The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

The third impossible gate appeared, a sudden azure like river waters frozen and set upright between two stone pillars. Beyond the gate, the sea boiled and lashed under a cloudy sky torn by storm. Foam sprayed the rock walls. He could not see the distant land at all. He stepped back, ready to walk on. He didn’t want to lose sight of Kansi-a-lari again.

But she had paused by the azure gate. “Who is there?” she asked, and in answer, she placed her palm against the pale blue gate.

Banners fly outside a fine wood hall, and servants rush hither and thither carrying wood and chests and cloth and shovels and bags of bread so fresh that he can see the steam rising and rounds of hard cheese and a cage full of brightly-colored songbirds. Snow dusts the ground. As the sun rises, the full moon sets. Horses are brought ’round, breath steaming in the cold, and suddenly people burst from the hall like chickens erupting from their henhouse to escape a fox.

That is the king. Anyone would know the king, even if, like Zacharias, he had never seen him before except in a vision. His courtiers swirl around him like the tidal currents, some in, some out. Messengers come and go as he waits for his horse to be brought forward. A woman in an Eagle’s cloak stands with her back to the king, listening to one of her comrades, who looks as if he has just ridden in. She turns, then, a tall, hawk-nosed woman who is so astoundingly familiar that he can only gape as she speaks her comrade’s message into the ear of the king.

“Your faithful Eagle Udala has come from Varre, Your Majesty, with news from Biscop Constance that all remains quiet in Autun despite rumors of witchcraft in the lands to the west. There is drought in Salia. Udala also brings a message from Lord Geoffrey, cousin of Count Lavastine. He has heard that the count died not two or three months ago of evil sorcery. He begs you to come to Lavas Holding, for he accuses the man who claimed to be Lavastine’s bastard of using witchcraft to dupe Lavastine into naming him as his heir. He begs you to come when you can, to pass judgment on this matter.”

o;Yes, Your Highness.”

“What of the mark, there, at the end?”

“It is some kind of sigil, but I cannot make it out.”

The woman grunts, then, and gestures toward the fire “Burn it.”

A shutter has been taken down to admit air. Through it, he sees the dawn sky and the distant moon: the last sliver of the waning crescent moon setting below trees that range alongside a broad, noble river.

“Pale Hunter, protect me,” he gasped as he shoved himself away from the gateway and staggered backward, colliding with the massive wall behind. There was no way up, no way down, except the way he was going. But maybe he shouldn’t be praying to the Pale Hunter at all. Maybe he should be praying to the Hanged One, who killed himself for wisdom, hanging nine nights and nine days under an ash tree while ravens fed on his liver. But he doesn’t remember. That was a long time ago, and his grandmother’s ways were a curiosity to him; he already believed in the Circle of Unity and the Mother and Father of Life because his parents believed, because he obeyed them, because he liked the sermons given by the frater and later because the words written in the Holy Verses rang so sweetly in his ears that he memorized them, every one.

Now, standing alone with the horse in the narrow lane, he couldn’t recall a single word of all those psalms he had once known by heart; he could only remember his grandmother’s prayers. She hadn’t been blessed with beautiful words or elegant phrases, but she had known how to get straight to the point.

“Oh, Fat One, here are the first leeks from the garden. They’re a little small, but very sweet. Please let my daughter have the second child she longs for. Here are some apple pips I saved over from last harvest. The fourth tree on the left didn’t produce well this past autumn. If you choose not to honor it with fecundity this year, then I’ll have my son-in-law cut it out and we’ll plant a nice hazel tree instead in your honor. I’ve a nice sapling down by the river in mind for you, a good strong one that’s not yet too big to be transplanted. I’ll lay a stick of it here, next to the pips, so you can smell how holy it is.”

That next winter, he remembered, she had had his father cut out the apple tree and planted the hazel instead; his mother had borne a strong, healthy daughter, whom she had named Hathui. Hazel tree and Hathui had flourished together, and every autumn his grandmother secretly set out an offering of the first hazelnut porridge before The Fat One’s altar, by the spring in the hills behind their holding. He always went with her; he never told.

She was gone.

She was long dead. And his companion had vanished up the path, away around the curving walls.

He shook himself free of memory, terrified of being left behind in this place of visions and shadows. The horse plodded stolidly behind as he hurried forward, and his legs burned as he hurried to catch up. At last he caught sight of her. She seemed so high above him, and the air shimmered strangely as though they pressed through another substance entirely, something outside of air, beyond air. His knees hurt. His throat burned. The sun shone with a light as pale as the marble walls.

The third impossible gate appeared, a sudden azure like river waters frozen and set upright between two stone pillars. Beyond the gate, the sea boiled and lashed under a cloudy sky torn by storm. Foam sprayed the rock walls. He could not see the distant land at all. He stepped back, ready to walk on. He didn’t want to lose sight of Kansi-a-lari again.

But she had paused by the azure gate. “Who is there?” she asked, and in answer, she placed her palm against the pale blue gate.

Banners fly outside a fine wood hall, and servants rush hither and thither carrying wood and chests and cloth and shovels and bags of bread so fresh that he can see the steam rising and rounds of hard cheese and a cage full of brightly-colored songbirds. Snow dusts the ground. As the sun rises, the full moon sets. Horses are brought ’round, breath steaming in the cold, and suddenly people burst from the hall like chickens erupting from their henhouse to escape a fox.

That is the king. Anyone would know the king, even if, like Zacharias, he had never seen him before except in a vision. His courtiers swirl around him like the tidal currents, some in, some out. Messengers come and go as he waits for his horse to be brought forward. A woman in an Eagle’s cloak stands with her back to the king, listening to one of her comrades, who looks as if he has just ridden in. She turns, then, a tall, hawk-nosed woman who is so astoundingly familiar that he can only gape as she speaks her comrade’s message into the ear of the king.

“Your faithful Eagle Udala has come from Varre, Your Majesty, with news from Biscop Constance that all remains quiet in Autun despite rumors of witchcraft in the lands to the west. There is drought in Salia. Udala also brings a message from Lord Geoffrey, cousin of Count Lavastine. He has heard that the count died not two or three months ago of evil sorcery. He begs you to come to Lavas Holding, for he accuses the man who claimed to be Lavastine’s bastard of using witchcraft to dupe Lavastine into naming him as his heir. He begs you to come when you can, to pass judgment on this matter.”

Zacharias stares, astounded, as the king scratches his beard thoughtfully, not angry, merely considering. He would never have known her by her face alone, for she has changed over the years since he last saw her, grown up and filled out. But the memory of her voice lies forever lodged in his deepest heart; so much of what he remembers is words and voices.

Who would have thought it? She was such a bold, scrawny girl. It is his sister, Hathui, wearing an Eagle’s cloak and standing at the right hand of a king.

The king’s horse is brought up. He mounts and rides away.

“Ah,” said Kansi-a-lari beside him, the same sound a person might make who has finally pulled a thorn from her foot. She set her right hand on her left shoulder as though to say, “I greet you,” as though to say, “I am resigned to my unhappy fate.”

She walked on, and he walked beside her. The fourth gate had the luster of amber, but because she did not hesitate, he did not stop; he did not want to be left behind. The steep lane became stairs, steepening as they made their way up the hill. He understood now, finally, that the path was a spiral one, curling in toward the top.

The fifth gate surprised him. It gleamed like amethyst, washing the scene behind it of sea and night sky with a brush of palest violet. There was no moon. He couldn’t make sense of the stars, all topsy-turvy and in the wrong place. Disoriented, he stumbled and fell against the horse. Jostled, he braced himself against the rock, but his hand slipped to the slickly damp surface of the gate just as Kansi-a-lari cried out a warning.

“Do not look!”

But he was already gone.