As far as the city-bred Roland could tell, the animals were normal horses and therefore only normally terrifying with their wild eyes and flashing hooves and great slabs of teeth, but the riders were clad in fantastical armor and he had no idea what rode beneath it. Two arms, two legs, and a head were all that could be taken for granted.
He was almost ready for it when the first spear thudded into the earth at his feet. Then the second grazed his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood, and he flinched aside, a whimper rising from deep in his throat. When the third took a small piece from his thigh, the pain became a part of the terror and he lost his grip on where one ended and the other began. They were all around him; he couldn’t run, he couldn’t hide so he shuddered and closed his eyes, clamping his teeth shut on the scream that fought to get free. I’ll die quietly at least, he swore bleakly. And Darkness can stuff it up his ass.
The harp began to play; an eerie and peculiar tune, for few strings remained intact.
The thundering hooves quieted and then ceased to thunder entirely.
Roland dared to open his eyes and as he did, the harp fell silent. He felt rather than heard something approaching behind him and, not entirely certain it was a good idea, he turned slowly to face it.
The horse stopped less than a body length away and the rider hung the reins over the elaborately chased saddlebow. Silver and black gloves were removed to expose literally lily-white hands. Slender fingers moved to lift the bird’s head helm. Roland had no clue what kind of a bird it represented, he only knew pigeons and it wasn’t one of them. Masses of ebony hair cascaded down over shoulders and breasts and jade green eyes stared at him curiously from under slanted brows.
Roland swallowed. Excluding Evan, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, from the tip of her delicately pointed ears to the sweeping curve of her cheek to the moist gleam of narrowed lips.
“The harp you carry,” her voice, although hard and suspicious, was as beautiful as her face, “how didst thou come by it?”
“I, uh, rescued it.” He couldn’t seem to straighten his thoughts.
“From where?”
Roland shifted the weight of the harp on his hip, dimly aware of the wound on his thigh protesting the movement and of fresh blood soaking into his jeans. “From, uh, a giants’ cave.” And then, because an honorific seemed needed, he added, “Ma’am.”
“The harp belonged to my brother.”
He wondered which hunk of rotting meat the brother had been but he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thou art human.”
It didn’t seem to be a question so he kept silent, content for the moment merely to watch her.
“And yet the harp accepts thee.” She frowned, changing her beauty but not lessening it. “Art thou a Bard perchance?”
“Uh, yes.” He remembered what Uncle Tony had told him about Bards. “That is, I am but I’ve, uh, still got seven years to go.”
She shrugged the remaining seven years aside and repeated, “A Bard.”
“Your Highness …”
Roland jerked as one of the other riders spoke. Staring into the depths of the lady’s eyes, he’d forgotten anyone else was there.
“… what shall we do with him?”
“We shall take him with us.” She smiled and Roland felt his heart do back flips. “The hill has been long without music.”
* * *
Bouncing painfully on the back of a saddle, Roland tried to keep one eye on Patience and the other on the harp and both of them on the rider in the bird’s head helm, giving himself a headache to go with the ache in his other end. As far as he could see, what with the darkness and the movement and his fear of sliding off and being trampled by those galloping along behind, the instruments were doing better than he was. The rider before him wore a cat’s head helm but not even his most desperate attempts to hang on to the armored torso could tell Roland whether he was clinging to a man or woman.
The hill turned out to be the bulge in the landscape Roland had been trudging toward for most of the afternoon; he was certain of it the moment it loomed out of the darkness. He saw the princess wave a hand and a large section of the hill misted away. Pale gray light spilled out of the opening. Horses and riders surged forward and Roland, still struggling to stay seated, was swept underground.
Some moments later, holding Patience protectively, his mind buzzing with images of color and light, he limped after the princess as she led the way through a set of great carved doors. He had a jumbled impression of an immense vaulted room filled with people and a murmur of surprise that tracked them as they walked the length of it. Roland kept his eyes on the princess, his head filled with paeans to her beauty that drowned out the pain and fear.
Across one end of the room was a dais and as Roland and the princess approached it, men and women moved aside to reveal a man seated on a great black throne.
Good lord, but they look alike, was Roland’s first thought. His second was, Am I out of my mind? for the man on the throne had dark red hair and pale gray eyes.
“Thou hast returned early to my sight, Lady Daughter.” He didn’t sound pleased. “What hast thou brought to me?”
“Two things, Lord Father.” She held up the harp. “My brother’s harp is found and he who carries it is himself a Bard.” She paused briefly then added without expression. “A human Bard. The harp accepts him.”
Roland felt every eye in the place on him. Pinned by the king’s level stare, he realized why he thought the two looked so much alike despite their radically different coloring; their expressions and their mannerisms were identical.
“I can assume,” the king said dryly, “that thou didst not best my son in battle and wrest the harp from his stiffening hands?”
“Uh, no, sir.” How did he get the harp? His memory seemed to go back only as far as his first sight of the princess. With an effort, he reached further and pulled out the answer. “I, uh, rescued it from a giants’ cave.”
“Pity. But the giant would have silenced him, so the result is the same.”
Roland got the impression that the late prince had not been very well liked.
The king continued. “Thou hast returned to me one of the treasures of my kingdom. Ask and it shall be thine.”
He must know the way home. Home. Roland fought to hold onto the word but the princess was here and infinitely more real and her presence kept pushing everything else away. “I …” His throat closed up and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he suddenly realized how very thirsty he was. “I, I’d like a glass of water, if I could.”
The king frowned.
Roland felt the people surrounding him draw back and he heard the clank of metal plates as the princess and her riders turned to stare.
“A glass of water,” the king repeated.
The silence lengthened and stretched. Roland desperately wanted to scratch his nose but was afraid to move.
Slowly, the king smiled and the court began to breathe again. “Water for the Bard,” he commanded. “And when thou hast been refreshed and reclothed, Sir Bard,” the smile broadened, “we will feast!”
Roland found himself surrounded by a swirling crowd of brightly clothed men and women, all laughing and talking and fussing over him. He lost sight of the princess and his leg began to hurt. The snatches of conversation he heard made little sense, so he stopped trying to listen; not difficult as no one actually spoke to him. A silver goblet was placed in his hand and he thankfully drank. Now he only felt tired, confused …
And short, he added silently as he came face to chest with yet another swelling bosom. Even the women stood well over Roland’s almost six feet.
He was pushed and pulled and chivied along until he ended up in a small, steamy room with two young women and a deep tub of hot water.
“… clothes.”
“What?” That last statement had obviously been addressed to him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.”
The young woman giggled and pushed a short chestnut curl up behind the point of her ear. “I said, thou hast to remove thy clothes. Unless thou wishes to bathe in them?”
“Uh, no.” He leaned the guitar case carefully against a stone bench and stared stupidly at the silver goblet in his hand.
The second woman, whose black hair hugged her head in a sleek cap, sighed and stepped forward. “I have no wish to be at this all night. If thou wilt but stand still, Sir Bard, we shall manage. Moth, if thou wilt stop giggling and help …”
Roland meant to protest when two sets of surprisingly strong hands began dragging down his jeans, but he just didn’t have the energy. Before he had time to be embarrassed, he was in the tub and the hot water started to soak away his aches and pains. The water turned pink as dried blood washed away and he shrieked as it hit the now open cut on his leg.
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