Starflower (33 page)

But he would not approach her.

He beckoned, his voice desperate as he spoke. “I will give you a voice. That is what you want most, isn't it, my lovely? I took it from you, but I can give it back. Return to me, and I shall give you everything you want!”

She stared at him, her brow set in a line, her lips gently parted.

“Say his name,”
said the Dragonwitch,
“and he will do your bidding.”

Imraldera raised her hands to sign, but they did not move.

See the truth and speak!
sang the voice in her heart.

What truth was she meant to see?

“I will make her suffer,” said the wolf. He paced back and forth along the edge of the water, just within the shelter of the cavern. “I will make that sister of yours suffer. I will tear into her just as I tore into your father when you left me the last time! You love her, I know. You would die for her. But will you live for her, Starflower? Will you return to me and live out your life as you were meant to for the sake of that girl?”

Hatred. That must be his name. She stared at his hideous face, distorted by his own unsatisfied lusts, and she hated him.

See the truth.

“I can't!” she screamed in the silence of her mind. “I can't see what you want me to see!”

But you have already seen it.

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

Let me show you.

Imraldera gasped.

She stood in a memory upon the bank of a stream. She saw herself crouched on the ground at the feet of several angry lads, Fairbird clutched protectively in her arms. A gray lurcher snarled at her, saliva dripping from her jaws, hatred in her eyes.

Imraldera watched the girl who was herself gazing into that distorted face. And she remembered. She remembered what Starflower had seen.

Every living creature must hear its true name spoken before its soul may wake and live. Otherwise, be it man or beast, it is no more than a husk living a brutal, animal existence. The soul is a seed that must be watered, or it will lie forever dormant.

Frostbite, bruised and kicked and ill-treated, was a soulless creature when she snarled in the face of Starflower. But her spirit longed for an awakening. She longed to hear her true name.

Starflower, lying on the riverbank surrounded by enemies, had looked at that animal, and she had loved.

Imraldera shook herself, blinking as she returned to that place between oceans, standing before the Beast. She saw him, saw what he had been meant to be. What loss or neglect had stunted the growth of his spirit so that it might as well never have existed? She could not guess. Or perhaps he had chosen this living death. Perhaps he had rejected all hope of true life for the sake of the godhood he so desired.

It did not change what he had been created to be. It did not change his true name, the name that lay hidden behind all others.

The girl looked upon the wolf, and her eyes were opened at last.

“I know your name,” she signed.

“What?” snarled the wolf. It was against the laws of the Land for
menfolk to speak the silent language of women, but he had ruled this Land too long not to know all the workings of his slaves. “What did you say?”

“I know your name,” she signed. “The name you wish no one to know.”

“My, my!” He smiled. “Who told you that? Your wanderings must have taken you far, little Starflower, if you came to the lands where people knew Amarok of old. Amarok the shifter. Amarok the loner. No lord was he! No master of men, no director of fates. I was scorned by kings and queens who thought themselves my betters. But Amarok is made of more than dust, and the creatures of dust are subject to his whim!”

He stepped to the edge of his demesne, his feet just within the shadow of the cavern. “Go on, Starflower. Speak my name. It means nothing, for I know yours as well. Or did the people among whom you walked not tell you that side of the story? You can only control the power of a name so long as yours remains secret. And you have no secrets from me, my love. I am your god.”

“I know your true name,” she signed, and her hands shook as they formed the words.

Speak!

A taste like fire but purer, like scalding water, filled Imraldera's mouth. From her lips, bursting like a liberated fountain and filling the air so that all might hear, she sang out in a loud voice:

“Let me praise the One Who Names Them.

He named this child from the Beginning,

Before the worlds were made!”

The wolf swore. His voice jolted from the inside out, as though his heart were breaking in two, and fire leapt from his eyes. But Imraldera, gazing upon him, declared the truth to the monster's face. In a whisper, she spoke his true name:

“Beloved.”

———

A howl of rage shook the Circle of Faces. The wolf sprang from hiding, murder in his eyes. How dare she? How dare she speak that vile word, that word that contained slavery to his ears! He would devour her. He
would crush her between his jaws and remove all memory of her from the face of the world. And when he returned to the Land, he would put her sister to the same death, and the silent women would be silent forever!

He forgot, for an instant, the Dragonwitch's vow.

“Know this, my husband, and know it well: The moment you set foot beyond the Circle of Faces will be your last. For I shall send the Black Dogs!”

Midnight smothered the world. Darkness full of tormented dissonance. Whether the Dogs themselves saw the creature upon which they fell, who could say? But they set upon him in a hurricane's rush, their eyes flashing, their jaws slavering, their teeth stained with the blood of their father.

Imraldera covered her face and cowered from the dreadful sight, unwilling to look. But she could not stop her ears to the screams.

“My own! My own!” cried the Beast.

And the Black Dogs dragged him to the realm of Death.

A
HUSH
FELL
upon the world. Not a hush of silence. Gentle noises rang so much clearer following the horror of the Black Dogs' coming and going. Waves lapped at the isthmus, murmuring. The river, its roar dulled by distance, poured from the mountains into the sea. Clouds gathered, drawing misty rain with them, which fell upon the girl kneeling on that lonely shore, her head cradled in her hands.

It was done. The wolf was slain. Her people saved.

But Imraldera wept for Amarok.

She understood now as she had been unable to before. With each tear that fell, she understood better, and her heart ached with the knowledge it now bore. For she had looked into the face of her enemy and she had loved. And then, she had stood by at his death.

“There is but one thing that separates the living spirit from the brute.”

She looked up into a face she could not recognize in the heavy mist. But the voice she knew.

“Only love sets you apart. Only love makes you more than an animal. Without love, you are no better than the Beast himself.”

The stranger before her knelt down and took her hands in his. She still could not see his face clearly in this gloom. But she saw his eyes. Dark, flecked with gold, full of kindness. His was a gaze in which she might rest.

“Amarok was intended to be more,” said the stranger. “The seed of goodness remained inside where it was planted. Had he submitted to love, that seed would have grown and flourished. As it was, his soul was a dry desert. But you saw, Starflower, if only for that moment, what he was meant for. Love for your sister was not enough. Love for her is as natural to you as breathing! The love you needed, my child, is unnatural and can be learned only with pain. Yet there is power in that love beyond all created understanding!”

Imraldera drew a shuddering breath and let it out with a sob. That final vision filled her mind, that vision of blood and roaring darkness, the pain in the Wolf Lord's dying voice. What might he be now had he lived a life of submitted humility rather than stolen divinity?

But the One who named the Beast
Beloved
drew her to him, and she wept upon his shoulder. The task was done. Her people were safe. And though her heart ached, it still beat. She had not become what she loathed. How dreadfully close had she walked to that edge? She could not guess.

“Starflower,” said the stranger, stroking her hair with the tenderness of a father, “will you now speak love throughout your days?”

Imraldera drew back to look into his face once more. She saw in his eyes what he asked of her: A life of service, of burden. These things, however, did not frighten her. All she feared was returning to the life of slavery she had always known.

She saw in the eyes of the Lumil Eliasul that he offered a life more whole and free than any she had ever dreamed. Imraldera took a deep breath. Then she nodded.

“I have loosened your tongue,” said the Lumil Eliasul. “You may speak!”

She opened her mouth. Her tongue tingled as though she had bitten fire. Licking her lips, she struggled to form the words that were always waiting to be spoken.

“My Lord,” she said, and her voice cracked and trembled. “My Master.”

There in the veil of mist, the One Who Names Them knighted the Silent Lady who now sang. And she knelt before him, words pouring
from her heart and falling, stumbling, from her tongue, uncertain but full of joy even as she mourned the death of her enemy. For now she knew better what it meant to love and to be loved. And in loving, she found her spirit opening ever more to the greatness for which it was intended.

“Are you ready, Dame Imraldera, to do my bidding?” asked her Master.

“I am,” she replied.

“I am sending you back into the Wood,” said he. “To the Haven where once the Brothers Ashiun dwelt, offering succor to those in need and protection to both the Far World and the Near. You will take up the work that they began, guarding the gates I have set between the worlds and teaching the people of both worlds to walk my Paths. And I will give the keeping of records to you so that this story and others like it may not be lost to the memories of mortal and immortal alike.”

Imraldera nodded. But more tears caught in her throat, and she could not for a moment speak.
Fairbird . . .

But there was no returning to the Land. She was no longer Maid Starflower, the silent daughter of the Panther Master. She was Dame Imraldera, Knight of the Farthest Shore, Lady of the Haven.

Oh, little sister!

The Lumil Eliasul placed a hand upon her shoulder. “First, gentle dame, go and speak to your sister. Tell her that the curse is lifted, and she need be silent no more.”

———

Was it a dream?

Imraldera stood once more alone on the isthmus, and the mist was receding. So much of her life these days seemed either a dream or a nightmare. Had she invented, out of the sickness of her sorrowing mind, the comfort she felt even now surrounding her heart?

She shook her head and slowly put her fingers to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “It was no dream.”

A growl drew her gaze swiftly to one side. Approaching out of the mist, she saw the form of a great Dog. But it dwindled. Still growling, it became a gangly child, its sex indeterminate, its eyes those of a wolf. There was blood on its face, blood not its own.

It saw Imraldera and stopped growling. Its peaked features grimaced with confusion and it whined softly.

Imraldera put out a hand. The words came with difficulty from her unpracticed tongue, and her voice was low and rasping. Yet there was gentleness when she spoke.

“Come to me, little beast. Let me wash your face and hands. I will love you, and I will help to make you whole.”

It took a few hesitant steps toward her. A bony hand reached out as though to catch hold of her and the possibilities it saw in her eyes. It was a creature divided, two entities in one. Child and beast, neither dominant, each driving the other mad. But the seed was there, only waiting to be watered.

“Come,” Imraldera said, extending both arms. She ached to embrace that lost little soul, to find the life inside that gaunt frame. “Come here to me. Be safe.”

It took another step.

Then its littermate appeared, as like to the first as a mirror image, only its eyes were given way to madness. It too was stained with the blood of its own father, and there was no child in that face, only monster. It snatched its sibling by the hand, snarling, froth dripping from its mouth. Two Dogs turned tail and fled Imraldera's presence, dragging their Midnight behind them as they returned to bear word to their mother.

Imraldera wiped tears from her face. “I hope we will meet again,” she signed with tear-stained hands. Then she pursued the Path into the cavern, back once more to the Land of her birth.

The cat lay in a crumpled heap upon the sacrificial stone. But he was alive. Or at least he thought he was. He could feel every single aching muscle in his body and no fewer than three distinct bites out of his flesh and fur. So he must be alive, for what that was worth.

Before coming to full consciousness, he took on his man's form, hoping that might help. It didn't.

Opening his eyes, Eanrin saw his own hand lying before him on the
gray stone. There was blood on it, perhaps his own. With a groan, he pushed himself up, glad to find all his limbs attached. One arm was numb, however, and he suspected a break. Dragon's teeth! At least his kind healed quickly. There were teeth marks on one leg and across his shoulder, but nothing deep, thank Hymlumé's grace.

“Imraldera,” he whispered.

Gasping, he struggled to his feet and turned about, searching for any sign of the girl. Had she taken advantage of what little time he could give her and fled this place? Or had the wolf overtaken her in the end?

He tottered to the edge of the stone and leaned a shoulder up against one of the Teeth for support. His lungs heaved, dragging air slowly in and out. What a place of horror this was! A Faerie Circle of dreadful purpose. The wolf must have built it himself ages before, when he took this mortal realm and made it his demesne.

But . . .

Eanrin gasped and pulled back, only just in time. For the great stone against which he leaned suddenly melted away, vanishing into nothing. “Light of Lumé!” Eanrin cried as the other stones and the great slab itself vanished, leaving the poet to fall through the air and land hard on the mountain slope beneath.

The Place of the Teeth was gone. So then was the wolf.

Eanrin picked himself up and, limping, started up the mountain Path, uncertain where he went but vaguely thinking that Imraldera had gone this way. If the wolf was dead, perhaps she lived. Perhaps she had succeeded in extracting Hri Sora's revenge. He would not let himself consider that she might be dead.

The Hound stood before him.

At first, Eanrin was too exhausted to realize. Then he drew back with a cry, the fear of centuries compiling into that one moment. He saw again the Dark Water; he saw the lantern. He saw the choice that lay before him, the choice of godhood or life as a servant. What a terrible choice it was!

“No,” he whimpered, clutching at his wounded arm and limping several steps back down the mountain. “No, please. I've done enough. I've helped the girl just as you wanted me to.”

The Hound did not move. His gaze never wavered.

“I'll never be what I was before. Everything has changed now that I've met her! I know I will be a different man. But please, let me just go home to my own world.”

“Your world is marred and shattered.”

Eanrin felt himself shaken to the core at that voice. He felt the ugly truth of his soul striving to flee. But there was no escape from the gaze of the Lumil Eliasul. The cat was hounded down at last.

“Strange, piteous, futile man,” said the Hound. His voice held all sorrow and compassion. “How desperately you have fought all that would make you whole.”

Eanrin shrugged, wincing but still trying to make light. “I've been a good man. I've never harmed a soul. I've minded my own business. If I've pursued a life of laughs, who's to blame me? I've only ever been myself.”

“You have the worlds at your feet,” said the Hound. “But you have not love.”

“I do!” The poet shook his head. Why were tears coursing so hot upon his face? He dashed them away furiously. “I have loved my life! I have loved Lady Gleamdren and my verses. I . . . I don't deserve slavery.”

“What do you deserve, Eanrin?”

“I deserve to choose for myself. I deserve my freedom . . . and yet you chase me down, driving me before you!”

“You know where the road you walk will lead you. You have seen the Dark Water.”

“I was minding my own business,” the cat-man whispered, “but you had to set upon me. You're worse than the Black Dogs, and they hound a fellow to Death!”

“I hound you to life.”

“And what kind of life?” Eanrin's voice became a growl. “I've seen what happens to your servants . . . beatings and imprisonments. Homelessness and hunger while they strive to achieve the impossible! Don't think I don't know what awaits me if I place myself in your service. I remember Akilun and Etanun when they first stepped into the Near World and made such names for themselves among the mortals! And I remember when all that changed. When Akilun was turned from every door. When Etanun's name became a byword for traitor! I know what
becomes of your servants. Their reputations are soiled among all who once loved them!”

“And yet, they are glorified.”

“They are brought low by dragon fire!”

“Yet not destroyed.”

“They are weighed down with sorrow.”

“And uplifted with rejoicing.”

“They have nothing!”

“They possess everything.” The Hound stepped forward, and he was bigger, brighter, more beautiful than anything found in the Far World or the Near. “All things are given to them,” he said, “for I have bestowed power upon them in my name. They are my servants, and though all the weapons of darkness are hurled against them, they will endure. I have placed my love in their hearts, and it overflows from them in love for others. And so they become great even as, in your eyes, they shrink into nothing. Even as you curse them, so shall I bless them.”

“Even Etanun?”

“Yes, even Etanun.”

“After what he did?”

“Even Etanun.”

“He betrayed you! Has he simply to apologize, and all is forgiven?”

“No. This is a mystery both more simple and more complicated than you may yet understand. But my love covers his wrong.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That is because you do not know my love,” said the Hound. “Your heart has not yet learned that truth. That truth which is pain, which is sorrow, but which is beauty beyond any a loveless life may understand.”

“I am afraid.” Eanrin shuddered as he saw now the deepest secret of his soul. The secret he had kept hidden even from himself all the long ages of his existence. “I don't want to love. I will be hurt if I do.”