The Black Queen (Book 6) (3 page)

“You have the Black Throne,” Pelô said. “By rights—by Fey law—you should be sitting on it. You and your sister, with your wild magicks, believe you are above Fey law and Fey custom. You believed you could give her your throne. But the Throne chooses whom it will, and for centuries it has chosen your family. Your sister has denied her Feyness all her life—”

“She is more Fey than I ever was,” Gift said.

“She was raised by outsiders,” Pelô said. “She does not know our customs. She is fierce, but she is no warrior. We have taken no land in fifteen years.”

“More than that,” Gift said. “My great-grandfather Rugad took no land for twenty before that. He was waiting to hold Blue Isle.”

“And now we have Blue Isle. Tradition says we move to Leut and conquer it.”

Gift’s mouth was dry. He was suddenly thirsty. He and Madot had brought no water or food with them. He wondered if that were customary or an oversight.

“I have never heard a Shaman argue for war before,” he said.

“We uphold Fey tradition,” Pelô said.

“There is much to Fey tradition,” Gift said, “besides war.”

“We do not believe in indiscriminate fighting,” Pelô said. “But now two Places of Power are known. It is time to follow the prophecy—“

“Enough,” Madot said.

“No,” Gift said, turning his head toward Pelô. Gift had always thought of that movement as the royal movement, a command without giving a verbal order. “I’m curious.”

“And you are an apprentice,” Madot snapped. “You do as I say.”

“I’m only an apprentice when it suits you,” Gift said. “If I were truly one, I would be below, learning how to control my Vision with the others.”

“You could control your Vision since you were ten,” Madot said. “You have no need for such tricks. Which is why you can never be an ordinary apprentice.”

“Then why did you allow me to come here?” he asked.

“We almost didn’t,” Madot said.

“Who denies the true Black King of the Fey?” Pelô asked.

“I am not the Black King.” Gift spit out the words. “I am not and I will not be.”

Pelô acted as if the words meant nothing to him. He turned to Madot, moving so that Gift was cut out of the conversation. “Do not take the boy any farther.”

“I will not take him to the heart.”

“Then why have you brought him?”

“Come with us and see.”

“I cannot leave my post.”

“Then you will find out after the boy does.” She held out a small wizened hand to Gift. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t take her hand. He stood for a moment, looking at Pelô’s thin back, at the staff which guided his protective powers, and at the shimmer beyond. The entrance to this Place of Power was plain. The Fey had left it unadorned, so that it looked like a common cave to the untrained—or non-magickal—eye.

“Gift,” she said.

He looked at her. If he went with her, he was doing something many of the Shaman did not approve of. If he stood up to her, he was acting like a member of the Black family. And if he left Protector’s Village, he gave up all his dreams. He could not be a true apprentice; he knew that now. He had always thought the Shamans’ hesitation reflected their attitude toward him. He hadn’t realized it was also because of his own talents, his wild magick.

“Gift,” she said, and he recognized the tone. This was the last time she would ask him.

He put his hand in hers. Pelô grunted and turned away.

The shimmer was bright. Gift had seen the entrance to the other Place of Power as a living blackness, not as a silvery light. That seemed odd to him. Still it pulled him forward.

But Madot did not walk toward the entrance. Instead, she went to the side of the platform. Hidden there, between two boulders, were more stairs. They twisted among the rocks, descending out of sight. These stairs were not as clean as the others. No one had maintained them in a long time.

“What is this?” he asked.

She placed one hand on the nearest boulder. “Is it customary among your people—” and whenever she used that phrase in such a sneering way she was referring to the Islanders—“to ask unnecessary questions?”

“I was raised among Fey,” he said again, knowing she knew that. Knowing she knew everything about him.

“You were raised among Failures.”

The harshness of the word took his breath away. No one spoke of that. No one ever mentioned how all the Fey who had come to Blue Isle in the first invasion force were later killed by the Black King for failing in their mission. He had lost his adoptive parents in that slaughter and to this day, he did not forgiven himself for being too far away to save them.

“They were Fey,” he said softly.

“There are holes in you, Gift,” she said. Her body blocked the stairs. “And a darkness that worries me.”

“You’ve been telling me all day why I am not suited to this place. You used to be my greatest supporter. Why did the Warning change that?”

Instead of answering, she started down the stairs.

“Dodging my questions isn’t the best procedure,” he said.

“I am still in charge of your program here,” she said as she turned the sharp corner. “I may do what I want.”

He could no longer see her. If he wanted to know why she brought him here, he had no choice but to follow.

These stairs were slick with dirt. They had once been as polished as the others, but time and wear destroyed that. There were no handholds, and the corner steps were tricky. He braced his palms on nearby boulders, hoping to keep his balance.

Madot was so far ahead of him that he could only see the edge of her robe. She was like a dream image, ever elusive, impossible to catch.

The farther down he got, the darker it got. No sunlight reached here, and in the little patches of dirt beside the large rocks, nothing grew. But the air was warmer than he expected, and smelled faintly of flowers. He didn’t know where the scent came from.

After a final twist, the stairs ended. Another platform surrounded by high rock walls greeted him. Above him he could see patches of blue sky, but it felt as if he were indoors.

No Shaman Protectors greeted him here. Only Madot waited, her hands clasped before her. She looked ancient and small, standing beside the black-scarred stone.

There was something about this place, a feeling of great history and great age, a feeling that much had happened here—more than Gift could take in at one moment.

“Did you have a Vision last night?” Madot asked.

He shook his head. “I haven’t had a Vision since I came to Protectors Village.” If he had, he would have told her. She knew that. Apprentices were required to report their Visions.

“You felt nothing last night?”

“Nothing,” he said.

His answer didn’t seem to satisfy her. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t unusual for Visionaries to go years without a Vision. Some Visionaries only had three or four in their entire lives. A Shaman was trained to invite Visions, but Gift hadn’t reached that stage of his training yet.

“Have you ever Seen this place?” she asked.

He understood the question. She was wondering if he had had a Vision about it. He looked around. The stone here wasn’t black. It was red, a deep, deep red, the color of drying blood.

“No,” he said.

She frowned, but said nothing. With a quick movement, she spun and headed into the darkness. He followed. They went under an overhang that hid a doorway. This may have been a cave at one time, but it had been so long ago that he couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like a cave. It looked like a building carved out of the rock. The doorway’s dimensions were uniform, its edges smooth. The floor was the same polished stone, the walls sanded smooth. Beside the door were Fey lamps. Gift recognized their construction. The Fey lamps he had been raised with carried the captured souls of enemies, and when someone touched the lamp in the proper place, those souls flared with a brilliant light.

These lamps, though, were not warrior lamps. They were filled not with the souls of enemies, but the souls of volunteers—Fey who had died of illness or old age, or who chose to serve their people in this final way.

Madot picked up a lamp and handed it to him, then took one herself. Gift touched the base of the lamp before grasping the metal handle. The lamp flared, revealing several souls inside. They still had their Fey form, and they looked at him through the glass as if he were the curiosity.

Over the years, he had learned not to pay the souls inside a Fey lamp too much attention. The worry was that they would flare to light whenever they wanted, and burn themselves out early. He gave them a small smile, then looked around the room.

It was empty. There was no furniture or built in benches. The far wall had been scorched as if a fire had burned against it, and another wall bore the imprints of hangings long gone. Madot walked across the room and disappeared through an interior doorway.

Gift followed.

The door led to a long hallway, again perfectly formed. Other doorways lined the walls, and some of these had the remains of wooden doors still hanging in them. But there were no decorations or furnishings, or anything to indicate who—or what—had lived here.

The air was surprisingly fresh and very warm. Even though the floor was covered with a thin layer of dirt, there was no dust. Madot walked as if she had seen all of this before. Gift wanted to stop and look, but knew he could not.

The hallway gradually widened until both of them could walk side by side. Several branches broke off the hallway here, and a flight of stairs went both up and down, indicating other floors.

At the end of the wide hallway was a set of double doors, made of stone and decorated with highly polished brass. Madot stopped outside of it and passed her hands over the knobs as if performing a ritual to open them.

Gift raised his Fey lamp to help her, and in doing so, something caught his eye. Above the double doors was a crest. It had been carved into the stone, and then covered with a paint that had somehow lasted through the years.

For a moment, he thought he had seen the crest before: in his father’s palace on Blue Isle. His family’s crest had stood above the throne there: Two swords crossed over a heart. But this image was different. Here he saw two hearts pieced by a single sword. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

Madot glanced at him, saw where he was looking, and then smiled. She pushed the double doors open, and stood aside.

The room beyond the doors glowed red. The entire floor was alive with the veins he had seen in the mountainside. The walls were decorated with jewels: large emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, were mixed with a shiny black stone and a shiny gray stone. They pebbled the wall in a repeating pattern that reflected and at the same time held the red light.

Madot nodded at Gift. He stepped inside. He was shaking, and he wasn’t sure why. The place had a vibration to it, a feeling that made him conscious of how small and frail he was. He could almost feel that place inside his head where the Visions lived. It seemed to lift up, to float, as if joining with the red light.

“Is it safe in here?” he asked.

Madot did not answer him. She remained in the doorway.

He took another step inside. She would stop him if it wasn’t safe, wouldn’t she? He could see his own image reflected in the shiny red floor. As he walked, streaks of gold and silver flowed through the red, like hairline cracks in glass.

He turned. Madot stood in the open doorway, hands clasped behind her back. Watching. She looked like no one he had ever known. A stranger, judging him.

He swallowed and went forward. The gold was taking over the red, brightening the room. The diamonds refracted it into a hundred colors. Across the far wall, a large image slowly appeared. The two hearts again, pierced by the single sword. They rose above a blackness that seemed complete, corporeal.

That blackness was a live thing. He could feel it, drawing and repelling him at the same time.

He glanced over his shoulder. Madot had come into the room. She was walking behind him. No streaks of color appeared on the floor beneath her feet. The light remained dim where she was. He realized, suddenly, that some of the light came from above him.

A single ray of light beamed down from the ceiling, encircling him. He took a large step forward, testing it, and the light moved.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“Go farther,” she said.

His palms were damp. He had to remember to take a breath. The blackness drew him deeper. He took another step forward, and then another. The blackness coalesced into a form, into something he could recognize.

A throne.

The Black Throne.

It really existed.

“By the Powers,” he whispered. He had never seen anything so magnificent.

The throne was large enough to seat three full grown Fey. Its back rose up the wall so high that if Gift stood on the seat, he would have to reach up to touch the top. Its seat, though, was in the normal place, and looked comfortable. Very comfortable.

It looked as if it were made for him.