The Night of the Solstice

by L. J. Smith

  Janie, nonplussed, said, “I thought it was a poker.”

  In Morgana’s hands the black, rusty length of metal which Janie had used to beat Aric turned liquid gold, and shivers of light rippled down its length.

  “My instruments!” Scarcely seeming to touch the ground Morgana ran to the cellar and down the stairs.

  “Take this, and this, and this.” She thrust bottles into Janie’s hands and scanned the shelves for others.

  Janie stared at her. She was thinking that no one could have been more unlike Thia Pendriel. The true Mirror Mistress was as small as a child and her hair fell in a dark cloud to her shoulders. She wore a plain amber-colored robe, gathered at the waist with a wide jeweled belt. At her throat was a heavy gold necklace whose center was a pouch of green silk.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Janie.

  “Close the mirrors, of course!”

  “With the others still in the Wildworld?”

  Morgana stopped dead at the sound of Janie’s matter-of-fact question. “What?” She looked around the workroom as if expecting to see the other children. “You mean to say they didn’t follow?”

  Janie told what had happened to Claudia.

  “And Alys will never leave her,” she finished. “And neither will Charles—I think.”

  There was a drawn-out moment of tension while the sorceress turned to the vixen and stared at her, eye-to-eye, seeming to have some unspoken conversation.

  “Damnation!” cried Morgana at last, throwing up her hands. “I may be half Quislai but I’m not indestructible! Did you see how many of them there were?”

  The vixen’s whiskers quivered. “I always thought,” she replied coldly, “that the other half was human.”

  There was another pause, and then suddenly Morgana was moving again, pulling other bottles from the shelves, her small hands darting with an almost savage deftness as she mixed ingredients.

  “Here!” She dashed the mixture into a clean yellow cloth, twisted it, and thrust it into Janie’s hands. “The vixen will tell you what to do with this. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

  “I thought you were the best,” said Janie mildly.

  The woman threw her a glance that would have frozen flame in the heart of Hades. “Human infant,” she said between her teeth, “our enemies have had three hundred years to prepare themselves for this moment. I have had three minutes. In addition to which I am half a millennium out of practice. I never asked to be the greatest sorceress since Darion Beldar. Now get out of my way, or finish life as a pile of cinders.”

  Janie obeyed, and she was gone.

  “You need a censer for that,” said the vixen briskly. “Don’t ask why. There is one on that lower shelf.”

  Janie scrambled among the dusty instruments. Her fingers longed for the lightning deftness of Morgana’s.

  “What’s in the cloth?”

  “Incendiary powder. Scatter it to scatter your enemies. Morgana mixes a particularly virulent variety. Unfortunately it must be prepared in small amounts and she had time to make but a little.”

  Janie found the censer, an ornate gold vessel with holes on all sides, something like a tea strainer hung from chains. “Is there more to the spell than what she did? Because I saw the ingredients and the proportions. And I wonder what would happen if you added just a pinch of phoenix feathers… .”

  Chapter 18

  THE GOLD STAFF

  Alys and Charles stumbled desperately after the sorcerei to the west wing. No one took any notice of them, except one sorcerer who glanced at Charles in absent contempt and with a casual gesture sent him sprawling.

  “Now I’m mad,” muttered Charles, picking himself up and wiping blood from his nose. “Now I’m incensed.”

  “We can’t let them have Claudia!” panted Alys.

  Just then she reached the second-floor gallery above the great hall, and halted in shock. There had been half a dozen strange sorcerei with Cadal Forge. But in the hall below were easily three dozen more, and every one of them held a staff. The Society had gathered.

  An atmosphere of mounting expectation pervaded the enormous room, but no one seemed either anxious or hurried. The sorcerei were tall, with proud faces and elegant, disciplined bodies. Power, and knowledge of power, showed in their every movement. They wore rich robes of many colors: cerulian blue and mandrake green, purple, dove gray, and russet. All eyes were turned on Cadal Forge, who effortlessly dominated this august group by his very presence.

  The master sorcerer in his plain soldier’s clothes stood near the dais, arms folded, staff in one hand. But despite the apparent ease of his manner Alys could see that he was still focused, like a sleeper at last fully awakened.

  Suddenly a murmur swelled in the crowd, as the great dais mirror shivered into color. The next moment Morgana herself stood on the platform, her hands empty, tightly clasped.

  Her eyes swept the formidable crowd of sorcerei, and when they reached Cadal Forge he made her a very slight bow, as if to say “Voilà.” When she located Thia Pendriel, her other great enemy, the councillor expressionlessly lifted Claudia into sight. Morgana’s eyes narrowed and her mouth went grim. She turned back toward Cadal Forge, drawing breath, but, unexpectedly, she addressed the room as a whole.

  “Members of the Society for a New Order in a New World,” she said, and then paused before continuing weightily and softly, “you are being used. This man”—she gestured toward Cadal Forge without looking at him—“has told you that he wants to restore the Golden Age of Findahl, to establish an order where each of you can rule without the interference of the Council. He lies. He cares nothing about a new order. He’d just as soon see every one of you dead—including you, Aric Carpalith. All he wants is the slaughter of the Stillfolk. He wants to wallow in the blood of his personal enemies, and when that is accomplished, believe me, the rest of you can go and hang yourselves.”

  Morgana was a compelling speaker, and when she finished the room was charged with tension. But Cadal Forge still stood at his ease, and when the eyes of the Society turned to him he unfolded his arms, made a small gesture, and smiled.

  “I think she’s inviting you to leave,” he said dryly, and the tension was broken by laughter. But the master sorcerer held up his hand for quiet. “My friends,” he said, “by all means leave. Yes, leave—if you do not wish to hold your own land, unquestioned, untaxed, far away from the danger of Chaotic Zones. Leave if you relish the Council forever looking over your shoulder. Leave if you do not want to see a new world, perfect, there for the taking, inhabited only by those barbarians who unlawfully drove us out.” He paused, looking at them. “What? Not one of you going?” Then to Morgana: “Stand aside.”

  Morgana’s shoulders sagged, and she turned slowly back toward the mirror. “Cadal, I—told you I couldn’t allow you to do this!” She whirled back on the last words, and in her hands was the Gold Staff, dazzlingly bright. Out of the head of the staff shot a golden ball which plummeted to the ground, only to erupt upward as a tree of living crystals which grew with lightning speed. Needle-sharp branches burst out in all directions, transfixing sorcerei on every side.

  As quickly as that the battle was joined.

  Cadal Forge reacted almost instantly, striking the floor a blow with his own staff that opened a fissure beneath the tree, and it shattered. But to do this he had to turn his back on Morgana. Her staff jerked back.

  “Hold your hand, Mirror Mistress.” The melodious voice of Thia Pendriel rang out in the great hall. The councillor stood directly below Alys. With one hand she held Claudia, who was limp with fear. The other hand pressed the Silver Staff to Claudia’s throat.

  Morgana’s lips drew back from her teeth but she lowered the Gold. A faint tinkling of crystal could be heard as fragments of the tree fell to the ground.

  Alys saw Thia Pendriel’s jeweled circlet winking far below her, and then her mind simply turned off and her body took control. With a single fluid motion she swung he
rself over the gallery railing and dropped on the councillor.

  The jolt as she hit drove the breath from her body, then she was rolling on the floor, with Claudia in her numbed arms. Thia Pendriel’s staff had flown from her hand.

  With a terrible, dissonant curse, Cadal Forge threw something toward Alys and Claudia. But at the same time Morgana shrieked something even more high-pitched and hideous, and the bolt from her staff reached them first. It struck the ground in front of them and whizzed around to enscribe a circle from which a racing point of light spiraled up faster than the eye could follow. The spiral became honeycombed, enclosing the children in a glowing lacelike bell jar. Cadal Forge’s scarlet sphere impacted with this cage and the lace flooded with red as if absorbing a bucket of blood. The cage then showered sparks from the top and for three heartbeats Alys knew what it was like to be inside a Tower of Gold firecracker.

  Then it was gone, but both Thia Pendriel and Cadal Forge had turned their attention back to Morgana, striking simultaneously. The councillor’s attack came in the form of a jet stream of silver-blue which Morgana deflected with her staff; the sorcerer’s was a bolt of something solid and sharp which grazed Morgana before exploding in the mirror. Before she could recover, they both struck again. The tiny sorceress staggered and fell.

  Charles crouched on the gallery, hands white-knuckled against the railing. He was desperately trying to think of something he could do.

  A voice spoke by his shoulder. “Here,” said Janie. “Take this and use it.”

  “You! You came back!”

  “Of course I came back. I’ve been whipping up a few spells with the vixen, is all. Take it.”

  He snatched the object she was offering. “What is it?”

  “An incendiary—an explosive powder.”

  “In a salt shaker?”

  “I had to improvise.”

  Spotting a knot of Cadal Forge’s followers below, Janie swung the censer by its chains, releasing a spray of powder.

  The effect was spectacular. As each grain was set in motion it exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces, which in turn exploded into thousands of still tinier pieces, and so on. The result was an expanding nimbus of violence.

  Even the most expert sorcerei had to turn from the battle to deflect this powder, or else be scorched with myriad painful burns. Joyfully, Charles and Janie raced up and down the gallery, launching hit-and-run attacks on the enemies below.

  At first the minor sorcerei had stood back, allowing their leaders to deal with Morgana. But now, the room lit with fitful color as, one by one, the members of the Society entered the battle. Morgana, on her feet again, began to reel under the barrage, unable to defend herself. A shaft of green light opened a cut on her face from cheekbone to ear; a purple bolt, deflected, set the tapestries afire.

  Thia Pendriel’s staff spat spongy globs of something which smelled like rotten meat. One of these struck Morgana’s robe and began to crawl up it. With a gasp that was almost a sob Morgana beat it off, was hit by a lazily rolling scarlet ball as she straightened, and screamed.

  Her staff swung in an arc of violence and hit the ground, releasing a flash like electricity. This sped across the floor, ricocheted from the wall, tore back at an angle, and ricocheted again. In its wake it left a line of fire which, as the flash continued its journey, divided the room in a zigzag pattern. Sorcerei leaped out of the way as the flash passed, then stood trapped between the fiery lines. Alys heaved Claudia onto the safety of the turret staircase, looked up, and was shocked to find she shared her refuge with Thia Pendriel. The woman smiled faintly, nudged her aside, and mounted the stairway, leaving Alys gaping.

  In the hall, the flash went rocketing on and the lines glowed more brightly than ever. As it struck the wall for the last time, completing the pattern, the ground began to shake. Out of the lines welled molten lava. Cracks splintered up the walls where the bars of fire touched them, and lava spewed out of these clefts, faster and faster. Morgana paused in her renewed attack on Cadal Forge to look at her handiwork in alarm.

  “This is out of control,” she breathed. “Children, fly!”

  Hearing this, seeing the rising waves of molten rock which rolled slowly across the floor, setting fire to whatever they touched, Alys gripped Claudia under the arms and dragged her up the stairs toward Charles and Janie.

  “Up!” she cried as she reached them. Claudia no longer had her amulet and they could not leave the Wildworld without her. There was nowhere to go but up the turret stairway.

  In the hall bedlam had broken out. Screams and roars of pain, shouting, spells, and curses swelled into an indistinguishable babble. The three of them carried Claudia higher and higher, to the third-floor level. They reached it just as Cadal Forge succeeded in breaking through the lines of fire. The sorcerei surged past him in pursuit of Morgana, who had taken to the stairs herself.

  In an instant Morgana was beside Alys, throwing open the trapdoor in the turret’s roof.

  “Climb!”

  Lifting Claudia through, the others scrambled up.

  “This is my house—and doors, at least, will obey my will,” said Morgana, shutting the door, and bringing her staff down hard on it.

  “Not if they fall to pieces before your spell is done,” said Thia Pendriel, appearing out of the shadows. The Silver Staff spat a burst of fire even as Morgana’s Gold began to trace the outlines of the door. There was a silver light and a searing heat. The extent of Morgana’s weariness was made clear when, instead of protecting the children by sorcery, she simply shoved them out of the way. And, through the hole in the floor of the turret, the sorcerei arrived.

  “Behind me,” said Morgana quietly, and they obeyed.

  The tide of the battle had turned. Morgana, bleeding from a dozen wounds, faced the staffs of two dozen murderous sorcerei. Cadal Forge, at the front, slowly lifted the Red Staff to the level of her heart.

  “Surrender,” he said, simply.

  The Mirror Mistress was silent.

  The sorcerer spoke softly. “I did not kill you before,” he said, “and I would not kill you even now. Submit to me, yield me your staff, and you may live—you may even go from here in peace. Otherwise …”

  He made a small, eloquent gesture.

  “Face me alone,” the tiny sorceress burst out hoarsely. “Fight me without that herd of slavering sheep at your back, and if I am defeated you may take my staff in honor.”

  “I will accept that challenge.” Thia Pendriel stepped away from the others. “Our quarrel is an old one, Renegade, and I welcome the chance to settle it.”

  “Pendriel, you’re a fool,” said Morgana. Her hands had clenched convulsively on her staff and her voice shook despite her control. “What would you do with the Gold, after all these years? And where can you go with it, now you have openly betrayed the Council?”

  The tall sorceress smiled enigmatically.

  “To the Stillworld? Would you really enjoy lording it over a land of wretched, short-lived slaves? Or perhaps you, too, have some other purpose… .”

  “Enough,” said Cadal Forge. “There will be no single combat and no more debate. You have wasted too much of my time already. Look at me, Morgana. The Red is your death.”

  To Alys’s unspeakable horror the griffin’s head on his staff came alive. The eyes rolled, the mouth gaped open with a lionlike roar, and out poured a cloud of red vapor which swept toward Morgana against the wind. As if at a signal all the other sorcerei struck at once. There was a light like a rainbow, and Alys saw the floor rush up toward her.

  She regained her senses to feel a stinging pain in her arm. At her back the turret wall was in ruins. In front Morgana had fallen with the Gold Staff under her body, and Cadal Forge stood above her, preparing to finish it.

  Out of the griffin’s mouth, from which thornbranches had once sprung to trap a Quislai, long, fibrous tendrils now emerged. They wrapped themselves around Morgana’s body almost caressingly—and then they began to tighten.

/>   Alys watched, unable to look away. The whole scene was like a nightmare, and it reminded her vividly of another nightmare, when she had lain helpless with fear and watched a friend face death alone. But now, somehow, she was not lying still. She was on her feet, dizzy, with the gannelin dagger in her hand.

  No one bothered to cry a warning to Cadal Forge as she sprang—what could a mere human do to a master sorcerer? But the sorcerer was not Alys’s target. One sweep of her arm brought the dagger across the writhing tendrils, cutting through them as if they were cobwebs. Morgana drew a tortured breath as they fell from her throat, and lay still.

  Alys turned to meet the crystal gray eyes of Cadal Forge. Once before she had met that searing gaze in a mirror and had panicked. Now she kept her grip on the dagger and stuck at him with all her force.

  And then the Red Staff itself lifted high, whistling down to meet the gannelin knife. The dagger shivered into a thousand fragments and the shock sent the hilt flying from Alys’s hand and Alys herself staggering backward. She stumbled as a piece of rubble turned beneath her foot. For a moment she swayed on the edge of the turret, trying to regain her balance, then the stone gave way beneath her and she fell.

  Chapter 19

  HEART OF VALOR

  Alys’s scream was snatched from her lips by the shrieking air as she fell. The full moon lit the ground below in terrifying detail. And then suddenly some great shape surged between her and the ground and she shut her eyes and hit it, and it dropped with her, so that they skimmed Fell Andred’s outer wall before rising steeply.

  She opened her eyes and gasped, clutching wildly. The castle was far below, a toy, and she was circling and wheeling up somewhere near the stars, and the huge head which looked over its shoulder at her inquiringly … was the head of a snake.

  A voice by her ear said, “My lady Alys—”

  Streaking through the air beside her was the serpent, her own serpent, its blue and coral body supported by six pairs of velvety blue wings. Dumbfounded, she looked back and forth from it to the monstrous creature which bore her up.