It was a joy simply to stretch out an arm, and feel the dry winter grass slide past her fur. The sky was lovely to look at; she would have liked to have rolled on her back, purring, to gaze at the new sun the swans had made, just to absorb the wonderful gradations of color that canopied it.
The hunt was even more enjoyable. For the moment, that was where the white Wind kept her attention focussed. It was hard, though, with all the wonderful distractions…
She prowled up the side of a rock-strewn hill, whose top sported some scraggly, wind-sculpted trees. The land had changed from desert to stony scrubland. A few human shepherds brought their flocks here in summer, simply because there was nowhere else for them to go, but nothing agricultural would grow in this soil.
That meant there would be no human witnesses, no one to interfere with the capture.
She lifted her muzzle and sniffed at the wind. She could smell horses—of course, they were obvious kilometers away. Now, though, she could also smell fresh-washed humans. Two women and a man.
There was the faintest possibility that these were not the ones she was looking for. She would have to risk a peek over the top of the hill, and hope they didn’t see her silhouetted against the bruised horizon.
The white Wind was very good. They wouldn’t see her. She crept the last meter with her belly to the cold ground, infinitesimally slow in her movements, and finally laid her chin on a flat rock next to some torpid ants. A few stalks of grass made a screen here through which she could see the valley.
It wasn’t much of a valley; more as if a single huge boulder, the size of a whole suburb of houses, had split open and crumbled. Three horses were tethered in the shelter made by the split. There was a half-cave there, on the other side where the ground humped up and then up again before rising straight up to the same height as the white Wind. This meant there were two entrances to the little valley, unless one flew. The Wind’s forces were all on the western side. She would have to send some of the men and basts around to block the other exit before they closed the trap.
A man walked around from behind one of the horses. He was talking to a woman in peasant garb who trailed after him, waving her hands in agitation. He didn’t recognize the woman, but the man was clearly Armiger. That was all she needed to know.
The white Wind eased back two meters, then spun, delighting in the balance of her tail, and raced down the scraggly hillside.
It’s good to run run run run, she hymned as she went. The Wind felt like bursting into song, and were it not for the presence of the prey so close, she would have. The swans would never begrudge such a display—they sang all the time. The whole world sang, a revelation that filled the white Wind’s breast with joy every time she thought of it. In quiet times, she could curl up around an interesting stone or sweet-smelling plant, and hear the faint music—_thinking music_—that welled up around her.
To think she had once believed it to be mindless chatter! She allowed herself a laugh as she reached the bottom of the hill. Her sinuous body wove between boulders and thorn bushes as she made for some trees that had made a brave stand several kilometers from where Armiger had camped. She was following the exact route she had taken to get here, and made a game out of stepping in her own pawprints as she went. One-to-four, one-to-four, whoops missed, one-to-four…
These last few days had been a blessing. When she was released to run down a long ramp onto the cold desert sands, the white Wind had rolled over four times in the dirt and howled her joy at the sky. She had wanted to run to the horizon and back just so she could say she’d looked over it, but the swans had other plans. Someone to find. When they told her who, she had rolled over again, laughing.
This was fun; still, she longed to be finished, so she could take off on her own and explore this beautiful world. She felt exactly like Ariel in that old play, so as she raced into the camp her servants had made, she sang,
Where the bee sucks there suck I,
In a cowslip’s bell I lie.
On a bat’s back I do fly
…forgetting that none of these people knew that old language.
One of the human soldiers stepped forward and bowed gravely to her. “Are they there, Lady May?” he asked. She could hear the well-disguised fear in his voice.
She ran a circle around him. Merrily merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs from the bow, she thought, but she only said, “Yes.”
Her chief servant approached, distaste and fear written on his face as he watched her sit up on her hindquarters and pant. “Then shall we fetch them now?” asked the sergeant.
“No, not yet.” She explained the tactical situation. They would have to split their force and come at the sheltered declivity from two sides. “It’s open country,” she finished. “There’s a good chance of being spotted if they have a sentry out, so you’ll make the pincer at full gallop.”
As he slumped toward his men, issuing orders irritably, the white Wind turned a cartwheel and ran to her own people, the basts who prowled restlessly at the edge of the camp. They chattered laughter at her approach. “Little woman-bast,” one called out. “Why are you so happy?”
She stopped and cocked a paw to one ear. “Because I hear it!” she replied. “I hear it rising all around us.”
They nodded. They knew what she meant.
*
Megan had originally intended to hunt for berries. She had found a handful or two, but halfway back in her circuit of the hill above the cave, she had stumbled on a little flat area screened by bushes. It was invisible from below, but she could see the whole camp. The temptation was irresistible, and so she had hunkered down to spy on her man.
You’re terrible, she told herself, even as she parted the bushes to look almost straight down the rock face. She could hear Armiger and the queen bickering. Galas looked silly in Megan’s dress; it was far too big for her. But she refused to wear any of the perfectly good clothing they had salvaged from the razed town. Megan had thought her a tragic figure before. In the past few days her patience had worn thin, and she was beginning to think of Galas as merely spoiled.
Megan had dressed herself in some boy’s clothes. It was practical, but unfeminine. Yesterday she hadn’t minded that, but now, watching Armiger and Galas alone, she wondered. There was nothing overt going on between them, no ardent words or glances. They weren’t holding hands. Still, she knew a strong bond had developed between them—one based on commonality that Megan could never share. They were both rulers, of the highest possible caste. She was a peasant. Even if (foolish dream!) Armiger married her, Megan would remain a peasant. She could never be comfortable with the nobles and ladies of the Court. Even if he became king of the world, as he planned, she would blush and look down if she had to greet the great people of other lands. She had thought about these things. She knew she would rather serve them than look them in the eye.
So shall I leave? she thought sadly. Armiger shrugged at something Galas had said, and twitched his long hair back over his shoulder. She knew that gesture so well, she could almost hear him saying, “We will decide later.” Her heart ached.
She herself had told him that you can never hold onto anything. The harder you try, the more precious things slip through your fingers. The secret to life, she had said, was to find the little things, the unimportant ones that would nonetheless always remind you of the precious things they accompanied—and hold onto them. Like the fine furniture her husband had carved for her, seemingly centuries ago.
Galas was weeping again. Megan sighed. Had the rain found a way through her roof while she was away? Was the fine wood of the bed and wardrobe ruined now? Had someone moved into her house? Or would she find it exactly as she had left it, if she returned now?
Kiss her, she mentally commanded Armiger. Make it easy for me to leave. He did not, although he enfolded her in his arms and rested a hand on her head as she cried. His expression was distant, as it often was, as he rocked the queen gently.
Megan sat back, chewing her lip. She blinked at the strong sunlight—daylight in the middle of the night. It was unnerving, more so since she knew it meant the Winds were closing in on them. She shaded her eyes with one hand and gazed out over the dry plain, in case there were some army approaching.
She had only been half-serious about looking, so for a second or so she couldn’t believe it when she saw the cloud of dust raised by a band of horses approaching their hiding place. There must be at least fifty. Maybe Armiger could take on that many. Maybe not.
Megan’s heart sank when she saw what they were doing. The groups split in two as they approached. They mean to block both ways out.
They were approaching from the west. One group would have to ride the long way around to reach the eastern entrance of the vale. The other group would wait until some preordained signal then move in.
It is the queen they want, she thought. Had it been Winds, they would have arrived from the sky, as swans or Hooks. Or popped out of the earth as morphs. No, these riders must be from Parliament’s army, come to bring Galas home for trial.
For herself and Armiger to live, the sensible thing would be to send Galas out to them. The queen was in such a state she would probably be glad to go. But Armiger would never permit it, and Megan doubted she had the hardness of heart to do it either. They could all ride out the eastern exit now, but then the whole group would pursue them.
No: if they gave them what they wanted, Galas would be tried and executed. If they ran, they would be chased down and the end would be the same, only Armiger and Megan would likely be killed in the fight.
But if they captured someone they thought was the queen, and found out she was not only hours or days from now…
Megan scattered the berries in her haste to scramble down the hillside.
*
Armiger heard the commotion, but at first didn’t turn. Galas was telling him about her relationship with Lavin, and he didn’t want to seem distracted. Then the queen, who was seated on a rock, looked past him and said, “What is she doing?”
He turned in time to see a flash of Megan’s naked body, before she pulled down the robe she was donning. It was the queen’s robe, the one she had worn when they escaped the palace. And now Megan was cinching her horse’s saddle…
“Megan!” He started toward her, but she hopped nimbly into the saddle and flicked the reins.
“What are you doing?”
“Ride east! Ride east, love, if you love me!” She waved a hand over her head as she galloped; then she was through the gateway made by two huge boulders at the western side of the vale, and vanished in a cloud of dust.
It took precious seconds for him to bridle his own mount, and while he did that Galas ran after Megan. She too vanished in the swirl of hoof-drawn dust, then raced back.
“Riders!” she shouted. “There are riders coming! They’ve seen her, they’re trying to head her off!”
Armiger paused in cinching up his saddle. He closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the fragrant flank of his horse.
*
Megan had the rings of office on her fingers. She wore Galas’ robes. As she rode she undid her hair and let it flow behind her, the way the queen did.
She felt free, fulfilled for the first time in ages. There was no time to reconsider, no options to hem or haw over. Only the thundering hooves under her, the jarring of her horse’s spine through her legs and pelvis, and the fire in her blood as she screamed at it to go faster.
They want the queen alive. I’ll lead them a merry chase, then go with them. Oh, let there be no one among these horsemen who knows the queen by sight!
*
“She’s gaining ground on us!” cried the sergeant’s flankman. “It’s her horse!” The queen’s mount was lighter than their war horses, and relatively unburdened. She probably could outride them.
“Crossbows!” commanded the sergeant. They had muskets, but at this range crossbows would be more accurate.
“No!” It was the White Wind, running on all fours to match his own pace. “She is not the one we seek!”
“She is not the one you seek! Take your people and catch him yourself!”
The Wind snarled and leapt away. The sergeant tipped his head back and laughed. He had been waiting for a moment to show her up.
“Shoot her horse out from under her!” he shouted. “Aim for its hooves. I want it lame, not dead—I don’t want it to throw her.”
*
They came out of the settling dust like ghosts—eight white forms like giant panthers, leaping from rock to rock and laughing. Galas screamed as they launched themselves over her head at the place where Armiger had been standing.
She spun around to see, but he wasn’t there anymore. Before she could find him the floor of the little valley exploded in colored fire.
The concussion knocked her over again. When Galas regained her feet, it was to see Armiger, halfway up the sheer rock face of the northern wall of the vale, leaning back and sending bolts of fire from his outstretched hand. White forms dodged in the roiling smoke below.
Something soft slid past her hand. Galas snatched it away, only to find a large form flowing around her. It sounded like it was purring.
“Oh, what have we here,” said a measured, hypnotic voice. “The once and never-again queen. Who then was it that we saw barreling out of here a second ago?”
Two golden eyes rose up to her own height, and blinked lazily at her. Over the thing’s shoulder, the vale flickered with white light. Something screamed.
“It hardly matters,” said the thing. “We have you now. A bonus—since you’re not the one we came for. But I know some people who’ll be very happy to see you.” Before she could move it had her by the arm—claws embedding deeply in her muscle so that she shrieked.
“Armiger!” cried the creature. “Stop harming my people! I have your lady companion. If you don’t come down now and surrender yourself to me, I will kill her.”
Galas looked down at her arm, and blinked at the blood there. Once, she would have had a thousand—no, ten thousand men willing to die to prevent even such a tiny injury as that.
And who was this creature to ill-use her so? No one touched her like that!
“I will give you one minute,” the monster was saying. The lightning-flashes from the hillside had ceased. “Starting from—”
It was the monster’s turn to scream, as Galas twisted the hairpin she had thrust into its ear. It let go of her arm, and she ran into the dust and confusion of the vale.
Blue and white light light and roaring thunder surrounded her.
*
Megan’s horse screamed and staggered. She rocked in the saddle, falling forward across the beast’s neck. Hanging on to its mane for dear life, she looked down. A crossbow bolt stuck out of the poor thing’s flank, just above its front haunches.
Too soon! She had to get a little farther, to give her love time to escape. She withdrew one foot from its stirrup and leaned down to try to grab the bolt.
Pain exploded in her side driving all the breath from her. She grabbed at the reins and missed, then she was tumbling headfirst off the horse, straight at a big rock.
Armiger, my love, I—
*
Rocks tumbled around the white Wind. She staggered from agony in her head and along her side where one of Armiger’s bolts of fire had clipped her. The perfidious queen was gone, and her basts were falling back, yelping in confusion. The little vale was full of smoke but she could see at least four bast bodies on the ground, and one horse with its throat torn out.
“Where is the other horse?” she shrieked at a bast who came within grabbing distance.
“They took it,” it shouted. “Rode. East, they went out the east exit!”
A bolt of fire from somewhere made them all duck.
“Follow!” She raked her claws across the bast’s shoulder. “Catch him! I don’t care if you all die doing it!”
The remaining basts vanished into the haze. The white Wind moved to follow, but she hurt too much; she could only stagger a few paces.
She cursed the swans. You took out my armor, and for what? So I could die here in this wasteland? For a few moments, she was Calandria May again, as she wept at her misfortune, and then the world greyed around her, and she tumbled onto the sand.
*
Armiger’s hand was missing. In its place was a smoking black ball. Every now and then he would lean back in the saddle and aim that ball at the monsters that were chasing them. Fire would leap from where his hand used to be, and once she heard a scream as it struck home.
He was taking them in a grand circle to intersect the line of Megan’s flight. Even if they ended up facing fifty mounted knights, it was the right and proper thing for him to do. Galas said nothing, just held onto him and the horse and let the ride go on.
He stretched back again, and she hunched from the blast of sound. “Ha!” he shouted. She risked a look back, and saw one monster in flames, another leaping away to the side, with only one more still following. It was losing ground steadily.
Suddenly he reined in the horse. Galas almost fell out of the saddle, and only after a giddy moment righting herself was she able to look up and see why.
They were cantering along the top of a ridgeline. The human riders were below them, dismounted and clustering around something on the ground.
Galas recognized her dress before she made out the crumpled figure in it.
The dress was stained scarlet.
She had time to glimpse someone raising a limp arm and letting it fall back to the earth, before the horse shied out of the way of a panting white creature.
Armiger shrieked a curse at the thing, and shot it as it made to leap again. Then he plunged the horse back from the ridgeline—away from the riders, away from his love.
For the first time since she met him, she saw him weep, wretchedly and uncontrollably, and it was Galas who took the reins and led them into the sunlit night.
*
Lavin’s ears popped and he groaned. He had elected to travel the first leg of their journey by means of the vagabond moon, in part to encourage his men and partly because his vertigo would not go away. He had not suspected that air travel would be like sea travel—full of dips and sways. He had lain huddled on his bedroll for most of the past eight hours, unable to tell what motion was in his head and what was real. The illness left him alone with his thoughts, which was the worst possible situation.
He would dearly have loved to tour this fantastical place, and look down on the world passing below. Two thousand of his men were bivouacked here on the black floor of the moon. There were no tents, because the Winds had forbidden them from driving tent pegs into the floor, and no fires for similar reasons. At four sides of the vast empty floor large rectangular openings let in the cold air; just now several men were standing near one, peering down in awe at the landscape passing below. As they looked, another man walked up casually, holding a chamberpot, and upended it over the opening. He laughed at their expressions and walked away.
Lavin closed his eyes as the world swayed again. Vertigo reminded Lavin of how he had met Galas. He could not stop thinking about her, going over and over in his mind the strange paths that had brought them to this endless day.
He had taken the side of Parliament partly to ensure her safety. In order to allay any suspicions on the part of the members, he had loudly proclaimed his allegiance to tradition. At the time, he had been crossing his fingers behind his back, hoping they would believe him and let him lead the army. But—and this he had not wanted to admit to himself—he really did believe. Galas was wrong. The traditions were sacred, and beautiful. He remembered the country dances of his youth, where singers would recite the names of the Winds and the seasons decreed by the desals. When he tried to picture the future Galas was building, he could not imagine what would replace those dances, and the cordial sense of community they fostered. Her future might be just, but her thoughts seemed to have a cold, insectile quality. He pictured the empire of Galas as a giant hive.
Just a while ago, as the tiny sun set and the ordinary one was just rising, a priest had come to him. The man had knelt by Lavin’s bedroll, and Lavin had smiled at him, expecting words of comfort. But the man was crying.
“I have been speaking to the Winds,” he said. “All my life, that was all I wanted to do. The desals and the other Winds of the earth can’t talk, but the swans can. I went to them and recited the ancient chants. They waited in silence. Then I—I ventured to ask a question.” He took a deep breath. “I asked them why they had not spoken to us, all these centuries.”
Lavin had sat up, despite his spinning head. “And what did they say?”
“They said that they had never stopped speaking to us in all that time. That it was us who would not listen.”
The priest looked carefully over his shoulder; a hundred meters away stood a pillar of flame, pale in the wan sunlight. Faces appeared and vanished like hallucinations within it. “I said I was listening now. And do you know what they said? They said, ‘no, you are not listening. We are asking you to speak even now, and you are not speaking.’ General, it had the sound of madness to it! I recited the sacred scriptures to them. And they… They asked me what this nonsense was I was barking. Lord, they didn’t know them! Are these truly the Winds, or…”
“Or what? Something else?” He almost shook his head, but refrained. “No. Who else has this power? They are who they say they are.”
“But sir, there’s more.” The priest looked like he was about to be sick. “I… I asked them what was to become of us. Of humanity. Had we disappointed them? How could we serve them? And the swans said… the swans said, ‘We have tried to complete ourselves for centuries. We thought you might be the key.’ They said they had been searching for something and studying for many generations, but that it was all done now. ‘We have completed our Work,’ they said. ‘We need not tolerate your presence any longer.’”
“Need not tolerate us?”
“They have no more use… for the human race.” The priest stood up, appearing stunned, and walked away.
Everything we know about the Winds is wrong. Lavin remembered Galas writing something like that, in the secret letters he had liberated. They are not benevolent gods. They are antagonists in a struggle for command of this world. And what is that to us? she had continued. A tragedy? Only if we are lazy. It is more like an opportunity—a chance to create a new reality that is more true to nature.
Was she right? Should he have razed the sleepy towns with their inheritance-bound guildsmen and books of ritual appeasement instead of her experimental villages—burned the festival costumes and children’s’ storybooks—and helped her build the hive of the future? Could her love have sustained him while everything else he had known and cherished whithered and died? She had claimed she had the permission and advice of the Winds in all she did; he had known that to be a lie, for one time they had discussed the lies of great men, and she had blithely stated that all nations were based on them. Yet, the Diadem swans did not know the scriptures attributed to them; even now he could see the priest standing before the pillar of flame, arms apart, pleading for sense from the masters of the world. All the traditions Lavin believed in were based on those ancient scriptures, and the stories that surrounded them. Was Galas right? Were they all lies too?
The world spun around him in a particularly savage gyre, and Lavin’s gorge rose. It wasn’t just him, though—men were shouting and running. He forced himself to sit up, and observed green foliage moving past the open hatchways of the moon. Crowds of men had begun to cluster there.
One of his commanders hurried over. “We’re coming down, sir. There are some horsemen and the bast creatures on the ground below.”
“All right.” He took several deep breaths to quiet his stomach. “Bring them to me before they speak to anyone else.”
The moon took ten minutes to drop the last few meters, and it didn’t actually touch the ground. From his seated position Lavin saw a long grey metal ramp extend out and down into the darkness of the moon’s shadow. Horsemen began rattling up the ramp. He saw some men with stretchers carrying bloodied white forms—two of the basts had been injured somehow. Despite himself he smiled grimly at that. So they could be hurt after all.
The moment the last horse stepped into the cavernous space of the moon, the ramp began to retract and the ground dropped away. The Winds were punctual, it seemed.
The leader of the horsemen had dismounted and was walking over. He was flushed with excitement.
“Sir! They would not let us bring the bodies aboard sir. I’ve left a guard with her, but brought you—”
“Her?” He stood up, leaning on the cane Hesty had had made for him. “The queen? Is she with you?”
“No, sir. That’s what I’m saying. The Winds allow only the living aboard these moons.”
The sergeant’s face seemed to recede. A chaotic gabble of sound filled Lavin’s ears. He felt someone take him by the shoulders; people were shouting. They lowered him into a camp chair.
“Only the living… She is…”
“She is dead, sir. The queen is dead. It was a stray shot, accidental. We were trying to bring down her horse—I had given orders that no one should shoot above its legs, but a shot went wild and she was leaning, sir…”
“I, I see.”
“I have left an honour guard with them, and sent two men to fetch her royal guard from the palace.”
A spark of hope made Lavin look up. “What proof do you have that this was the queen?”
“Her rings of office, sir.” The sergeant withdrew a square of cloth from a belt pouch, and opened it to reveal familiar circles of gold. “It is she.”
He stared at the rings. They looked so unnatural, alone in that square of black.
“Sir?”
True, she had not worn them when they first made love, in that inn near the academy. It was only later that he saw them, when he saw her in regal glory on the throne, and she recognized him and sent him her most secret of smiles—waggling her fingers slightly as she raised her hand for him to kiss it.
“Sir?”
The commander took the sergeant’s arm and muttered something. They moved aside, talking in low tones.
She had subtly taunted him on that day, showing off her new position; but he knew it was only that she was proud and surprised at where she was. Her father slunk in the shadows, deposed by an act of the desals, and at that moment Galas had believed she could do anything. So had Lavin, and he had trusted that they would be together again, somehow.
“I must go to her,” he said. He reeled to his feet. “Put us down. I must attend her.”
“Sir, the Winds say we must continue. We failed to capture Armiger. They say to continue the march to the Titan’s Gates.”
He cursed savagely, and stalked toward the pillar of fire. His men silently parted before him. Dimly he wondered at this. Had they known all along that he loved her? They stood with heads bowed; none would meet his eye. They had known he loved her and yet they still fought for him? It couldn’t be.
He stopped, gasping, two meters from the blazing swans. “Turn us around!” he commanded. “Put us down!”
There was no answer.
“Do as I say! The queen needs me!”
“We have other concerns,” said the crystalline voice of the pillar.
“Please.” He found it hard to speak past the savage pain in his chest. “Let me go to her.”
“No. We have a schedule to meet. Your queen is not important.”
He froze. Suddenly he felt all eyes on him. Should he shout the fury he felt now, with his army watching? What would they do if they realized that he, and they, were prisoners of the Winds, pawns in some game of theirs that had nothing to do with Iapysia, or humanity at all?
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the priest, his face grim, a message of caution in his eyes.
Deliberately, jaw clenched, Lavin bowed to the flame. “I understand,” he said. “You are correct, of course.”
Walking away was somehow easy. He moved as if weightless, bobbing along. People were speaking to him, but their words made no sense. Light and shape registered, but none of it had any meaning. She was dead, and it was his fault, as surely as if he had shot her himself. This moment had haunted his dreams for months, and he had steeled himself every morning to deny it, using the force of his will to command himself, his men, the world and Winds to preserve her. Just yesterday he had awoken sure that she was alive and free, and his heart had lofted like a swallow, serene and happy. But that was gone now, and he would never feel again.
Gradually the hands fell away, the voices receded. He found himself standing near one of the giant hatchways. Cold air moved across his face, but it didn’t revive him. It had the feel of death to it. Far below he could see patches of snow, bare trees. No one should ever die in winter, he had always felt. And now she was that cold, limbs frozen. He should be with her, arms around her to keep her warm.
Lavin walked to the edge of the opening. Someone shouted his name. He heard it like a curse.
He decided to let himself fall, and teetered for a moment on the edge. He could just close his eyes, and let it happen. It would be a relief, after holding himself up for so long.
Lavin turned, and dropped to his knees facing away from the hatchway.
No. He didn’t deserve such an easy escape.
Sunk in misery, he hung his head and in full view of his army, wept.