The Black Queen (Book 6) (56 page)
He walked to a side door and let himself into the workshop he had set aside for Seger. She looked up from the table covered with unformed clay. Sebastian sat by the door like a guard, his handsome face immobile.
“We’re ready to try again,” Seger said. “Sebastian thinks you need to be here.”
They were trying to make a golem, something that hadn’t been done in centuries. Usually golems formed from changelings, but they didn’t have time to grow a body for Arianna. They had to create one. Seger’s magick could do some of it and Coulter’s the rest, but the first two that they tried, using, as Seger said, spells so old they creaked, had shattered when Arianna tried to enter them.
“Of course I need to be here,” Coulter said. “I’m helping make this thing.”
“No.” Sebastian turned toward Coulter. His gray eyes sparkled in the dimly lit room. “Se-ger…asked…what…kept…me…a-live. I…have…thought…on…it…and…this…is…the…an-swer.”
Coulter waited. Sebastian’s slow speech patterns always drove him crazy. If he ever got time, he would try a spell of his own to repair that.
“I…was…created…through…Gift’s…Link…to…me…and…his…fam-i-ly. I…con-tin-ue…to…ex-ist…be-cause…of…those…Links…and…love.”
“Love?” Coulter asked.
Seger nodded. “People have cared for him enough that whenever he shatters, he wants to return. He loves them enough to know that they will be hurt without him, and does not want to do that. This body we’re creating has no love, and no one to love it. I was wondering if you could create a Link to it before we finished it, and then we could try to love it for what it is.”
No!
Arianna sounded frantic.
No! I have a better idea.
What is it?
Coulter asked.
Let me be part of the golem as you create it.
No
, Coulter thought.
It would be too dangerous.
I am used to different bodies from my Shifting. I would be all right. You know that.
“What?” Seger asked.
Coulter explained Arianna’s idea.
Seger nodded. “It might work, but I have no idea how to go about it.”
I do!
Arianna snapped. She was impatient. Her mood rocketed through Coulter, making him queasy.
We use my Vision. I still have that. It’s with Vision that constructs are created, and through Vision that a person can travel across the Links. You don’t need to Link to that body, Coulter. I do. When the body is ready, touch it, and I’ll create a bond between you and me and it that will give it the vibrancy it needs
.
It made sense. It made complete sense. Coulter explained her idea to the others.
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “That…is…what…I…i-ma-gined.… I…just…did…not…have…a…way…to…cor-rect-ly…des-cribe…the…ma-gic.”
“This will take some work,” Coulter said. “First we have to finish the golem, and then we’ll have to make sure it’s perfect. We’ll need your help with that, Sebastian. Then Ari will make her attempt. If this doesn’t work, we’ll keep trying until we get it.”
He figured Arianna could live in both places, the room she had created in his mind and in the golem’s body. That way, if Rugad ever caught up with them—and he would—he wouldn’t know where she was.
Rugad had been on Coulter’s mind ever since they left Jahn. They had to get the construct out of Arianna’s body while leaving the body unharmed. Once Coulter had had a fleeting thought that perhaps it would be easier to destroy her body and let her live in a golem’s body, and Arianna had been so angry that his entire being felt like it was being shredded from the inside. He had never made that suggestion again, and tried not to think about it even though they both knew it was an option.
Coulter had sent Con to the Place of Power to study the artifacts in it. With his knowledge of Rocaanism and its own twisted magick, Con might find a way to dislodge Rugad using the Place of Power itself.
Coulter had also put a large contingent of guards—all Islanders—on the Place of Power. He wanted to put some in the Vault as well, but for that he would need Matt’s help, and Matt wasn’t ready. But Coulter figured he had time. He doubted Rugad would come here—the place where his physical body had died fifteen years ago. Coulter knew that Rugad was strong, but he doubted any man was that strong, strong enough to face this kind of power for a second time.
If he did, then Coulter would take Arianna and the students and barricade them in the Place of Power. He and Arianna had lived that way once before. They could do it again.
The fact that he had her, that Arianna herself was safe, relieved him more than he cared to say. It also gave him hope. As long as she had been under Rugad’s thrall, she might have changed into something unrecognizable. Here, with Coulter, she remained herself—and she had the one thing that Rugad needed, the one thing he couldn’t rule without. She had Vision.
“Well,” Seger said, watching him, obviously knowing that he had been having dialogues within himself too much lately. “Should we get started on this?”
Yes!
Arianna said.
“Yes,” Coulter echoed.
Seger smiled. “This time,” she said, “we have the right combination. This time, our plans will work.”
Coulter hoped she was right. Not just about the new golem. But about all of their plans.
She doesn’t have Vision
, Arianna warned.
But you do,
Coulter thought.
Will we be all right?
He felt a warmth that came from her.
I still See a future for all of us,
she said.
I think that’s a good sign.
I think that’s a great sign
, he thought. And then he went deep inside himself, just so that he could hug her.
She looked startled.
What was that for?
The future
, he said,
and the fact that you have just given me hope.
THIRTY-SIX
GIFT SAT in the wide chair in the center of the barge, a cool drink that tasted faintly of lemons in one hand. He tapped on the chair’s arm with the other. Skya gave him an annoyed look from the chair beside him. She had been annoyed at him ever since they got on this ship. Which was fine with him, since he had been annoyed with her.
Xihu wisely stayed away from both of them.
After eleven long and strange days, Skya had brought them to Btsan, at the southernmost tip of Pitka. She wouldn’t let them leave her side, and took them directly to the harbor. That had been strange enough. There, people wore nothing more than pants, both the men and the women, and their torsos were covered with nothing more than jewelry. The smell of fish so strong that Gift wanted to gag.
It hadn’t taken her long, using his name, to commandeer a boat. But when Gift saw it, he hadn’t wanted to set foot on it. That had been their first fight.
The ship wasn’t really a ship at all, not by Nyeian terms. It was long as a Nyeian ship, but sat differently in the water, and it didn’t have a sail. Instead, a hundred men sat on benches on the lower levels, handling oars in unison, following commands barked in rapid Pitakan. When Gift asked what kind of man would willingly do that job, Skya had looked away. So it was up to Xihu to find out.
The men were indentured servants, only one step up from slaves. They were contracted to the shipping companies, and worked off that contract in years, not in money. Gift refused to sail on the ship and Skya had laughed.
“Then how do you plan to sail out of Btsan?” she had asked.
“If you had told me this was how business was conducted here, I would have insisted that we go by land,” Gift said.
“And lose all that precious time?” She had put her hands on her hips. “If we go by land now, we will add several weeks to our trip. We’ve gone a long way out of our way to do the land route.”
He knew she was right, and eventually, he gave in. But he hated this, and he knew when he returned to Blue Isle, he would ask Arianna to put an end to this loathsome Pitakan custom the Fey had seen no need to change.
As they had sailed, he had learned that only half the men rowed while the other half rested. Because of him, the ship’s owner had put on twice as many oarsmen as usual. They promised to get him to Tashco in record time.
It seemed that they would. The water was relatively calm here—they were going along protected channels just off the main part of the sea—and the weather was surprisingly warm. No one on the ship would let Gift do anything except sit—he was royalty, after all—and if he tried to get something for himself, someone blushed and fetched it instead.
So he had spent the last two days studying Skya’s strange map, which she had picked up for them along the way. It was a beautiful bit of work that showed the Fey Empire from Blue Isle to the farthest corners of Vion. There were notations in a language he couldn’t read, and a small symbol in the upper right-hand corner that, when he first saw it, made him shiver.
The symbol had a single heart resting on top of a single sword, with a crown floating above them both. He wished he knew what the symbol meant, but when he asked Skya, she had shrugged.
“I told you what I know of the Dorovich,” she said, “and now I’ve given you my map. You have all my secrets.”
Gift doubted that. He doubted he knew enough about her at all. As irritated as he was at her, she had proven herself very competent these last few weeks. Competent, elusive, and increasingly beautiful. He and Xihu would never have made it this far without her.
He looked out to sea. The water was a soft blue, almost flat, and the only sound around him was the splash of fifty oars hitting the surface in unison.
At moments like this, he knew he would make it home safely. He knew that whatever had gone wrong there—and something had, he could feel it—he would be able to put it right.
He took a drink from the glass in his hand. The lemony taste quenched his thirst even as it made him wince. It was like he imagined his homecoming, both bitter and sweet.
He no longer regretted his years in Protectors Village. Even though he hadn’t been able to become a Shaman, he had learned patience there. Patience and a certain trust in the fact that things would go the way that they must. He had also gained a confidence he had never had.
I’m coming, Arianna
, he thought, and wished they hadn’t closed their Links, so that he could let her know he was on his way.
I’ll be there as fast as I can
.
Maybe by then, she wouldn’t need him. Maybe by then, everything would be all right.
But he had a hunch he was the missing piece to a puzzle even he didn’t understand. He just knew that, whatever waited for him on Blue Isle, he was strong enough to face it. And he knew that, whatever happened, the path he was on was the best one—for everyone involved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today
bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the
Asimov’s
Readers Choice award, and the
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Readers Choice Award.
To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, fictionriver.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
THE BLACK QUEEN
Copyright © 2012 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published by Bantam Books in 1999
Published 2012 by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2012 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © 2012 by Dirk Berger
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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