Limits of Power (47 page)

K
ieri woke at the turn of night; the ring on his heart-thumb glowed faintly. He had no idea what had wakened him—he felt no alarm—but he was too alert to return to sleep. Quietly, without waking his Squires, he dressed himself, belted on his sword, and eased out of the tent.

Stars burned in the clear sky, giving more light than he expected in a forested place. Every leaf was edged in silver. Dew frosted the grass, the violets. The scents of violet and fern, rich damp earth, and mossy bark came to him. The same melody he had heard before ran through his mind, and he hummed it. He walked down to the shrine, knelt as usual, and waited. In spite of all he had been told—had even experienced with the Lady's death—he was sure he felt a presence that must, he thought, be his mother's.

Silence and peace held the glade, deepening as he knelt there. No breeze stirred the leaves, no creature made the slightest noise. The sense of presence, of someone somewhere near, increased. He looked around, expecting nothing but layer upon layer of silver and darkness.

Deep among the trees, something moved—pale—a glow of silvery light. He stared, his body prickling suddenly as if dipped in snow. What—surely it could not be a wraith of his mother? Elves vanished utterly at death, leaving nothing … but the shape was tall, slender, comely—a woman in raiment of the purest white, bathed in the silvery glow of elf-light, her face indistinct as she wandered nearer, turning here and there among the trees as if searching. And who else—

“I am here,” he said, scarcely louder than a breath.

For an instant the shape turned toward him, enough to show the elven bones, the gleam of eyes, but not close enough, in that light, to reveal the face he had long struggled to recall. Then she beckoned, and turned to one side, passing behind another tree, emerging just a little farther away.

“Mother?” he said. His voice caught in his throat; he rose to his feet and stepped away from the shrine. The glowing figure did not turn toward him but held still for a moment.

He had to know. He took a step, another … carefully, almost as if the figure were a wild thing that might take flight. It moved, but languidly now, circling around the glade away from the side where his tent stood. Deeper into the trees, deeper. Slowly, its glow spread, lighting his way through the denser trees, but more like a mist than the light the Lady had shed with the elvenhome or Paksenarrion's clear and brilliant light. It blurred the details of the figure, but his certainty that it was elven in origin—alive or not—drew him on.

“Who are you?” he asked, pitching his voice to reach the figure.

“Who do you want me to be?” came the answer.

Kieri shut his mouth but felt the wish pour out of him as if the figure had opened a door in his heart.
Mother.

A soft sigh reached him and then a gentle chuckle and an indistinct murmur. For an instant he felt it as soothing, as her hand on his brow, but then a chill ran down his back. He looked around, startled. He had come farther into the trees than he'd realized, out of sight of the shrine, the clearing, the tent where his Squires slept. His mother's ring glowed brighter on his heart-thumb; the tiny dragon figure writhed. Around his neck, his mother's torc warmed. Did it move a little? He wasn't sure. He realized he had stopped walking; he stood half-mazed, feeling coils of power wrap him round.

White mist swirled toward him, faster than the figure had ever moved. “She's dead,” a voice said, its sweetness cloying. He had heard that voice before. He struggled to remember, though it seemed fog filled his mind as well as the forest. “Poor little boy … you still miss her…”

Kieri's hand found his sword hilt before he thought of moving; the green jewel in it blazed. His mind cleared; the power clinging to him lessened. As he drew it a few fingerwidths, his own light rose, holding back the other's misty tendrils. Now he could see, within the mist, the figure running toward him. For the first time he recognized—

“You,”
he said. The elf-maid who had sought him out, who claimed to be his mother's friend, whose proposal had chilled his loins. Understanding came in a rush, before she said a word: here was the traitor. He had only a moment to thank Falk that Arian had not drunk the potion she'd brought, before he saw that she wore elven mail and carried a sword of her own. On her head she wore jewels he remembered on the Lady's head.

Her smile was colder than the ossuary at Midwinter as she paused out of his reach, full of confidence in her power. “I thought it would work,” she said. “You are a mere child, after all. And now, boy, you will die, but not until I have had my full revenge.”

Kieri waited. Elves liked to talk; she would likely spend time taunting him; he could attack any time, but better she thought he was held by her power. She would relax; she would come close.

Sure enough, she paced back and forth, admitting what he already surmised. “I hate you. I hated you from before your conception.” She turned back. “I hated you when you lay in your mother's arms…”

It was not hard to make his voice sound strained. “Why? You were her friend—”

“Friend?”
Her laugh rang out jaggedly; she flung out her arms as gracelessly as he had ever seen an elf move. “She was no friend to me. I hated
her
long before you. She had everything—the Lady's daughter, the elvenhome gift. She would have ruled us later …
I
wanted to be queen of something, and my one chance was your father … but she charmed him. I begged her—she had so much—but she would not relent. He would have married
me,
but she stole him! And swore she would not use the elvenhome gift, but pass it to you—”

“But if you were not given it, you could not benefit by killing her—or me.”

“Oh, but I shall,” she said, taking a step toward him. “Those things you wear, that you saw rise from the ground—when I take them off your living body, they will be mine, and with these—” Her heart-hand touched the jewels in her hair. “—I can command the rest: the sword, the dagger, and most of all that spark deep in your heart no mortal should have. My will is strong; in the old days, that is how elvenhomes were made, not only by gift. I shall rule and rule alone. Humankind will be gone from here, forever.”

Kieri felt the pressure of her power again. It must be the jewels she had taken—surely not been given—from the Lady's body. He flexed his fingers; nothing held him but his curiosity. He wanted to know more—most of all, he wanted to know if other traitors existed, if they were allied with her.

“I lured her here in the first place, you know,” she said, her voice languid again. “And you as well.”

“How?” Kieri said, making his voice harsh.

She shook her head; her hair swirled. “I will not tell you,” she said. “But I will tell you that when I am done with you, I will kill your Squires … and then your lady and those unborn children you're so proud of.” She looked down the length of her sword. “Ah … I think I have lingered enough.” She opened her heart-hand again and showed the bright silver curve of a small knife. “This, to start.”

She walked toward him, utterly unafraid. Kieri judged the distance, drew the great sword and his dagger just as she came in reach, and struck. He missed her; she danced back, laughing now. “Foolish boy; I have elven mail and sword, and I am far more experienced than you. I wondered were you truly snared.”

Kieri had heard that elven mail could not be broken by humans, but his was an elven sword. Perhaps … He began a turn to the right; she matched him on the circle, perfectly aligned. She was, like all the elves, tall and lithe, in her first youth, perfectly fit. He reversed; she did the same.

“You dance well,” she said. “But you cannot dance forever.” She moved in then, quick and sure with the correct move for her position; he blocked her thrust easily, and she parried his. As parry followed thrust again and again, Kieri tested her skills. He soon knew her for a novice—fast, strong, schooled in all the standard moves, but she had learned swordplay as recreation, as a dance, as anything but what it really was. Had she been other than his mother's murderer, Orlith's murderer, and the murderer of all those unborn babes, he would have warned her. Instead, he played on, testing which of her moves gave him the best openings given the mail she wore.

She pushed harder with her magery, trying to slow him, but it had no effect. He pressed his own attack, forcing her to respond faster than she had. Suddenly her heart-hand flashed, and the curved knife sped toward his face. He jerked his head aside without dropping his guard; he'd seen such tricks before. But she rushed in anyway, not waiting, counting on a gap that wasn't there.

His response came automatically: the block with his dagger, the practiced thrust any soldier would have made to kill a novice crazy enough to make such a naive attack. To his astonishment, his blade slid through the elven mail as if it were not there and pierced her through.

“For my mother,” he said, as her eyes widened in disbelief. Her knees buckled, though she still breathed, as strength left her and life ebbed. Her weight dragged his blade down; he stepped back, pulling it free. “And for my father, and my sister, and for me. For Orlith and the children unborn.”

“You … will … never … know … who…”

“I know enough,” Kieri said. She lay now on the ground, the silvery glitter in her elven blood dying away. He could not pity her, who had brought so much sorrow to so many. She struggled, trying to push herself up; he regretted the pain in her face and the undying enmity. But she was neither enemy soldier nor one of his, to whom he could give the death-stroke and end it.

Her light was gone now. His own brightened, reflecting from her eyes. They widened. “You … cannot … have…”

“What?”

“Elfane…” Then a rush of blood from her mouth, and she sank back, unmoving, her sightless eyes staring upward.

Kieri had no feeling of a spirit freed from its husk, as he'd often experienced when humans died … She died as an animal died, all at once, with nothing left. Her body looked dead, the white gown now dabbled with her blood, all luster gone from her skin. The elven mail crumbled to grit as he watched.

Kieri took a deep breath, then another. He looked around. The last of the mist had gone; he could see every tree trunk, every fern and herb, each leaf and petal. The light—the light was his own, he realized. It spread, more silvery than sunlight, true elf-light. Silence held him, but the feel of the taig was stronger than he'd ever experienced. What it conveyed was … joy. It seemed to nestle into him as his first children had nestled in his arms. Within its bubble was peace, silence, joy, health … and a dead elf.

He sighed. A dead elf must be laid straight with the sacred boughs upon her, whether evil or no. But … his mother's murderer? Here, so close to the shrine he had built? She should be laid straight, yes, but … not here.

Here.
The word resonated in his head and seemed to shimmer in the margins of his light.

Here? Why here? Was it not an insult to his mother … to the pain this elf had caused his father and his sister … and himself?

Light flashed from his mother's ring, from his father's, from the pommel of his sword … warmth from the torc around his neck. Dazzled, he blinked against the light and saw—for an instant that lasted the rest of his life—his mother's face, the face that once seen he could not believe he had ever forgotten, and felt the true embrace of her love.

Here,
closing the circle, completing the pattern, but in joy, not hatred. Tears sprang to his eyes, and now pity rose in him for the dead. His mother, beloved in memory by those who had lost her. And this elf, who had given up all hope of love and joy to seek lasting vengeance. He wept for them both, for the friendship they could have had, and finally for himself.

Here it would be, then. The boughs he needed were outlined by light more green than silver and fell into his hands when he reached for them. He wondered, without pausing in the task, why this was so. When he had them all, he moved the dead elf as gently as he might to straighten her limbs—arms at her side, legs together, her spattered robe arranged neatly—and laid the branches in order. He looked at the jewels in her hair: they had been the Lady's. Should he take them back to Amrothlin? Or as the dead elf had hinted, did they have some connection to his mother's ring and torc? He hesitated. Robbing bodies was wrong. The jewels flashed at him. He put out his hand and touched one; it clung to his fingers; the others moved to join it. He held them a moment, still a little reluctant to rob the dead, then slipped them into a pocket. She had robbed others; he intended restoration.

“Once you were the song the Singer sang,” he said to the dead face. “Once you were born of love and beauty and loved beauty. Let that be your memory.”