Destiny: Child of the Sky

30

It had been a long, difficult day. A bitter wind had blasted around and through Haguefort’s rosy brown stone walls and windows for the better part of the week, trapping Lord Stephen’s children within the keep and requiring the heavy winter fires to be fed constantly. The air in the castle hung heavy with smoke, making it difficult to breathe.

That by coincidence it was also the birthday of Gwydion of Manosse, dead twenty years now, did little to make breathing easier. Sorrow at the memory of finding his childhood friend so long ago, broken and bloody on the grass beneath the firstsummer moon, squeezed Stephen’s heart, opening the doors for that sense of loss, and the loss of Lydia, to weigh upon his chest like bricks. He tucked Melisande into bed without her customary lullaby, kissed Gwydion good night without their accustomed talk, truthfully pleading a pounding headache.

Around midnight the gale died down, and Stephen decided to risk the cold for a moment. He opened the balcony doors and stepped outside, bracing himself against the outer wall as the shattering breeze blew through again, freezing his face and hands. Despite the cold, the air felt sweet and clean as he drew it into his lungs, though he could still taste remnants of the smoke that was venting from the castle’s many chimneys.

The lightposts were dark; the lamplighters had given up attempting to ignite the lamp wicks in the wind, and so the courtyard below him was darker than usual. Stephen’s eyes could make out the buildings below: the newly rebuilt stable and barracks, which had burned, casualties of an unexplained peasant revolt last spring, and the Cymrian museum that edged the courtyard on the northern side, its solid stone walls marred with soot but otherwise undamaged in the raid. All seemed quiet, as if frozen in time by the wind.

Then he saw it. At first he thought he’d imagined it, a bluish glow that gleamed for a moment in the museum’s solitary window, and then was gone. Stephen blinked back the water the stinging wind had brought to his eyes. It was there, he was certain of it.

And then again.

Stephen crossed the icy balcony, pulling his tunic closer around him, skidding momentarily on the snow that had frozen in between the stones of the elevated floor. He stood at the rail and watched again. He was certain he had seen it.

There it was.

It would take a great deal of time to get to the museum by going back through the keep. Stephen discarded the thought and climbed gingerly over the railing at the top of the curving exterior staircase that led from the semicircular balcony down to the courtyard below, hurrying down the stairs through the heavy drifts of snow that had accumulated on the steps.

By the time he had crossed the courtyard his legs were stinging from wading through the knee-high snowbanks encrusted with ice. His ears and hands screamed in mute objection as the wind blasted through again.

The museum’s door was locked, and there was no sign of light, bluish or otherwise, in the building’s one window, a small arched pane over the doorway on the second floor. Stephen fumbled for his key with hands that were beginning to tremble with cold.

When he located the large brass key on his ever-present ring, he inserted it quickly into the rusty lock and turned it. The door moaned in protest as he pulled it open, its wail swallowed in the howl of the wind. Stephen hurried inside and pulled the door closed behind him.

The windowless ground floor was more akin to a mausoleum than an artifact depository. It had been built at a time when, as now, Cymrian lineage was something to be ashamed of, or at least not boasted about. The population of the continent had suffered greatly as a result of the war between Anwyn and Gwylliam, and thus had little tolerance for the descendants of those who had been loyal to the Lord and Lady, and had wreaked so much devastation, not only on themselves but on those around them as well. The museum had been designed without windows for two practicalities. The first was to protect the historical treasures inside from the damages of direct sunlight. The other was to protect them from potential damage caused by resentful vandals.

Casting a glance around at the artifacts now, Stephen could understand the impulse the non-Cymrian population might have to destroy, the impulse the Cymrian descendants might have to hide their lineage. The frowning statues and pieces of Cymrian history had fascinated him since youth, but to another they might seem relics of an era of braggarts, people who had been endowed with powers they didn’t understand and therefore assumed themselves to be divine, godlike. Certainly in the wake of the destruction their once-great civilization had wreaked, resentment was understandable.

Understandable, but sad. Stephen looked at his historical handiwork, the carefully preserved artifacts, the meticulous reproductions of ancient manuscripts, the polished statuary, exhibits that had been lovingly displayed for no one to see. There had been a greatness to the Cymrian Age that none but a historian could appreciate, a spark of genius and excitement, a deep interest in life itself and its possibilities that Stephen had been endowed with since birth, could still feel in his blood, even in the face of all the sadness, and madness, of his existence.

—

Above his head the stone ceiling thumped, and Stephen started. “Who’s there?” he shouted.

A blue light answered him, filling the stairway at the far end of the tiny building. Stephen turned quickly to one of the weapons displays and snatched up a broadsword, the blade carried by Faedryth, King of the Nain, and left in the Great Moot at the final Cymrian Council. It was said that Faedryth had tossed it into the Bowl of the Moot in disgust, severing his ties and those of his people to the Cymrian dynasty forever, then left with his subjects to lands beyond the Hintervold.

Slowly he approached the stairs, where the light was now billowing in waves from above.

“Who’s there?” he demanded again.

In response the light grew brighter, more hypnotic. Stephen was put in mind of the immense blocks of glass embedded in the walls of the great seaside basilica Abbat Mythlinis in which he worshipped. The glass blocks had been positioned beneath the sea line to allow the water to be seen through the vast temple’s walls. It filled the basilica with diffuse blue light that rolled in waves over the worshippers. He shook his head to clear it and climbed the stairs slowly, silently.

At the top of stairway the copper statue of the dragon Elynsynos glittered in the azure light, its jewels and giltwork sparkling ferociously. Stephen crouched low to the stairs, keeping his cover. Then the light disappeared.

“Hello, Stephen.” The voice, soft and vaguely familiar, came from the far left corner of the room.

Stephen stood straight at the sound of his name, and stepped onto the second floor, the Nain king’s sword in his grip. A figure, cloaked and hooded, was standing in the darkness of the room, looking at the small exhibit on which Stephen had displayed the belongings of Gwydion of Manosse: the man was running his hand gently over the embroidered cloth that dressed the table. His fingers came to rest on the rack of unlit votive candles that stood in front of the display.

“Birthday candles?” The figure’s voice was warm, and held a hint of teasing.

Stephen gripped the sword tighter and raised it slightly. “Memorial votives. Who are you? How did you get in here?”

The man turned to face him. “The second answer first. I got in with the key you gave me.”

Stephen moved closer. “A lie. No one has a key except me. Who are you?”

The cloaked man sighed. “No one living, perhaps.” He reached up and took down his hood. “It’s me, Stephen; Gwydion.”

“Get out, or I’ll summon the guards.” Stephen backed up a step and reached for the banister.

Ashe took hold of the sword’s hilt and pulled it free from its scabbard. Kirsdarke’s blue light roared silently forth, glistening in waves like moving water, illuminating his hair and features, adding a blush of copper to the blue light.

“It really is me, Stephen,” he said softly, adopting a passive stance. “And I do live, thanks in part to your ministrations to me the day you found me on the forest floor.”

“It’s not possible,” Stephen murmured, shock making him go numb. “Khaddyr—Khaddyr couldn’t save you. You died before I returned with him.” Ashe sighed uncomfortably and ran a hand through his copper curls. “I’m sorry you were lied to, Stephen. There’s no way to explain adequately.”

“You’re damned right!” Stephen shouted, tossing the Nain sword to the floor and wincing as it clattered on the stone. “You’re alive? All these years? What kind of obscene joke is this?”

“A necessity, I fear,” Ashe said gently, though the contortions of pain on the face of his friend twisted his heart and his stomach. “But not a joke, Stephen. I’ve been in hiding.” And you know it, if you are the F’dor’s host yourself, his dragon nature whispered suspiciously.

“From me? You couldn’t trust me? You’ve allowed me to believe all these years that you were dead’? Void take you!” Stephen spun angrily and started down the stairs.

“It almost did, Stephen. Sometimes I’m not certain that it didn’t.” The Duke of Navarne stopped where he stood. He looked back at the shade of his friend, standing in the blue shadows. His eyes ran up the watery blade.

“Kirsdarke,” he said brokenly. “I gave it to Llauron after your—after he told me—”

“I know. Thank you.”

Stephen stepped back onto the second floor, rubbing his hands together awkwardly. “I was afraid to take it, and more afraid to leave it there, with you so grievously injured,” he said slowly, his mind wincing at the image in his memory. “I—we—had always joked about me stealing it from you, after you gained it—”

Ashe dropped the sword and ran to his friend, meeting him halfway across the museum floor in a desperate embrace. Stephen was trembling with shock, and Ashe cursed himself, and his father, again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, squeezing the duke’s broad shoulder. “I would have told you if I could.”

“May the All-God forgive me for spurning His blessing,” Stephen answered, returning the embrace. He loosed his grip on his friend and walked through the billowing blue light to where the sword lay, bent, and picked it up, handing it to Ashe again. Ashe took it and sheathed it, dousing the light once more.

“Come back with me to the keep,” Stephen said, turning toward the dark stairs. “It’s cold as a witch’s tit in here; we’ll sit before the fire and—“I can’t, Stephen.”

“You’re in hiding still?”

“Mostly.” Ashe went back to the corner and looked down at the table again; Rhapsody had once referred to it as a shrine, and he could see why. Aside from the altar cloth and candles it held the last of the possessions that he had been carrying the day he went after the demon: his gold signet ring, a battered dagger, and the bracelet Stephen had given him in their youth, fashioned of interwoven leather braids, torn open on one side. Attached to the wall behind the display was a brass plate, intricately carved and inscribed with his name. His dragon sense noted a lack of tarnish on it compared with the brass plates of the museum’s other displays.

“Why, then? Why do you reveal yourself to me now?”

“Because it’s my birthday?” Ashe said jokingly. His smile resolved into something darker. “I’m no longer hiding as I was these past twenty years; I didn’t show my face to anyone, Stephen, even to Llauron, in all that time. Now I’m being very careful about when and to whom to reveal myself. The demon is still looking for me, no doubt. I want to be the one to choose the time when it finds me.”

“I remember hearing sightings of you, years back, and fairly recently, but it was laughed off as rumor and myth.”

Ashe shuddered. “It was neither, I’m afraid. Nor was it me.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“That’s why I came tonight. Yes.”

Stephen smiled for the first time. “I don’t believe that,” he said humorously. “You were undoubtedly just hoping to scrounge a piece of birthday cake and a drink. Come; I can get you into the keep unnoticed. We can go through the stables to the wine-cellar tunnels. Perhaps we’ll pick up something to celebrate your birthday with on the way.”