Starflower

  Roaring filled my ears, the roaring of the River Way.

  It was said that only one passage led through the Circle of Faces: here in the north, where all the rivers of the Land form into one and cut passage through the rock. It was said that when it breached the far side of the Circle of Faces, the Great River plummeted forever in a vast waterfall, never reaching the bottom of the Void. I looked upon it now, and the currents of the river were white, like the froth in a rabid dog’s jowls. Only a fool would steer his craft into those waters. Only a fool would pass through the mountains and fall into the darkness of the Void.

  The Hound, graceful in his every stride, loped down the dead mountain to the banks of that river. There the water flowed into a subterranean cavern, passing under the final smaller mountains that formed the Circle of Faces. Into this cavern, the Hound vanished.

  I halted at the riverbank, my arms swinging to catch my balance. I could not run that way! Into that dark, where I would be blind and helpless! I was trapped. The river blocked me, and the mountain rose behind me, so sheer that I wondered how I had even descended.

  I looked up the way I had come. I saw the Beast.

  Like an unrelenting nightmare, he rolled down the mountainside, his gaze fixed upon me, his quarry. All trace of humanity had vanished. He was all wolf now, enormous, bigger than a horse. My hesitation had cost me. In a moment, he would have me in his massive jaws.

  Follow, my child!

  The Beast or the darkness. Such was my choice.

  I prayed: Lights Above, look down and light my way! Then I took to my heels and dashed into the cavern. The river swirled about my feet. I could see nothing save the distant glow of that ethereal Hound far ahead. With the growls of the wolf echoing in my ears, I pursued that light. Would the Beast chase me even in this dark? I did not doubt it. And the deeper I went, the more the darkness oppressed me, the more present was his voice howling behind me.

  “You were meant to be mine! Mine!”

  How long I fled that subterranean way, I cannot guess. My feet were sore and bleeding, my limbs bruised, my bones aching. Sometimes I missed my footing in the dark and fell into the water, which carried me hard and fast until I thought I might drown. But the swiftest currents never held me long. I was always cast out upon the blind shore, and the Hound was there, still leading, still guiding.

  At last I saw the end of the long cavern, where the water flowed freely out into . . . into what? The Void? The end of all things? It did not matter. No choice remained to me. I must follow the Hound, whether plunging forever with the waterfall or stepping, without existence, into the Nothingness.

  “Wait!” cried the dark voice behind, inhuman and ghastly. “Wait, my Starflower!”

  My steps slowed despite myself. I kept moving, but fear of the unknown nearly drove me back into the known fear of the Beast’s embrace. Far, far ahead the Hound gleamed. But he was so distant, so eerie. And the end of the tunnel waited, as certain as I still breathed.

  “Do not venture beyond the safety of the Land!” cried the Beast, and his voice was desperate. What could he have to fear? That I would escape him? But why should that make him tremble so?

  I could hear his panting breath behind me. My feet slipped and stumbled on wet rocks I could not see.

  “There is nothing for you out there, my beauty,” said the wolf. I could sense the nearness of his massive body. My heart raced. Each moment, I wondered if I would feel his teeth tearing into me.

  “Do not leave the shelter I have created,” he said. “I have made the Land safe, dependent on nothing but me. I am your great protector.”

  Every step I made was a battle. The end of the cavern was so near! I could see the faint outline of a dark sky that seemed bright as day compared to the dark in which I walked. Cringing, I forced myself another step, another two steps.

  “I have cared for the mortal creatures of this nation. For generations, I have been their guardian! My love is great and terrible, too much for your mind to understand. But you will learn. I will teach you.”

  The voice changed. It was no longer that of a wolf. It was a man who stood just behind me in the darkness now. I dared not look around.

  “Come back with me, Starflower. Do not pass into the emptiness beyond. Come back with me, and I shall make you a goddess.”

  One more step. I must not give in! One more step, just one more.

  Why did he not grab hold and drag me back? I was weak to the point of breaking. I could not have struggled against him.

  “Come back with me, my love,” he said, his voice a growl filled with the horror of his desire. “Step off that Path you follow, and come back where you belong.”

  If only I were dead! If only he had slain me upon the stone!

  “You were always meant to be mine.”

  I lifted my foot. The distance was too great. I could not make it, could not force my body a single pace farther. I could not—

  Follow me!

  The Hound was before me, bright and huge and golden. He should have blinded, so potent was his brilliance in the dark of that cavern. Instead, it was as though my eyes were opened for the first time. I saw clearly the path on which I walked. I saw that the Beast could not follow or catch me.

  Energy surged through my heart with hope and courage. My hand caught at the Hound, clutching the long, silky hair of his back. Then he was running, and I was dragged along in his wake. He plunged into the river. Water swept over me, cold and dark, but there was light as well, for my hand still gripped that golden fur. My bones should have been pulverized. I should have breathed in the river water and perished. Instead, I was carried swiftly out of the cavern in a rushing tumult.

  I came to myself on a thin strip of land. Night was heavy around me, thick with stars. There was water on both sides of me, lapping at my shaking body. I sat up, shivering, alone. But for all this, the first thing I noticed was my gown.

  My mother’s wedding dress had been washed white once more. The blood was gone.

  I looked around me, searching for the Hound. But he was nowhere to be seen. Far ahead I saw the haze of distant land, though in the night my eyes may have fooled me. Behind me loomed the mountains, the cavern, and the mouth of the tunnel from which the river issued.

  So this, then, was the Void. This separation from all that I knew. From my sister, my father, my home. It was worse than the fall I had imagined. It was worse even than Nothingness, for in Nothingness I could not have known pain.

  My hands shook as I raised them and made the signs of passing. For my father, the Panther Master, who died because—oh, Great Lights, Great Songs! Because he loved me! Against all reason, all expectation, he loved me, his silent, worthless offspring. He loved me enough to give his life.

  And when I had finished, I made the same sign for myself. I too had died that day, died to the person I had been. I can never return to the Land. Therefore, I am like one dead.

  “Starflower!” The Beast’s voice, human in its pain, echoed from the deeps of the earth. “Starflower, do not leave me!”

  I gagged in my terror, my hands faltering in their signs and clenching into fists. Would he pursue? The river could not have carried me far. Could he pick up my scent and come after me even now? I dared not wait to find out. Though everything in me longed for rest, even the rest of death, I forced my body into motion. I staggered and sobbed in pain as I fled down that narrow isthmus of land.

  And even as Wolf Tongue’s lament haunted me, so the voice of the Hound, unseen but near, urged me on my way.

  1

  ETALPALLI

  THE GIRL SHOULD BE BROKEN.

  Midnight hovered with smothering thickness above Omeztli Tower. Hri Sora sat with her children on either side, her quick eyes following every movement of the mortal girl’s hands, reading each variation on that gentle face.

  She should be broken! The Dragonwitch licked her lips, burning them with the smoldering coal of her tongue. The girl was mortal and frail. After such an encou
nter with the wolf, she should be shattered to pieces. The humiliation should in itself have been her undoing! The abandonment, the horror of her weakness put on such prominent display. Dreadful fate, to be so shamed!

  Yet the creature’s hands faltered only when they spoke of her sister, her father, or that wretched dog she seemed to value. And, though Hri Sora sought it throughout the long telling of that sorry tale, she could find no hate in Maid Starflower’s eyes.

  “On the far end of that narrow stretch of land, I entered the Wood,” the mortal signed. “I thought as I passed into its shadows that it was like the Wood in the gorge where Sun Eagle was lost. If this is so, my heart aches even more at his fate. This is a terrible place, this nightmare into which we have fallen.”

  One of the brutes lying at Hri Sora’s side whined. With a hiss, Hri Sora cuffed it into silence. Let the beasts be mute in her presence. She had, for the first many years of their lives, been mute in theirs! She had listened to their squabbles and snarls, unable to raise her voice to bid them cease, powerless even before her own offspring.

  Not anymore.

  She turned remorseless eyes upon the silent maiden before her. The girl’s hands were still, her gaze fixed upon the cowering Dog. How pitiful she was! Not only bound in the repressions of her people, but bound still more in the repressions of love. Yet Hri Sora felt no pity. Contempt burned like hatred in her breast.

  The girl should be broken of such foolishness. She should have learned by now that love was the greatest, the final chain. It had brought her so low, laid her out helpless before the eyes of the worlds.

  And yet she dared stand in the Flame at Night’s presence, gazing with compassion on the wretched Black Dog.

  Hri Sora spoke aloud, glorying in the freedom of her own voice as she never had before: “So you fell in with Eanrin of Rudiobus and, charmed by the guile of his voice, allowed him to lead you and leave you in my demesne.”

  The girl stood motionless a long moment. Then she signed, “I chose to accompany Eanrin. Just as I chose to accompany your children.”

  “Chose?” Hri Sora laughed, and the laugh was bitter in her mouth. “You are a woman of the Land. You never have a choice.”

  Starflower closed her eyes and bowed her head. Hri Sora smiled at this subservience. This was much more what she would expect from one who had gazed into Amarok’s eyes and seen her own frailty reflected there. Shattered spirit, ruined heart . . . and this mortal, unlike the Flame of Night, had no fire on which to fall back.

  Then Starflower signed, “Did you choose, chieftain, to destroy your city?”

  Fire poured from Hri Sora’s mouth as she leapt to her feet. It fell from her tongue in a violent stream. The mortal girl should burn! She should suffer the ultimate penalty for her insolence! How dared she speak to the Flame at Night on subjects she could not understand? The Black Dogs scurried into the shadows, their tails tucked, and Lady Gleamdren screamed from within her cage.

  When the fire died, the Dragonwitch looked down to find Starflower crouched, her head covered with her hands. The coward! She did not deserve to die so glorious a death as by fire.

  Hri Sora spat out ashes and snarled: “Were you worth anything, mortal beast, you would understand the choices of a queen. Act on what wisdom you do possess and ask no questions concerning matters far beyond your comprehension.”

  Starflower, though weak from hunger, exhaustion, and terror, gathered her shaking limbs and got to her feet. How she feared she would faint in the presence of such horror! But she had not fainted when faced by the wolf. She would not permit herself to do so now. No, she would die first.

  Hri Sora saw the expression on the girl’s face and read every thought therein. It is well, she told herself, though she hated to admit it. If she were broken, how could she do what you require of her?

  The Dragonwitch settled back into her low seat, assuming a relaxed pose, though her veins throbbed with the heat of her desire. Desire to see her dearest wish come true—the wish she longed for more than she longed for her wings. She had thought it possible to see that desire fulfilled only if she first recovered those wings. But now . . . now it seemed so close, so possible, she could almost taste the sweetness of satisfaction.

  And if she could fulfill her desire without requiring the Dark Father’s assistance, so much the better. It never paid to live in debt to that one.

  “Will you return to the Land, mortal?” Hri Sora asked, hoping her voice did not betray her eagerness.

  Starflower shook her head.

  “Of course not,” said the Dragonwitch. “Weak as you are, you dare not return to seek your vengeance.”

  The girl’s hands moved in a flash. “I desire no vengeance. As long as Fairbird is safe, that is all I need.”

  “Fires of heaven!” Hri Sora cried. “Are you really as much a simpleton as that?”

  She wasn’t. Hri Sora read the truth in the girl’s face. The dragon smiled a slow smile. The girl was weak. Her very strengths were her weakness! To love was to be exposed, to love was to bare one’s neck to the axe. And Hri Sora, the stronger by far, knew how to take that weakness and make of it what she willed.

  “You’ve already thought of it, haven’t you?” she whispered. “You’ve already considered the repercussions of your actions. You fled, little one. You fled the Beast and deprived him of his blood price. Did you think he would let it go unpaid? Or did you somehow think the life of your father would pay for the blood you withheld from your god?”

  Starflower struggled to meet the Dragonwitch’s gaze. But her heart heaved in her breast. No, she would not faint, although the truth stood before her with such ghastly reality, she thought she might die.

  “Your sister is not safe.” Hri Sora leaned forward, twisting her long neck so that she could catch Starflower’s eye. “She will never be safe so long as the Wolf Lord lives.”

  A tear slid down the mortal’s dirty cheek.

  “He might wait,” said the dragon. “A season, a year, ten years perhaps. But you know as surely as you breathe, the Wolf Lord will demand his dues. And when he does, who will cut Fairbird’s bonds and bid her flee to her exile?”

  Now was the moment. The girl shuddered from exhaustion, unable to resist the truth she had known since the moment she first turned her feet in flight, the truth she had struggled to repress. Now was the moment, and what a sweet moment it was! Hri Sora salivated at the taste of victory so near. Her saliva scalded the stones at her feet.

  “You must return. You must see that the Beast is slain.”

  Starflower slid to her knees. She could not weep, though she wished she could. Her fatigue was too great. And how heavy was the load upon her shoulders! Fairbird . . . sweet Fairbird. Will it all be in vain? Will our mother have died to bring you life, only for you to be taken? Will our father have been torn to pieces by his own god, only for that same god to take his offspring as well?

  “I cannot slay the Beast,” she signed.

  “I did not say you should,” replied the Flame at Night. “I said you must see that he is slain.”

  Starflower gazed up at Hri Sora. She studied that face, so reptilian and yet so vulnerable. The eyes revealed the fire scarcely suppressed inside; she knew full well how swiftly it might emerge. Was that hatred, so intense, meant for her? Starflower did not think so. She could see the contempt, but she did not think the Dragonwitch hated her. Nevertheless, hatred dominated her, body and soul.

  “What did he do to you?” Starflower signed.

  “What?” Hri Sora snapped.

  “What did Wolf Tongue do to you that you so desire his death?”

  Hri Sora’s hands hid her face. Did the Dragonwitch weep? Starflower knew little about dragons, but she was certain there were no tears left in this pitiful creature’s body. Her only release was her flame, which she now struggled to swallow back.

  The dragon shook herself at last, as though having succeeded in a great battle of wills. When she spoke, her voice was brittle. “I wish
him dead. That is all you need know,” she said. “He is my enemy, this self-styled lord of his mortal demesne. He sets himself up as master, but he is nothing! He stole that land and crafted it into his weak little semblance of true Faerie kings’ realms. This is a crime among all the lords and ladies of the Far World and must be punished!”

  Starflower knew the dragon lied. However, she discovered that, after all she had been through, she had no wish to die in a blaze of fire. So she did not allow her hands to form the questions they wished to ask. The Dragonwitch might keep her secrets as she willed; they weren’t too difficult to guess. Starflower peered into the shadows of the tower and saw the Black Dogs watching. They were the Beast’s children, she knew beyond doubt. The dragon’s too, she guessed. Unloved, unwanted, made less than they might have been.

  Anger flared in Starflower’s heart. But she was at the Queen of Etalpalli’s mercy. It was as her captor had said: She had no choice.

  “What do you propose, chieftain?” she signed.

  Hri Sora, her rant for the moment ended, smiled slowly. “What do you mean, mortal child?”

  “You wish to see the Beast dead. So do I. But such a wish will never be if we ourselves do not act. You know this, and you know more about the monster than I do, though I have lived all my life under his thrall—”

  “All your life?” Hri Sora laughed harshly. “All the long, what—fifteen, sixteen years? You are a breath, a moment! You know nothing of what you speak.”

  Starflower drew back her shoulders. “If I am nothing, chieftain, then let me go.”

  “Oh, I will! I will, indeed! I will release you from the bindings of my realm. I have no wish to keep you here, no more than you wish to stay.”

  And now the bargain, Starflower thought. Now I find out why she did not already slay me.