Confusion and ambiguity had been left in the white witch’s wake. Either Elissandra didn’t want to be found, or this was a most devious ploy to encourage collaboration between the two monarchs. The latter was certainly far-fetched, but it could not be denied that Magnus and Gloriatrix spent more time that day working toward and focusing on a common goal than they had in any of the weeks of bickering that had come before. Not having their aides present—those facsimiles that spoke for their masters—allowed the rulers to see each other as more of what they really were. Ironguards and Silver watchmen, two of each, still attended them. However, when the monarchs decided for the sake of expedience to take the secret tunnels bored through Kor’Keth, they felt it necessary to dismiss them.
“Go find something to do. I no longer need a shadow,” said Gloriatrix, as she and Magnus stood outside a vine-woven gate leading to a crack in the mountain. The crevasse looked deep and thin, precarious and dark. The Iron Queen’s guards had warned her about entering the rift. At first, her soldiers appeared unwilling to abandon her, even by command. “If I have to ask again, it will be with new Ironguards to replace the ones who lost their lives for the dishonor of disobeying their queen.”
The Ironguards bowed and backed away.
“You may leave me as well,” Magnus said to his silver guardians. Magnus’s soldiers hesitated, much as their Iron counterparts had. “If we meant to kill each other, we would have done so already. We are allies, and an alliance cannot survive without trust. Now go.”
You have more than a bit of hard frost in your manner, Magnus, thought the Iron Queen. Not such a wimp and a waste after all. Perhaps he would be a tolerable ally in this war. She swallowed such compliments, however, and concentrated on the route they took once through the gate—its twists and turns, its branching passages. In her spider’s mind, she wove every detail. Her recall would come in handy later, when she chose to use Kor’Keth’s secret passages for nefarious transit.
They were headed toward the King’s Garden, the last place Elissandra’s ghost had been sighted. It was a beauty the Iron Queen had not yet made the time to see. She was generally so unmoved by nature that being anywhere outdoors seemed a painful waste of her sands. As light and trickling music reached her eyes and ears, though, her dusty, neglected raisin of a heart beat a few times in joy. Magnus creaked open a wiry lattice gate bejeweled with glittering purple flowers that breathed lavender and minty scents. This hedonistic richness prepared the Iron Queen for the forest of variegated trees, of many colors and species, both leafed and pined. There were also rivulets of liquid glass that were creeks, faerytale bridges made of crystal lace, and an effusion of perfumes that battled one another for the greatest sweetness.
“I wonder if we’ve caught her this time,” said the Iron Queen.
She didn’t possess an inner compass or instincts for tracking people down, but finding someone constantly on the move surely required constantly moving oneself, so she set off, although without any particular direction in mind. The ancient arch leading into the palace’s twilight halls was not far away—she spied it through the shimmering bush—and the monarchs made their way toward it. Once there, they asked the guards if a woman and two children had passed that way at some point earlier. One watchman said yes. One appeared unsure. Gloriatrix deduced that the man’s confusion was an aftereffect of Elissandra’s amnesic presence—her magik that muddled minds and Fates—so she and Magnus began to search the King’s Garden in earnest.
It certainly felt as if Elissandra were there. The birds warbled odd songs, but did not chirp or caw. The brooks sounded more whispery than babbling. There was no one about, although it was a bright and balmy day. The place felt under a spell. Elissandra had that effect on nature; she stilled and unnerved it with her presence.
The monarchs passed over bridges, wound through short hedge mazes, and neared the place where the forest thinned. Their intent was to scout the edges and then come back, tracking in lines, to see where in the interior the white witch and her children were hiding. At last they were rewarded for their efforts. They came to the fringe of the King’s Garden, where the many burbles of glass rolled down and over a chasm of stone, and saw a woman—very white and colorfully garbed, with a stumped hand—and two equally spectral children in black watching the lens of pearl power over the sky. The Witchwall had not come down. Magnus hadn’t even begun to tackle figuring out the formula according to which it had been made, the complications that would attend its subsequent unmaking. The Witchwall diverted Magnus’s attention as he walked ahead. Suddenly, he realized he’d reached the grass-laden circle where Elissandra and her children sat upon a squat plinth of stone. The white witch and her children stared at the pearl light above them, as did the king.
“Elissandra, Magnus and I have been looking for you,” said the Iron Queen.
“Isn’t it nice?” replied Elissandra. She didn’t turn, and gathered her children closer.
“Elissandra,” commanded the Iron Queen.
Elissandra lashed her head about like a snake and hissed at the Iron Queen: “No rudeness. Not here; not now. You’ll ruin the flower of peace with your incivility before it has a chance to bloom.”
From the shine in her eyes, and the slight static in the air, Gloriatrix knew that Elissandra was in the thrall of Fate. She hadn’t left her dreamy, half-awake state since coming to Eod. Perhaps the flow of prophecy, growing into a raging rapid as the end times neared, was slowly driving the seer mad. Elissandra turned around again and resumed her sky watching. The Iron Queen tried a softer tactic. She crept forward, knelt, and whispered to the seer. “The king and I know what you have seen. Others have validated your vision. We know of the great shadow that has cast itself over Menos.” She waited for a reply, assumed the seer still wasn’t listening, and then added, “Death.”
“Sh, sh, sh,” cooed Elissandra softly, then pressed her children’s heads into her breasts, covering their exposed ears; they obeyed, eerily, like dolls. “We cannot speak of this now. I wanted to speak of it earlier, and you should have found me then. Now, I have peace to make.”
“Peace?” asked the king.
“Peace with my sins and sorrows. Peace with my children. Peace with my end,” replied the white witch.
Gloriatrix felt a tectonic shift in her buried emotions: shock, a fear for someone other than herself. “You speak as if you were going to die.”
“I am,” replied Elissandra. Elissandra then uncovered her children’s ears and covered her children with kisses. The white witch stood, took her children’s hands, and walked around the rock to the monarchs. She released her children, and the macabre little people moved, unbidden, to the Everfair King. The strange children entangled Magnus’s thoughts with their gazes, which reflected mysteries, magik, and secrets. They slipped their cold hands into his icy ones and began to lead the king away. “Please watch them for a moment, Magnus. I need to speak to Gloria.”
The children didn’t take the king far; the Iron Queen could hear the three whispering behind her somewhere. Once she and Elissandra had some privacy, the seer kneeled and joined the Iron Queen on the grass. The seer swished her hand through the green blades and smiled at some augur or another. It was sands before she spoke. “I have served your reign and been loyal to you for all of my years,” said Elissandra at length. “I have helped steer the Iron City through its darkest crisis—a voyage not yet over, though started and guided by hope. I would make one request of you, Gloria. Woman to woman. Friend to friend. For I believe that is how we should define a relationship such as ours.”
Gloria restrained a welling up of sentiment. “What can I do for you?”
“I need you to look after my children. See that they are provided with the wealth I was to claim from your empire. Ensure they are given the freedom to choose their path in life and society—freedoms we never had. We were denied them by life, by the men we chose, by our culture.” Elissa took Gloria’s hands and caressed them, and the Iron Queen’s te
arless front nearly shattered. She’d rarely been touched so warmly, and not in perhaps a hundred years. “You may have a chance, Gloria, to rebuild what you have lost. I can think of no opportunity so precious. You may be able to change who you were through who you are to become.”
Misplaced sentiments, thought Gloria. “If I cannot change?”
“Winds will blow, running water will wear away the hardest stone. What refuses to change will suffer a crueler erosion. We all must surrender to the elements. Lift our hands—” Elissa raised their hands, fingers interlaced, into a splash of sudden light. “Spread our arms—” The seer parted their hands and embraced the day; Gloria mirrored her. “And rejoice in our bodies becoming dust, wind, and nothingness.”
Embarrassed now, Gloria lowered her hands. Her lip trembled. What would she do without her conspirator in this great game? How would she outwit her enemies without the seer’s insights? Who else could slam back adderspit as well as Elissa? (Unpredictable, fair-weather Beatrice aside.) Here, Gloria realized, was the only friend she’d ever made, other than her brother when they were young. She realized she was listening to Elissa’s final will and testament. Bitterness claimed her. “I shall not rejoice in your end,” said Gloria.
“No.” Elissa smiled. “It is not your way. Know that I have chosen my time. I shall be the bird of sun and moon. I shall become one of the champions of this war. They say there is honor in being a hero; there is fear, too. However, the honor in sacrifice is true.” Elissandra relaxed her sun-saluting arms and again took her friend’s hands.
“When?” asked the Iron Queen.
“Soon. The time for me to be brave is soon.”
Gloria sighed. She had more questions, important ones, but even matters of Death and the War of Wars could wait a speck. She held Elissa’s hands. The breeze came on hot, but it was pleasant. Silver birds fluttered over the spires of Eod. Whenever the creatures landed nearby and strutted about, they reminded Gloria of gulls. Close inspection revealed them to be mangy, though—beggar kings. They must be confused as to where salt water was, as they were in the middle of a desert. Still, the tenacity of these creatures unexpectedly moved Gloria. They were no different than she. Lost and foraging in a land not made for their tastes. And now she was to lose another of her flock. She wondered, plainly and honestly, how many more losses she could bear. My realm, my friend, my sons. I am a queen who fights for a throne in a land of ashes.
“You can still fight for your sons,” said Elissa, who’d heard the whispers of Gloria’s thoughts. “I have seen them.”
“What?”
Elissa clenched the Iron Queen’s hands. A jolt of flesh-prickling power ran through each woman. “Alive or not alive. I feel worms over my face. I also taste fresh air as if rising from a grave. I am dead and yet reborn. I am lost and yet hunted. I hear their names: Sorren, Vortigern. My little Blackbirds. Two blackbirds, lost and flying in the storm. You can be the one to guide them home. Just open the cage, Gloria, and they will fly into your nest. I feel them…I hear them. One running, one screaming. They’re almost here.”
Blackbirds. Gloriatrix’s nickname for her children had been shared with no one, ever. Although Elissandra had implied earlier that at least one of Gloria’s children was alive, she had offered nothing substantial or incontrovertible regarding Sorren and Vortigern’s fates. Gloria gasped. “In Eod?”
“Yes. Both Blackbirds come. They are drawn to you, even though your heart rebukes love.” Elissandra slumped and needed her hands to prevent herself from falling over. When she gazed at Gloria again, the seer appeared wan and spent. “That was my gift to you. Whatever I said. The voice of Fate has left me, though I would urge you to remember my each and every word. You must honor what we have discussed for my children—that, I remember more clearly than your gift.”
“I shall,” vowed the Iron Queen.
The friends sat and chatted. Once or twice, they even smiled. The children could be heard playing some game of hide and sneak with the Everfair King; his cutting laugh suggested he was enjoying the diversion. The sun rose, and gold burned on a sky soon to be set with evening fire. Death? Who cared about that bony wench? It would be a beautiful sunset tonight. The Witchwall magnified the colors in the air as a lens of crystal casts light. Already, beams of crimson and clouds as bright as bronze warmed that most immovable heart: Gloria’s. Perhaps she and Elissandra could watch the sunset together, thought the Iron Queen. It might be their last.
“Death,” said Elissandra suddenly, and massaged her stump. “Horgot’s death came shortly after he’d lost his hand—ironic. We must speak of Death now, and not my passing. Such information is why you’ve come.”
She and the Iron Queen had been gleefully discussing the Second Chair’s end when the shift in Elissandra’s tone stung the Iron Queen like a slap. It was time to face reality. She stiffened up. In a speck, three shadows arrived behind her: two small, one cold as a winter door open at one’s back. The children must have been summoned by a secret command from their mother, which they then relayed to the king.
“I was told it was time to talk,” said Magnus.
The children of the white witch joined their mother, standing at her shoulders like matching ravens. You may stay, my lamblings, Elissandra mind-whispered. You, too, must understand what we face. It is also time for me to say what each of you knows must be said. Tearing up, the children shook their heads. No tears; no fear. Each of you will live and ensure the survival of our line. You will be children that honor your mother and father, not weak, slow-born creatures with minds of putty and bodies of fat.
Yes, Mother, the children replied; their tears stopped.
Magnus recognized that an exchange had taken place, a parley between minds. The family of witches now gazed at him and Gloria. “I have seen Death,” declared Elissandra.
“The Pale Lady,” said the girl.
“The Queen of Bones,” said the boy.
“She builds an army from the dead of Menos,” continued Elissandra. Nearness to her final hourglass imbued the seer with cosmic clarity. Details and contexts hitherto shrouded were cleared of their fog. She saw the patterns of destiny—the weaving threads of Fate—that surrounded each man, stone, breath of wind, and fleck of dust. Indeed, the whole of the world had become so suffused with music, light, and movement that it appeared to be howling with a harmonious fire. She knew things she would never have known without Death’s reaching hand. The truths spilled out of her in a stream. “She should not be here, Death. She has broken the ancient laws.”
“What ancient laws?” asked Gloriatrix.
Elissandra’s children were touching their mother, and they, too, were consumed in the fire of prophecy. Redness scoured their sight, the world twisted, and filaments of power were strung between every obstacle in sight. Tessa spoke for her mother. “Three laws. What is not of this world cannot exist in it, not without a vessel. By entering into a vessel, a Dreamer debases its own power, for its greatness can be wielded only so well with our crude hands. Finally, a Dreamer can rarely own a vessel completely without the living presence of a man’s soul—the two must exist in tandem. These are the three sacred laws of the pact; it is an exchange, really. A trade of power for weakness and tangibility. Still, no Dreamer can manifest in our world without the risk of becoming tainted with mortal sentiments. Death’s lengthy stay in her host—the Iron Queen’s son, Sorren—has corrupted her: he was afraid and weak, and that weakness of character has passed into her. Death sees only wars and conquest. She’s become driven by her fear of Zionae’s impending rise. She thinks to cleanse the world with ash.”
“She possessed my son?” exclaimed Gloria, many eccentricities and heinous traits of her dear Sorren coming suddenly into focus. “It wasn’t his fault then, all the terrible things that he did?”
Compassionately, Elissandra said, “Vessels are not only chosen, they are also sometimes born. A perfect storm of want, need, and power, creates the potential both to wake a Dreamer from sleep
and for a mortal to be a vessel to hold them. Your son was made to serve the divine, but he chose to serve a dark one. Many of his actions were his own.”
Gloriatrix whimpered, then bit back further weakness.
Magnus pressed on. “So Death—” Only slightly did he struggle with the concept of an entity so dire striding through their world. “—has built this army out of fear, and to destroy Zionae?”
“Zionae, her potential vessels—you and your brother—all who worship the Black Queen,” said Elissandra. “Death does what she believes is right, though her justice leads to only one judgment.”
Magnus asked the important question: “Death is the one who destroyed Menos?”
“Yes,” said the three.
“Through the body of the Everfair Queen, Death threaded her Will,” continued Elissandra, her hair billowing in a wind no one could feel. “As your bride was not a vessel, and couldn’t be claimed, she wore down the queen’s great resolution with a storm of dark whispers. She tormented the queen with visions of your torture at Brutus’s hands. Death manipulated the queen into doing what she did not have the power to do herself; Death could not have raised a city of the dead with Sorren’s magik, and her dark miracles worked through him, alone. Again, Death was bound by the Laws of the Pact, and Sorren was already weak, ruined, nearing his end as a vessel. Death has since found another vessel—one much stronger, one in which she can flex and cast her might like none before.”
Elissandra glared at Magnus. “You seek to know whether the Everfair Queen is guilty of this crime…” Magnus felt every beat of her pause. “I would say she is no guiltier than the soldier numbed by bloodshed who murders when given a command. If one is left to drown in blood and darkness, that becomes all one knows. You left her, Magnus. Whether you knew you were abandoning her or not, the pain was real. When you leave a creature to face strife on its own, it is either destroyed or grows greater through its trials. Your queen conquered her darkness. She has changed into something hard, a shard of amber. Her stone complements the shard of obsidian that now shares her heart. The shining innocence you knew and desired cannot be reclaimed. I think she is more beautiful now. You will have a chance to see and decide for yourself—”
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 73