Seven Swords

Chapter 39

'No... Mother was most testy about my experimenting with fire. But there can't be much to it, Thane added cheerfully. Even Father found it one of his first skills. Hm.' Javelle sat back on her heels. 'Before fire goeth

pride."

'It's simply a matter of seeing properly - all magic is.' Thane bent his dark head to the heaped wood. His eyes and his mind concentrated on the wind-carved shape of the sticks, tracing flamelike spirals and flares.

Javelle could see a glow halo the dry wood with every sweep of his eyes. Not so much flame as the pure heat that fire gives off, a silver-white shadow trembled over the wood. Cold fell like shadow over the beach as the light left. Javelle hunched nearer to the unearthly phos

phorescence, hoping for Thane's success. The ghostly glow burst into white-hot flames. Javelle jumped back even as Thane did, his dark eyebrows singed white by the flames.

"Too hot!' he admitted.

They crouched safely back from the sun-bright glare, attracted and repelled. A ball of cloud suddenly smothered the brightness. When it had passed, the fire burned low and meek.

A scaled fish fell to the sand next to the fire. 'Food!' Javelle crowed with suddenly released hunger, not questioning its source. The cloud returned, shaking salty waterdrops over the

pair, the sputtering fire, the still-flapping fish, everything.

'Briarwhip,' Javelle hailed it, fondness in her voice.

'Filthy beast.' Thane slapped sand and water off his

sleeves, but he also captured the fish before the hound could run off with it again. 'Where's your come-and-go master, then?"

'Here.' Eeryon stood on the seaside of the fire, silver glinting on his tunic sleeves, his eyes the color of sand.

'Some help you were.' "Thane! He brought us food.'

'We had the fire to cook it.' 'Eeryon could have made his own fire.'

Thane shrugged. I suppose I get to gut the fish."

'Give me your dagger; I will.' Javelle held out her hand. "You?' Thane hooted.

'1.' Javelle felt all too well that the getting of fish and fire were magical deeds the two young men had ac complished. The only feat left was introducing fish to fire cooking, if you will - and she was determined to make herself useful no matter how distasteful the task.

The fish had suffocated on sea air and lay quite still as she brought the daggerpoint to its sleek belly. Ordinarily, she would have quailed at butcher work and let Thane take his male prerogative and do it, but she was extra ordinarily hungry, for the first time in her life. And she felt, like the snake, useless - also for the first time in her life - a feeling that made her customary lack of purpose pale by contrast.

'I'll help,' Eeryon said, crouching beside her. And he did, holding back the shining skin while she

made the long, slow cuts, Saying nothing while she con centrated on forgetting what she did and thought only of the outcome. I suppose I should... hack the head off." Thane didn't answer and Eeryon looked uncertain.

lavelle sawed the tough skin and flesh, then tossed the

head to Briarwhip in the shadows.

Thane silently handed her a pointed stick. She handed

him back a skewered fish, still loosely clothed in its scales so it shouldn't flake into the fire as it cooked. Then she rose and went into the dark, toward the water's edge where the sea whispered to the sand over and over again.

Thanks for sharing the fish, Thane said to Eeryon. The boy from Without was silent.

You could have shared our danger, too. We weren't

greedy.' 1-Eeryon began. Slowly, the fish began to cook as Thane rotated the stick, juice sizzling on the burning wood. 'I meant to help, but was... called away.' 'Can you always disappear like that?"

'Not always. I don't much like it.'

'Why not? If I could disappear I'd... I'd be able to do

anything - fight any foe, achieve any end. No one could

stop me.' 'Everyone can stop you when you're not quite there. Yourself most of all."

Thane regarded Eeryon's placid profile. You're an odd

fellow, but Without is an odd place to grow up. Listen, if danger threatens again, try to stay around for the difficulty. I can't look after Javelle all the time." 'Maybe Javelle doesn't need anyone to look after her."

'She has no magic,' Thane explained carefully. 'She has no business being along on this journey. Mother sent me, not her.' In the silence, the returning Felabba's white form skimmed fishlike through the nearby dimness. 'Not that wag-a-tongue cat."

'Perhaps I should leave,' Eeryon suggested, moving. 'No.' Thane didn't sound completely happy. 'No. Stay

as long as you contribute, Javelle would blame me if yo left." 'You seem to blame each other a lot for things that blameless." "That's what it is to have a family, but I guess

you

wouldn't know." 'No.' Eeryon agreed. 'But I like company, Then stay. I don't care. I already told you."

Eeryon smiled, recognizing a grudging acceptance is the other boy. Briarwhip bounded over to settle at his side and watch the fish cook. Moments later, Javelle, several large shell halves in her damp hands, appeared from the

darkness. She sat between the two boys. 'It smells good. She sounded surprised.

'It is good. Thane had pulled the fish from the flames and wrested off some meat with his fingers. He offered it to Javelle. Startled, she took the morsel and tasted a 'Good.

Thane was scooping fish meat into the empty shells and

passing them down. Eeryon shook his blond head.

'Go ahead.' Thane urged. Just because you missed the

battle doesn't mean you can't eat afterward. Eat." Eeryon lifted his fingers to his mouth, delaying eating as long as he could. His senses were particularly die tant following one of his vanishing episodes. The sea's moaning came faint, like wind. He could smell neither the salt air nor the strong scent of cooked fish. His lips hardly sensed the hot flesh. His mouth barely tasted it He went through the motions, watching Javelle and Thane wolf down their portions despite the heat.

When Eeryon quietly set his half-full shell to the sand neither noticed it. Nor did they notice the white form that materialized over it like a specter to gobble daintily at the residue. When through, Felabba licked her whiskers interminably and rubbed once against Eeryon's velvet sleeve before melting into the dark again.

The fire subsided in subtle stages, popping now and again as sticks collapsed into charcoal or fish fat sizzled The three slept by it, wrapped in their own arms and

separate concerns. Thane dreamed of finding a sword as tall as a tree and toppling it. Javelle slept lightly, feeling an odd comfort and an odd unease in Eeryon's returned presence.

Eeryon slept not at all, nor did he dream. He was used to the dark, and he did not use it for dreaming.

Far out on the Outer Abyssal Sea, something surfaced. It was small and faint as a reflected star - a mere impulse glimpsed. It had whole great rivers of time and space to traverse, and vast, gateless empires ruled by

vagrant currents.

Now it neared its heart's desire - near enough on the

scale of things to recognize a heart's desire, however

formless.

Formless. Yet it had form, could take form, as it had taken flight from the foundation fitself. Free. The word remained its touchstone. Free for the first time in its existence to answer to no one but itself. A great illuminated pearl floated high above, painting

a ladder of light on the ridged wavetops. It yearned after that far; perfect gleam that tipped every crest in quick silver. Foothills and faraway mountains of gem-spattered ocean lapped around it glittering scales drifted on the surface, ghostly shells stirred in the deep and the dark. Even the creatures of the deepest depths shone with

fevered hues of ruby and amethyst, sapphire and emerald. Aquamarine... The word had been born full-scripted in its mind. Like Quickstone. Somewhere beyond the sea lay a treasure of... aquamarine. It would search until it found and was no longer lost.

It dove, making a small maelstrom in the moonlight -

one small flurry vanishing in the vast, shifting sea of

treasured darkness and light. It was close so close -

to finding itself at last.

Irissa started awake - though she had not realized that she had slept. She was still a prisoner to Geronfrey's inon tower chamber, yet an overwhelming feeling of freedom tugged at her spirit. Perhaps she had dreamed of her own escape.

In the Dark Mirror's sleek center the place Irissa's anxious eye ever wandered in search of comfort - a nave of light expanded. She pushed herself up from the cold floor and moved nearer.

Flames smaller than those reflected on the iris of an

eye pulsed in the darkness. Their light spread, revealing

three figures sleeping beside the blaze.

Tension cloaked Irissa's shoulders as she named and numbered the trio - Thane, his fist pillowed against his cheek, as he used to sleep in his cradle ... Javelle, head turned one way, torso another in her customary restless disarray... and... one other, a boy who sat, not slept his knees drawn up, his silver-threaded sleeves locked around them. The firelight painted the strange boy's hair the color of platinum.

Irissa warmed herself at the sharp though distant image, lost in memories. Another, harsher memory intruded, and she stiffened. She felt eyes watching her as she watched the scene in the mirror.

A hoarse chuckle echoed from the seven barred win dows, though the room was empty.

"You have found my looking-glass,' Geronfrey's de graded voice announced. 'Apparently I, too, have mislaid a child. But now he is found, along with your lost ones. You study him now seeress. How ironic our offspring

travel together. A pity it cannot last.' Irissa's relief at the sight of her children alive and

unharmed tightened into dread. She regarded the un known boy again, knowing him now for Geronfrey's shadow child. Yet she recognized a favorite posture of her own in his, and she sensed an aloofness beyond under standing. But not evil. She saw no evil in him. A handsome youth, as befits his parents. Geronfrey

sounded seriously vain, not mocking.

Irissa wondered how the sorcerer truly felt toward his son, this heir, this body-bought and magic-made offspring. Was he another tool, as his shadow mother, Issiri, had been?

Or had Geronfrey, having imitated life at last through his magic, learned also to imitate love? Certainly he had held no love for Issiri, his broken vessel, or Irissa. whose rejection had only spurred Geronfrey on to greater degradations of magic and power and parenthood. Both handsome boys,' she conceded carefully. How do

you call yours? "I say "Come," and he does. Are yours so obedient?" No. Irissa smiled. "But they are more... honest.

Besides, I meant ... what did you name him?"

Geronfrey's laughter seemed shrill enough to c***k the Dark Mirror's thick glass. 'Names convey power. Do you think I would tell you?"