The Hero and the Crown (25 page)

She was still carrying the surka wreath, and as she thought of Maur she

remembered the red stone she had taken with her from its ashes, and

remembered that she carried the stone even now. She had a moment’s cold

dread, wondering if she were carrying her own betrayal into Agsded’s lair; but she

put her hand into the breast of her tunic, and drew out the little soft pouch where

the stone lay. The stone was hot to the touch when she let it fall into her palm

from the pouch, and it seemed to writhe in her fingers; she almost dropped it, but

she thought of spiders and surka leaves, and held on; then shook it back into its

pouch, and curled her fingers around it._

Still she climbed, but she no longer felt alone. Evil was with her; red evil shone

in her eyes, rode on her shoulders, harried her heels; waited in the dark doorways

where she would not look, fell like ash and rose like smoke from the torches. Evil

was all around her, and it watched her, eyelessly, watched for her first stumble.

Still the stairs rose before her, and still her weary legs carried her up; she

wondered how many days she had spent climbing stairs, and if her army had

disbanded by now, and she worried about Talat, who was wearing his saddle and

gear. She should have remembered to strip it off before she entered the dark

tower.

The red light throbbed in time to her own pulse; she panted in a rhythm begun

by its fluctuations; the sweat that ran into her eyes was red, and it burned. And

now she had something else to worry about, for where she had touched the

tender skin of her throat with her surka-sticky fingers when she pulled at the

thong that held the dragon stone’s pouch, it burned too. But its throb had nothing

to do with the tower. It throbbed angrily and self-consciously, and her mind was

distracted enough to think, This is typical. On my way to gods know what

unspeakable doom, and I break out in a rash. But it lightened the evil a little; she

did not notice this as such, only that she toiled on in a slightly better spirit. Idly

she pulled one end of her collar loose and pressed it against the surka rash, which

didn’t help at all.

Up. And still up. Everything ached; it was impossible to tell the leg cramps from

the headache anymore; the only thing about her that still bore any individuality

was the surka rash on her chest, which was spreading. Up. She had been climbing

forever; she would be climbing forever. She would be a new god: the God That

Climbs. It was no more improbable than some of the other gods: the God That

Isn’t There, for example (more often known as the God That Follows or the God

That Goes Before), which was the shadow-god at midday. The rash had also

begun to itch, and she had to curl her surka-stained fingers into fists to stop

herself from scratching the too sensitive skin on her neck and chest. And still she

climbed. The heat in the red stone now beat at one hand even through the pouch;

and the crisp leaves of the surka pinched the fingers of the other hand.

She would have said she had no strength left for running, but she did run.

Gonturan banging painfully against her ankle, although her feet were numb with

climbing. Then she saw that the hall was quite short, for the blackness before her

was that of double doors, their frames edged with the thinnest line of red light;

and she stopped abruptly a few strides from them, her muscles quivering and her

knees threatening to dump her full length on the floor for the thing coming up the

stairs to find.

She leaned against the outer edge of one door, her back to the narrow wall

where it joined the corridor wall; her breath whined in her throat. Thank Luthe for

the thoroughness of my cure, she thought as she felt the thick air surging into the

bottom of her chest, being hurled out again, and a fresh lungful captured. The

rash on her chest throbbed with extra enthusiasm as she panted, and the skin

above her ribcage had to heave and subside more quickly. Well, thorough about

the important thing, she amended.

Luthe. She had not thought of him, had not quite said his name even in the

dimmest, most private recesses of her mind, since she had left him. She had said

she would come back to him. Her breathing eased; even the evil air seemed to

taste less foul. Luthe. She looked down the hallway, but saw nothing coming

toward her. Perhaps it is Nothing, she thought. Perhaps that is what follows here.

She looked down at her hands. She could not open the doors behind her—

supposing they opened in the usual fashion—with both hands full. She knelt

down, kicking the tip of Gonturan to one side so she jammed up into a corner and

gave Aerin’s armpit a sharp poke with her hilt, and put the hidden stone and the

green wreath on the stone floor. Slowly she upended the leather bag, and the hot

red stone spilled out, burning in its own light, long red tongues of that light

snaking down the corridor and up the walls. It made her dizzy. She prodded the

wreath and made a small hollow in the twined stems, hastily picked up the stone

as it tried to scorch her fingers, and dropped it in. It sizzled and hissed, but the

surka seemed to quench it, and the red light subsided. Aerin pulled the leaves

back over it again, shook the wreath to be sure it could not fall out, and stood up.

By the wings of the mother of all horses, her rash would drive her mad soon.

She rubbed it helplessly, the heel of her hand chafing it against the inside of her

shirt, and it responded gleefully by feeling as if it had caught fire; but as she

dropped her hand again and then tried to bow her shoulders so that her shirt and

tunic would fall away from the infected skin, she stopped thinking about what

might be creeping up the stairs behind her. Bowing her shoulders did no good

either. Irritably she turned to face the door, her free hand pressed flat against her

chest again with shirt and tunic between; and pushed at the doors with the hand

that held the surka. The leaves rasped against the inside edge of the doors, and

the doors exploded.

There was a roar like all the thunder gods came down off their mountain to

howl simultaneously in her ears; and winds spun around her like endless spiral

staircases, bruising her with their edges. There was torn redness before her eyes,

rent with blackness, clawed with white and yellow; she felt that her eyes would

be hammered out of their sockets. She staggered forward, still clutching the

wreath, the hand that held it outstretched. She could not see floor nor walls nor

ceiling, nor anything; only the shards of color, like mad rags of cloth streaming

past. Her other hand fell to Gonturan’s hilt, though she knew she hadn’t a chance

of drawing her in this vortex of storm; still it gave comfort to clutch at her.

The wind lifted her entirely off her feet for a moment and dropped her again

and she stumbled and almost fell, and so the wind seized her yet again and threw

her to one side, and only luck let her fall feet first the second time. This will not

do, she thought, and braced herself as best she could. I’ll probably lose her—and

with a wild heave she pulled Gonturan free of her scabbard.

And at the far end of the chamber stood a man dressed in white, with a red

sword girt at his side, and she knew him at once, for she had seen his face often

enough in her mirror.

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He laughed, her own laugh,

but greater, deeper, with terrible echoes that made tangled harmonies, and those

harmonies found the places in her own mind that she had never looked into, that

by their existence had long frightened her; that she had hoped always to be able

to ignore. The air reeled over her in thick waves, and Gonturan’s blue fire dimmed

and flickered as her hand trembled.

“Well met, sister’s daughter,” he said. His voice was low and soft and

courteous; a thoughtful, philosophical, wise, and kindly voice, a voice anyone

might trust; a voice nothing like Aerin’s own.

“Not well met,” Aerin said at last in a strangled voice, which seemed to cut ugly

holes in the air currents between them, which destroyed the harmonies that still

hummed in her mind; but by the sound of her own voice she felt she had lost

something treasured and beautiful that might have forever been hers. “Not well

met. You killed my mother and you would kill my people and my country.”

He raised his shoulders, and his white robe rippled and fell in long graceful

folds that glinted softly, like the petals of spring flowers. His hazel eyes blinked

gently at her; her own eyes, but larger and set more deeply beneath a higher

brow. “And why, my dear, should you care? You never met your mother, so you

cannot miss her. I may have done you a favor; many daughters would be glad to

have escaped the tender ministrations of their mothers.

“And when has your land ever cared for you?” His voice sank lower yet,

purring, and he smiled Aerin’s own smile. “They call you witch’s daughter—and so

you are, and more, for your mother might have been given the mage mark had

she not fled too soon—and they should revere you for it. But in their small vicious

way they choose to revile you.

“Your father is kind—why should he not be? You have never been any

trouble—you have never demanded your rightful place as his daughter and his

only child; and lately you have been of some small use, slaying dragons, so that he

need not send out his valuable men on so inglorious a task. You have kept to the

shadows, and he has let you stay there, and has done nothing to deny his people’s

voices when they whisper, witch woman’s daughter.

“And Tor?” He chuckled. “Honest Tor. He loves you, you know. You know that.

So does everyone. They all say that you are your mother’s daughter—I think even

the worthy Arlbeth wonders just a little, sometimes—and your mother was a

witch; never forget that. Tor himself is, of course, not in a position to do much

thinking about this. And as you are your mother’s daughter, even when you do

not remember it...” He smiled her smile at her again, but it seemed very full of

teeth.

“No,” said Aerin; it was almost a shriek. Gonturan wavered in her hand.

“But yes. And think of who accompanied you to this fateful meeting. Do you

come with your father’s finest cavalry? Do you come at least with a troop of well-

meaning if inexperienced men? Why, no—you come without even the lowliest

Damarian foot soldier, without even a ragged village brat to shine your boots. You

come at all only because you escaped, like a prisoner, from the City which ought

to be yours to command. You come draggle-tailed, with wild beasts of the hills,

riding an old lame horse who should have been mercifully killed years ago.” He

seemed to have some trouble saying the word “mercifully”: it was as if his teeth

got in his way.

Aerin shook her head dumbly. His words buzzed in her ears like insects waiting

to sting her; and the terrible harmonies of his laugh bit deeper into her each time

she moved. If only her chest didn’t itch so; it was hard to concentrate on anything

through the itching; it was worse even than the headache. He was talking about

Talat, poor patient Talat, waiting for her while his saddle galled him; grey horses

often had oversensitive skin. If she had been born a horse she would undoubtedly

have been grey. Her chest felt like it no longer had skin on it at all; perhaps it was

being torn by those red-and-black creatures with the claws. The low murmuring

buzzing voice went on.

Do you think I like sending a child to a doom like this, one I know I cannot

myself face? It was as though she were hearing the words for the first time, so

loudly did they crash in her ears; Luthe’s voice was not mellifluous, like her red-

haired uncle’s; Luthe’s voice was raw and angry, like the spot on her chest.

“Luthe, and his games with children, for children’s games were as much as he

was capable—”

“Now that,” Aerin said quite clearly and calmly, “is nonsense. If you can do no

better than cheap insults, then the prophecy over-estimates you. I shall tell Luthe

that he could have met you himself.”

“The prophecy!” howled Agsded; and he seemed to grow till he towered over

her, his robes billowing, his hair red as fire; and dimly Aerin thought. His hair is

the color mine used to be before Maur burned most of it off. My hair isn’t that

color any more.

Agsded reached for his sword, and Aerin raised Gonturan again and shook her,

and blue fire ran down her edge and over Aerin’s hand and wrist, and onto the

floor; and where it touched, cracks appeared, and ran in tiny rays in all directions.

“You may be right about Tor and my father,” Aerin went on conversationally. “You

may even be right about me. But you are wrong about Luthe.”

The red sword whipped out of its scabbard and flew at her, but Gonturan

flashed to stop it, and where the blades crashed together more blue fire dripped

and splashed, and there was another series of small star-shaped cracks in the

floor.

“Fool,” boomed Agsded’s voice, and it was velvety no longer. “Fool. The

prophecy said that only one of my blood may face me, and so you have come this