Alicia felt Keane's hand on her arm. The man had recovered his wits, and now he pulled her from the rock where they had been sitting. The princess stumbled and felt his fingers digging into her flesh, lifting her and pulling her. "Ouch!" she shouted, suddenly furious with him. Moments later, a nearby rock exploded, crushed to gravel by the thing's powerful kick. Stinging shards bit into Alicia's back.
"Run! By the goddess, run!" Keane gasped, propelling her forward, placing himself protectively behind her.
Run she did, blindly scrambling away from the horror. She stumbled and cracked her knee against a rock, she twisted an ankle when she fell a second time, but still she desperately fled, racing away from the well toward the place where they had spread their bedrolls.
For a moment, she remembered Tavish, still sleeping there. The crunching footsteps pursued, slowly but inevitably. She couldn't lead the thing to the bard!
"Tavish!" she shouted, darting to the side, following along the shore of the Moonwell. "Be silent, but flee!"
Alicia spun, seeking Keane against the silhouetting effects of the magical illumination. Surely he could do something!
Her heart churned in deep panic. She couldn't see Keane anywhere in the small, bowl-shaped vale.
"Precantos-nimbus. Tu-arlist!"
There! Suddenly she saw his tall figure, standing like a tree some distance away, shouting strange sounds. Alicia realized, with sharp guilt, that Keane had turned to face the colossal attacker at the same time as she had veered away from the camp, and she hadn't noticed until now that he did not follow her!
The illumination of the light spell still flared, casting its glare across the sloping ground between the iron creature and Keane, uphill slightly from the colossus. The earth there, as everywhere in this little vale, was a mass of jutting boulders and cracked stone.
Keane's magic struck the stones, not with the sudden violence of explosive force but with the slow power of fundamental transformation. The solid nature of the boulders was seized by magic, distorted and adjusted into something much softer, even liquid.
Alicia stared, amazed, as she saw the rocks begin to change shape, oozing flat as if they were soft, doughy mounds, flowing like thick sludge. The rocks melted away, running downhill as thick, brown goop, viscous and soupy. In moments, the area between Keane and the iron beast had become a gooey morass. The tutor's presence taunted the monster, drawing it deeper into the mud.
The sticky stuff flowed around the iron beast's legs, and Alicia saw the gigantic form sink slowly to its waist. It struggled forward, flailing with its powerful arms, splashing gouts of mud with fists that were greater than monstrous hammers. All around them, the rockfield seethed and bubbled, a quagmire. The mud sucked greedily, smacking around the torso and then the shoulders of the animated metal thing.
Finally Alicia saw only its horrible head, capped with the wide, horned helm, and the upward-reaching arms. Then, despite the beast's frantic grasping and thrashing, even these disappeared. Only a thick, bubbling swirl in the sticky surface remained to mark the place where the golem had disappeared.
"Keane!" the princess shouted, stunned and disbelieving. She sobbed and laughed at the same time. "How did you-?"
"Quiet!" he snapped, his tone harsher than she had ever heard. She froze, watching as he pointed at the slowly flowing mass.
"Igneous-layoka!" he barked.
In that same instant, the movement stopped, and Alicia looked with amazement at a flat expanse of stone, sloping gently toward the water, its surface marked by irregular ripples and folds of odd patterns, but no mark indicating where the iron thing had vanished.
Stepping quietly, Alicia moved back toward the magic-user. Her knees wobbled as she felt the reaction to the shock, and she reached out to steady herself against a rock. She saw Keane standing still, listening carefully.
The rock beneath her hand gave her the first clue when it shook, vibrating in her grip. Sound followed shortly thereafter, a dull rumble that bespoke mighty conflict within the earth itself. Then a crash like thunder echoed in the small valley, and the slab of rock that had so recently formed exploded upward and outward in a shower of stinging fragments and acrid, bitter dust.
A hole gaped in the rippled surface, and in its depths, something moved. The shape crushed and battered the rock, widening the aperture and slowly freeing itself from its tomb of solid rock.
Alicia screamed, not hearing the sound but instead feeling the release of mindless terror. The iron monster still lived-it still attacked!
Shaking off rock that had fused around its limbs, the monstrosity bashed with its anvil-sized fists, crushing and widening the hole around it. One arm wrenched to the side as the metal monstrosity climbed upward, and then the twisted limb hung motionless, obviously damaged. But the lone workable hand proved quite capable of bashing away the chunks of enclosing rock.
Another earthshaking rumble wracked the ground as the creature cracked free one leg. Pulling upward, the epicenter of a shower of stone shards, the clanking form lifted itself from the hole, grabbing with its one good hand and lumbering free onto the slab of once-molten stone.
The huge head swiveled back and forth with a dull, creaking sound, as if those steel eyes could see and now searched for prey. Indeed, the view came to rest against Keane, who had stumbled slowly backward as the monster worked itself free of the stone.
The iron mouth gaped, a black hole against the dark plate. A blast of white gas erupted, belching toward Keane. The princess saw the man fall backward on the ground, his body abruptly, unnaturally rigid. The hulking form lumbered closer.
The next sound that ripped through the night jarred Alicia's taut nerves. A shrieking wail rent the air. The noise seemed metallic somehow, as of a great sheet of plate mail ripped across the teeth of many grinding blades.
A surge pulsed in the light spell that still glowed near the shore, and Alicia saw movement there. Tavish! The bard held her harp before her, striking it roughly with her hand. Once again the piercing dissonance jarred their nerves.
Slowly the great head of the iron creature pivoted, coming to rest upon Tavish as Keane still lay immobile before the monster. Alicia held her breath. Would the colossus turn from its helpless victim? Silently she crept forward, trying to reach the magic-user without attracting the attention of the towering mass of iron.
Metal creaked as the monster turned toward the bard, who once again drew the piercing sound from her strings. A great leg stepped toward her, and then another. Keane lay, forgotten for the moment, in the long, menacing shadow.
Alicia darted to his side as the animated metal lumbered away with surprising speed. She saw Tavish turn and run, her harp bouncing against her back, dangling precariously by its leather strap as she scrambled to escape. The harpist used a long staff to help pick her way through the scattered rocks. She started around the shore of the pond, away from Keane and Alicia. Now the huge form of her pursuer cast long shadows across the bard, outlined by the flaring light of Keane's spell.
"Keane!" Alicia hissed, kneeling beside him, trying to control her panic. "Come on-you've got to get up. We've got to run!"
He blinked at her, the first sign that he still lived. His body lay in that rigid position, his back arched so tightly that it didn't rest upon the ground. Alicia watched in horror as his face began to turn blue.
She smelted an acrid odor and remembered the cloud of gas that had spouted from the monster's maw. Had Keane breathed some of the deadly stuff?
His chest! She saw that he did not breathe, and at the same time, Alicia remembered a thing her mother had taught her. Not all druidical arts stemmed from the magic of the goddess, and now she leaned over the dying man, using a worldly, not arcane, skill. Forcing his clenched jaws apart required all the strength of her arms and hands, spurred on by her desperation.
Finally she took a deep breath and leaned over him, pressing her lips to his. Forcefully she exhaled, feeling his chest rise beneath her hand. She pressed dow
nward, forcing the air from his lungs. Then she repeated the procedure, and again.
Abruptly Keane gagged and coughed, expelling the air by the convulsion of his own body. He pulled in great, tearing breaths, though each seemed to cause further coughing and choking. He doubled over in misery, kneeling on the ground and retching.
"Come on!" Alicia cried, tugging at his arm.
"Wait," Keane gasped weakly, peering across the reflective surface of the Moonwell.
They saw Tavish running, scrambling around the perimeter of the pond. She pushed her way through the brambles along the shore, carrying the staff of ash, using it to help maintain her balance in the treacherous terrain. The bard had made it more than halfway around the pond, leading the monster in a wide circle, but fatigue played a role now as Tavish stumbled frequently and leaned on the staff for support.
Keane suddenly whipped around, taking Alicia's arms in a firm grip. "Flee, Lady Princess-you must! We will keep the thing's notice, but you must escape!"
For a moment, his request beckoned before her like a bright, hopeful beacon, but in the next instant, she knew that she couldn't desert her friends. "No-can't you do something? Cast a spell?"
She thought at first he would curse her, so intense was his expression of frustration. He clenched his teeth, almost snarling, and turned back to the pool. Tavish had almost circled the well, and now it seemed that the monster drew steadily closer to the bard with each lumbering step.
Keane ran toward the bard, Alicia at his side. Tavish, they saw as they reached her, staggered from weariness, her face flushed red, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The monster loomed over them, one arm hanging twisted and limp but the other raised menacingly, ready to crush to a pulp any mere flesh found in its path.
"Incendrius carneto!"
Once again Keane's voice barked across the still valley. Alicia held her breath, watching a tiny globule of fire pop from his fingertip and float through the air in a deceptively gentle flight until it reached the hulking form of iron.
Then it erupted into an orange blossom of flame, its hot illumination dwarfing the light spell that still glowed among the rocks. Crackling fingers of fire encircled the colossus, grasping it in a searing embrace. The fireball expanded, engulfing the great metal shape until it vanished within the hellish sphere, flames spewing upward like a hungry, growing blossom of death.
For several seconds, the spell blazed. Alicia and Keane felt its heat on their faces as they helped Tavish limp to a flat rock, where she collapsed. Like the seething heart of a volcano, the fireball flared, a perfect circle towering toward the clouds, obscuring all within its infernal center.
"Look! The monster still comes!" Alicia whispered the words in horror, knowing that Keane could see the black shape emerge from the flame as well as she could. "But how could it stand that heat?"
"Not only withstand it-look, the spell aids the monster! See there? The damaged arm?" Keane pointed, and Alicia understood immediately. The mangled limb of the statue, torn as it burst free of the rock, now flexed whole and unmarred.
"Bulterus!"
Again Keane barked a spell, and Alicia leaped backward as this time a bolt of crackling lightning exploded from his outstretched arm. Like a giant spear, it sizzled through the air, crushing with explosive force into the monster's chest.
"Look! You stopped it!" Alicia shouted, but then she saw that she was mistaken. The statue stumbled backward under the impact of the blow and shook its head slowly, as if trying to dispel a sense of grogginess. It stepped closer to them again, and though its step seemed less sure, not as quick as before, still it lurched inevitably forward.
"Quick! Get to the horses!" the princess urged, trying to help Tavish to her feet. The bard only groaned and slumped back onto the rock.
"I–I can't move," she gasped, her face flushed and perspiring. "Go-both of you! Go without me!"
"Damn!" Keane snapped, but he didn't leave her side. Alicia saw the white staff that Tavish had leaned on. The bard had dropped it when she slumped to the rock. The iron colossus again loomed over them, but Tavish seemed to lack even the strength to stand.
Desperate for any hope, the princess picked up the shaft of wood and darted toward the lumbering statue. It still lurched unsteadily, as if the lightning bolt had stunned it, forced it to move with the sluggishness of a serpent beset by cold.
"Alicia, don't!" cried her teacher in a voice taut with fear.
But his words came too late, nor would they have changed her course had she heard them sooner. The thing still moved slowly, as if every step required the focus of all its energies. Alicia thrust the stave between the monster's legs as it took a step along the shore of the pool.
The metal being abruptly seemed to break free of whatever lingering restraints remained from Keane's spell. A heavy foot of bolted iron kicked out sharply, striking Alicia in the shoulder. Bones snapped and hot streams of agony exploded through the woman's side. Her arm twisted behind her back, a limp and useless member. Alicia cried out in pain, her scream piercing as she felt herself cast through the air like a rag doll to land, with a chill splash, in the brackish waters of the Moonwell.
The staff twisted under the force of the monster's gait, and for a brief moment, the iron beast paused, as if the lone pole had somehow snared its feet. One end of the rod dropped, touching the surface of the water.
It seemed to Alicia as she struck the water that daylight burst around them with explosive speed, so bright was the illumination that surged upward from the waters of the well, outlining the black and rusty form of the statue in purest white. It was a brilliance that seemed to etch every tiny pebble, every branch of cedar, and each blade of withered grass in acute detail. The light surged upward, higher and higher, into a great column beaming into the night sky, clearly reflecting from the overhanging clouds as if dawn had come early to the Fairheight Mountains.
The beast of iron, bound by light, twisted in visible desperation. Alicia heard a sharp crackling sound as of lightning striking nearby, and then the great metal form toppled into the Moonwell, splashing a huge shower of the milky, glowing water from the pool. The colossus twitched and slowly grew still, lying in the shallows with much of its twisted form above the surface of the water.
Then the liquid-or was it the pain? — closed over Alicia, and she saw no more.
Musings of the Harpist
Within the cycles of birth and death, of winter and summer, of victory and defeat, all things know the Balance. The forces of good and evil remain opposed and taut, and it is this tension that provides support for gods and mortals, for all those who can know the difference between light and dark and can freely choose one or the other.
And if the gods know the cycles of life and the end of life, they also know that the Balance is eternal and that the end of life is no more than the prelude to a new beginning.
So it is with a tiny spark of vitality, the birthing of a new presence, the remanifestation of the great goddess, the Earthmother. Her life has lain dormant for a mere blink of an eye by immortal standards, but this was time enough for great changes to wrack her once-vital body and for a terrible rot to set in, a wasting illness that threatens to complete the task of her death for all time.
The spark of vitality may have been kindled by a mighty staff, once the talisman of the Great Druid herself. Or it may have come from the faith of a young princess, who believed that she beheld the divine might of the goddess in the waters of her well. It may even have originated from the great and arcane power represented by the iron golem, a power that had been fused to the well through the accidental falling of the staff.
Perhaps most likely, the rebirth results from all these things, and more… the gradual return of a people to a way of worship that had faded with their mothers, the prayers rendered in the name of the goddess… and even the great wheel of the Balance, coming slowly around to the place where a fresh life could begin.
Whatever the source, the effects are real. I hav
e been witness to a miracle, and I know that my life will not be the same.
8
Stirrings
The High Queen lay still, her face a pallid white, so pale it seemed that no blood lay behind the skin, no vitality could ever again grace those closed, unseeing eyes. Only the slow rise and fall of the sheets indicated that the woman lived and breathed.
Deirdre stood over her mother, looking down at the queen and wondering why she found it so difficult to feel sorrow or pity. She knew that these would be proper reactions, yet when she was purely honest with herself, she admitted that she did not feel them. Instead, it was an emotion more like scorn that she felt for Robyn as she beheld her mother's weakened condition and understood her helplessness.
This scorn was coupled with a private but very fierce sense of delight that pulsed through her body. For the first time in her life, she was mistress of the castle! Now that joy thrilled her, threatening to break out upon her face, in her posture and words. Quickly she left the room, not wanting to give the nurses cause to whisper.
The princess hastened to the library, where she could unshackle her emotions without fear of interruption or discovery. Barring the door behind her, Deirdre crossed to the window, staring into the darkness.
Would he come to her tonight? With a shiver of delight, she knew that he would. She no longer questioned her certainty. The truth came like a vision of the future to her, and she accepted it as the gift that it was.
And it was he who had shown her that truth and that gift! Now Deirdre paced restlessly around the library, cursing the need for silence. It would not do for the servants to hear the king's younger daughter about at this hour!
She wondered again why he would not come to her chambers, but instead insisted upon meeting her here, in this room of dusty tomes and potent, arcane scrolls. Yet of that he had been adamant, claiming that his powers could only bring him to the place where he had first seen her. Although the explanation made a certain kind of sense, something suggested to Deirdre that there must be another reason, but she couldn't guess what it might be.
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