Lady Warhawk (16 page)

"I want to see the lake," Arkin said. He stepped up to her and slipped his gloved hand
into hers. "It's not really that scary, is it, Aunt Meggi?"

One of his brothers muttered "baby," but Meghianna didn't turn to see who, and Arkin
didn't seem to hear.

"Yes, it can be. But only for those who are here without permission, who try to break in
or do harm to the people inside." Meghianna gripped Arkin's hand and held her other hand out
for Garyn. The little boy grinned and hurried to take her hand, and the three of them took the
lead, walking down another passageway that opened through the solid rock.

"Another illusion?" Athrar asked.

"Oh, it's solid enough, if you're not thinking about going to the lake." She turned around
in time to see his disgusted expression, and laughed at him.

The sound of her laughter hit the billows of mist churning around the Lake of Ice and
fell flat, muffled. Meghianna watched the boys, some of them turning to look at the short
passageway they had come through, and saw the moment they realized that a relatively thin wall
of rock separated the men's village from the wide bowl of the lake. Before they could turn from
that discovery and start asking her questions, she flicked her fingers and used a Thread to drive
the fog apart, giving them a clear view for about ten paces in any direction. The clear area stayed
with them. Lycen was the first to realize what she had done, and laughed. The boys soon
discovered that they couldn't run too far ahead of her, or they would step into a clinging, chilly
wall of mist.

Athrar found the first skeleton, half-sunk into sand that had melted like butter around the
man and then solidified again. He was walking at the head of the group, far to the right, holding
his hand out so it vanished up to his wrist in the mist. The churning gray parted before him and
he almost tripped over the slumped figure, which reached barely above his knees. He let out a
choked yelp and twisted sideways, then took three stumbling steps backwards, staring.

"I was making it up," Mikyl whispered. He tore his gaze from the lump of rusted chain
mail and helmet over brown, weathered bones and the moss that clung to it in places like flesh,
and looked up at Meghianna. "I didn't mean it."

"Unfortunately, this man meant it when he tried to penetrate the Stronghold's defenses.
The depth of his evil intentions was reflected in his punishment. He came here to hurt and to kill,
so he was left to suffer quite a while, once the sand became rock around him."

"What about people who are just angry, and they just want to yell?" Lok asked. His
voice sounded strained, and several years younger.

"Everyone is given a warning, and a chance to leave and save their lives." Meghianna
gestured with her chin, since she was still holding the younger two boys' hands. Her little troop
turned left, going closer to the shore. She reached out through the Threads to find one figure in
particular. Perhaps it was morbid of her, but curiosity compelled her to come see.

At the very edge of the lake, the last man who had come to the Stronghold with a lie on
his lips was encased in ice. His mouth was open with whatever he had been about to say next.
The ice was perhaps a hand's thickness all around him, touching the ice of the lake.

Athrar, Lycen and Mikyl touched the ice pillar that encased the man. Lycen took his
glove off, and gingerly put a single fingertip against it. He grinned and yanked his hand
away.

"Didn't you think it would be cold?" Meghianna teased him.

"What did he do?" Athrar asked.

"He lied to me. His death was so fast, he barely had time to feel the cold."

"Aunt Meggi..." Lok stepped back, dug his fists into his hips, and grinned, shaking his
head. She grinned back at him. It felt odd, to enjoy the boy's admiration so much.

No one hesitated when she invited them to step out onto the Lake of Ice with her. She
told them about playing on the ice as a child, strapping metal blades to her boots so she could
skate with the other girls in the Stronghold, racing and learning gliding dances. She pointed out
the large portions of clear ground on the far shore of the lake, safe from intruders, where she and
her playmates would wander through grass and trees and have picnics, sheltered from the
gruesome warning signs left for intruders. She led them out into the middle of the ice, and let
them go ahead of her, so they could experience the invisible barrier that kept all outsiders from
penetrating any further, unless someone inside the Stronghold opened the Mist Gates and let
them in. Even then, all visitors were stopped by guards in the antechamber that was bound with
Threads of protection as strong as the ones enclosing the Warhawk's fortress.

Once they discovered the barrier, the boys enjoyed sliding across the ice and bouncing
back when they hit it. Meghianna sent a thought to Mrillis and showed him what the boys were
doing as the sunset faded to twilight. He was the only one who would understand and laugh with
her. Anyone else would either be aghast at such foolery, considering it sacrilege, or find it an
interesting aspect they might discuss with the wrong person. It was generally believed that no
one could even step foot on the ice, let alone walk halfway across before the enchantments
intervened.

She didn't want the wrong person to hear part of the truth about the gates of the
Stronghold. Someone might think to challenge the enchantments. Meghianna was very willing to
let the tales of the protections around her home be warped out of all proportion, to frighten
people into staying away. That was why her predecessors chose to leave the rotting corpses of
enemies as eloquent warning signs.

Finally the twilight grew deep enough that the boys couldn't see the shore beyond the
faint glow of the ice below their feet. They shivered, despite their roughhousing, and didn't
protest when Meghianna declared it was time to go back to their new homes and make
supper.

"Aunt Meggi?" Garyn said. He stumbled a little when they reached the pebbly shore,
and they stopped gliding on their ice-slicked boots. "Can't anybody ever get into the Stronghold?
We can't go inside and look around?"

"No man not born in the Stronghold can ever enter. It used to be allowed," she
continued, almost able to read the questions that gleamed in the boys' eyes. "We used to have
visitors constantly. Scholars and healers would come to learn and share knowledge. Many nobles
would come to trade with us. But times change. It became wiser to send our healers and teachers
out to the world, instead of bidding people come to us for medicine and knowledge."

"Were you born here?" Lycen asked.

"No, but Lady Ceera chose me as her heir before my parents even married. I was
brought here only a few days after I was born."

"Because our grandmother killed your mother," Mikyl said. "Mama told us."

"No, that's not quite true." Meghianna muffled a snort of laughter when the boys reacted
in surprise. They stopped short, with widening eyes, and cast sideways glances at each other.
"The evil spell that controlled your grandmother's mind killed my mother. Trevissa loved her
cousin, Belissa."

"Love doesn't really protect anyone, does it?" Athrar said, almost too softly to be
heard.

"Love is like hatred in that it is the reason behind what we do. Love moves us to take
care of each other, just as hate moves us to hurt. Do you understand?" She caught hold of
Garyn's hand and wrapped her other arm around Athrar's shoulders. "Both have the strength and
control over us that we give them. Some men have said that they had no choice, their hatred or
their love drove them to do what they did, making them vicious monsters or heroes of great
goodness, but ultimately they did have a choice. They chose to love or to hate, and all their
actions are a result of that one simple choice."

"Not simple at all," Lycen muttered.

Her son grinned crookedly when she laughed.

"Forgive me. You are hungry and cold and tired, and I am putting far too many heavy
thoughts in your heads. Time to make our dinner."

Meghianna calculated that between the cold and the exercise on the ice, the boys would
fall asleep quickly, leaving her free to go into the Stronghold and follow the paths of her
memories. She wouldn't take Lycen with her tonight, this first night home in fifteen years.

With dinner to look forward to, the boys hurried with their chores. They gladly brought
in wood and charcoal and checked the horses in their stable and hauled water and swept away
what little dirt and dust had accumulated in the magic-sealed common room.

The exercise and cold air that afternoon, their full stomachs, and the heat of the fire
made them drowsy quickly. No one protested with more than a frown when she suggested that
they stay in the common room for the night. Meghianna imagined they had frightened
themselves with their stories of hauntings and evil magic, and didn't relish the thought of
walking the dark pathways to their solitary homes. The boys made up pallets on the floor and
were soon asleep, or close enough to it that it didn't matter.

Meghianna wove a spell of protection around them, sealing the door so no one could get
into the common room unless she permitted. She paused a moment, bringing up memories that
Nalla and older inhabitants of the Stronghold had shared with her, of happier times when the
village had been full of men and older sons related to the Queen's Ladies. When the girls who
came to study at the Stronghold flirted with the sons and rode their horses in the clear valleys far
to the east and danced on the Lake of Ice.

Those days will never return,
she mused.
The World is changing, and we
must change with it. The World will split into two. One shall race ahead, and the other shall stay
behind.

She shook her head, startled to realize she had slipped into a visionary state, not quite a
Seeing.

"Estall, please protect us, guide us, guard us, make us worthy vessels of your power and
duty," she whispered, and caught up her cloak to fling it over her shoulders. A moment later, she
shut the door behind her, leaving the sleeping boys safely wrapped in firelight and shadows.

In moments, she had slipped through the archway through the stone, and emerged into
the domed entryway room. She paused to let the stillness seep into her, to reassure herself that no
one had challenged the layers of Threads woven through the years, a thick barrier imbued with
the hearts and minds and spirits of every Queen of Snows who had come before her.

The protective magic was nearly a living thing, and sometimes as a child she had
imagined that it spoke to her with a hundred different voices. She had speculated that was why
Ceera, who had been acknowledged as Queen's Heir at such a young age, had been such a
prodigy, too. Ceera had learned from the Stronghold itself, her mind opened to all the
accumulated knowledge and power when she was young and flexible. Meghianna had never
shared that theory with Mrillis. She suspected it might be wise to share that with him now. Just in
case something happened to her, in the struggle to make sure Athrar took the throne, and that his
heir was born.

"The blood taken from the blood," she whispered, and stepped out across the silent,
shadowy dome room. "If Braenlicach sings for Athrar, what will it do for his heir?"

Light spilled out from the flame-and-scroll emblem created in sapphires and silver in the
floor of the chamber. That light followed thin traceries of silver across the floor and up the walls,
and out the five doorways that led from the room. Meghianna paused, a few steps from the third
door of the five, and listened with her ears and her spirit as light and warmth spread through the
Stronghold. She likened it to a sleeper waking, taking a deep breath. The blood flowed faster,
warmth flowed through the body, and awareness returned.

"I'm home," she said, answering the awareness she felt gathering around her. "Not for
long, but I won't stay away so long now, either. Soon... I think I will be here and not leave for a
very long, long time." Meghianna shivered, imagining years, decades, maybe centuries of
solitude. There was a time she would have welcomed the silence and solitude--after hectic,
frantic, frustrating days in her inn in Quenlaque.

Someday, Meghianna sensed, she would cry out against the silence and hunger for a
voice, a face, some human warmth.

A face and voice and the feel of a man's hand grasping hers filled her mind, startling her.
She nearly laughed at the hum of energy, her breathlessness in reaction to that knot of memories.
Why would she react that way? Mrillis had been part of her life before she was even conscious of
her own existence. Perhaps it made sense that she would long for his company even more than
her father's, but...

She continued down the passageway. She wanted to see the common room, to awaken
the magic that brought sunlight and warmth, the sound of birds singing and the scent of flowers
blooming to the chamber deep within the stone. She needed those sensations to wipe away the
realization that she had thought of Mrillis as merely a man--not her beloved teacher and partner
in protecting the world.

"He is more than eighty years older than me," she told the passageway that whispered
with memories of all the people who had once lived here with her. "He still sees me as his
student, no matter how well we work together, no matter how he scolds me that I need no more
guidance or lessons." She laughed as another thought immediately rose in her mind, as if
someone argued with her. "Yes, but in two hundred years, eighty years will not matter." She
caught her breath. "When we are all each other has left, the only ones who remember..."

She burst into the common room, blinking fast as her eyes adjusted to the bright light.
Meghianna took a couple deep breaths, absorbing the warmth, the scent of flowers, the humidity,
the sounds of a breeze, a fountain spilling down shelves of rock, and birds singing. Pushing away
the revelation that had startled her so much, she shed her cloak and tossed it onto a bench by the
doorway.