Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

was Adica?

Crossing the threshold, stepping over the invisible line that demarcated the inside of the circle of stones from the outside, Alain walked from a world filled with a throbbing hum to one of silence except for the murmuring of the two sorcerers, for surely that was what they were. They wore like an invisible mantle an aura of power, just as Adica did: the Hallowed Ones of their tribes chosen for their ability to walk the path of magic.

The old man, then, was Falling-down, whom Adica often spoke of fondly. The other, Tanioinin, seemed not much older than Adica, as far as Alain could tell, but he lived in a broken body. By the evidence of the litter, he could not even walk.

At last Alain saw Adica, curled up into a ball on the other side of Tanioinin. The hounds padded past him and nosed her. She started up, alarmed to see him. He hurried over to crouch beside her.

“I would have sent for you after the danger was over,” she whispered.

“I do not leave you,” he said stubbornly. “Do not ask me to go, because I will not.”

She knew him well enough not to argue when he spoke in that tone.

He indicated Tanioinin and bent closer to murmur in her ear. The singing of the stones concealed his words from anyone except her, who was accustomed to his whispered endearments. “How can this one be a sorcerer? Can he even walk?”

“Spits-last is the most powerful sorcerer born into the human tribes.” She regarded Tanioinin with an expression of respect and, perhaps, a little pity. “His people nurtured and raised him because of his exceedingly clever and deep mind. He has served them as sorcerer for many years. But his body is so crippled that he is helpless in the middle world. Others have to take care of him. Only in the spirit world can he truly roam free. That is why he is so strong.”

Alain could see by the man’s blank expression and the way his eyes had rolled up into his head that he was already gone into the spirit world. He was calling to the dragons… wherever they were.

Adica hissed under her breath, caught Alain’s wrist, and pointed.

Those golden-stone hummocks arrayed along the eastern horizon like six giant tumuli were not stone at all. They glowed with the rich gleam of amber and the lustrous fire of molten gold. They hummed and, slowly, as he sank down—too stunned to cry out in astonishment—they woke.

They lifted great heads first. Their eyes had the winking fever of the hottest fire. Some had crests along their heads and necks, fans of gold unfolding as they rose. A tail lashed to dislodge boulders which smashed through the landscape, thrown about like pebbles. It was then that he realized how huge they were, and how far away. The noise of their waking rumbled and crashed around him, echoing against the heavens.

First one, and then a second, huffed mightily. Sparks rained from their nostrils. Fires bloomed and faded on rocks and among the mosses and low-lying scrub that lived in the fjall. Alain stared. Rage and Sorrow were whining, although it was hard to hear them above the distant crash and clamor of the waking dragons.

Adica struggled to her feet. She still held his wrist in a crushing grip; perhaps she had forgotten that she still held on to him. Mallets struck stone. The world hummed. As though drawn forward in a dream, Adica let go of Alain’s arm and stepped forward, past the two murmuring sorcerers, to stand with arms raised at the threshold of the protective circle of the stone crown just as the first dragon launched itself into the air.

Alain leaped after her, but he did not even reach her. The backwash from the dragon’s wings drove him to his knees. The screaming wind pounded him as a second, and then a third, dragon leaped toward the sky and caught the air under their vast wings, wider than houses. Their bellies shone like fire, and their tails lashed the air. Ice billowed off the distant eastern peaks, blown by their passage. A fourth and fifth rose. Battered by the wind of their rising, Alain struggled to stay on his knees. A hot stream of stinging wind passed over his back. His hair singed, and his hands and lips cracked under the sudden blast of heat as all his tears dried away.

He crawled forward. Adica stood framed by the stone lintel, arms still raised. The wind did not batter her down, nor did she bow beneath it. She didn’t need his help. She was the Hallowed One of her tribe, as powerful as the dawn, able to face without cowering the great creatures they had woken. All he could do was keep low to the ground and pray.

The dragons rose in glory, as bright as lightning. The wind of their rising stirred the clouds into a rage of movement, swirling in a gale stronger than any storm wind. As the dragons rose, the heavy layer of clouds began to break up, shredding in all directions. Drops of rain sizzled on stone. A single snowflake drifted down, dissolving before Alain’s eyes.

As the dragons rose, their brilliant figures dwindling, dusk came. Stars winked free of cloud. A cool wind swept in from the north. The dragons had driven the clouds away, and now the sorcerers could weave starlight in the loom.

Shaking, Alain clambered to his feet. His exposed skin hurt like fire.

Adica turned to examine him. “You should have waited until we called you.” The brush of her fingers stung his raw skin.

He flinched away. “I can go on,” he rasped. “You know I will never leave you.”

Her expression softened. She stepped past him and spoke in a low voice to Falling-down. Alain swayed, dizzy, still stunned by what he had seen. He had never imagined creatures of such vast power and terrible indifference. The life of the middle world, the fleeting span of human years, was as nothing to them, who could slumber for a hundred years as though it were one night. He sank down cross-legged onto the hard ground. Rage and Sorrow flopped down beside him. The eagle-cloaked woman bustled up beside him to rub a soothing ointment onto his stinging skin.

The mallet wielders ceased their hammering. Evidently their voluminous skin cloaks and hoods had protected them rather better than his traveling clothes had protected Alain, or else they, too, wore an invisible mantle of magic. Chattering in low voices, they lifted Spits-last’s litter from the center of the stone circle and carried him outside to a patch of ground covered with chalk.

Though his crippled body was weak, his spirit was strong. He was alert, and all at once he looked directly at Alain. His gaze was no less brilliant than the passage of the dragons. Alain met his gaze boldly. All Spits-last’s strength lay in his eyes. Even his arms were so withered that they were as thin as sticks. He had little compassion; perhaps he was too racked by pain all the time to feel sympathy for those whose pain was temporary. But he called to Alain with his expression. His eyes were a fathomless brown, set under thick eyebrows, the only robust thing about him. Secrets lay veiled in that face. It seemed to Alain that Spits-last could see all the way through him, all the things Alain had ever done right and all the things he had ever done wrong, a vision that pierced without passing judgment. Because the worst judgment is the one you pass on yourself.

Then Spits-last looked away. Alain sagged forward, all the breath knocked out of him.

With great effort, Spits-last lifted an obsidian mirror. His mirror was narrow, etched with triangles and circles to help guide his sight. He caught the yellowish light of the Guivre’s Eye, in the northeast, where she skated above the horizon, always watchful. He drew her gleaming thread across the warp of the stones to the southwest, to weave her in among the threads of the Serpent, who slides across the sands of the desert.

A brilliant portal plaited out of starlight wove into being.

“May fortune walk with you,” said Falling-down from far away.

The eagle-cloaked woman thrust a pack into Alain’s hand. Staggering, he got to his feet just as Laoina caught hold of his elbow to steady him. Where had she come from?