One moment, all was peace and stillness in the Sacred Grove. The next, the muffled boom of a distant explosion sent Tayer into the sanctuary of Mikhail's arms. The sound had barely died when there came another. And then another.
In the quiet after the third blast, the birches of the Grove shuddered and swayed, although no wind moved through them.
"Balls of Chaos, " Mikhail swore softly, holding Tayer safe against his chest.
"What was that?"
"The beginning of war, " replied a clear, young voice. "And possibly the end of Ardhan. "
"What... " Mikhail's hand went to his side, groping lor his absent sword. Not since his first visit, seventeen years before, had he carried a sword into the Sacred Grove. Not until this instant had he missed it. But Tayer pulled herself from Mikhail's grasp and stepped forward eagerly, scanning the circle of trees. "Crystal?" she called.
The young woman who stepped out from between the birches seemed to have also stepped out of legend. Although barely more than a girl, she stood as tall as Mikhail, sapling slender, and graceful in a way unseen since the Eldest died and her sisters disappeared from mortal sight. Her hair was a white so pure it shone silver and her eyes were the green of new spring leaves flecked lightly with gold. She was dressed for travel, breeches, tunic, and riding boots all in black, and she looked like a shadow defying the soft sunlight of the Grove.
"Crystal, " Tayer said again and held open her arms.
Crystal went eagerly to the embrace, resting her cheek on her mother's head with a weary sigh. She had come a very long way in the last few days and she had a disagreeable duty still to perform. This temporary haven was welcome. layer broke away first. She pushed her daughter out to arm's length and looked her up and down. "Black becomes you, " she said at last with a smile. "But what are you doing home? Have they given you a holiday?"
"No, Mother. My time with the centaurs is done. They sent me to help. "
"Help what, child?" Mikhail asked.
Crystal looked over at her stepfather, her face grim enough to wipe away his smile of greeting. "From the time of the Eldest, through the raids we have fought every harvest, we... " She waved a long-fingered hand. "... Ardhan, has been part of a most deadly game, put through our paces by Kraydak, the wizard who has controlled the throne of Melac for the last four hundred years. "
"Wizard, " Mikhail grunted, his brows drawing into a golden vee as he considered it. "That would, " he muttered to his memories, "explain a great deal. "
Tayer shook her head. "You must be mistaken, child. The wizards are all long dead. "
"No, not all. Two remain. The sounds you heard were Kraydak's work. " Crystal paused and took a deep breath, the rest was difficult to say. "We must go back to town at once. The palace and everyone in it has been destroyed. We three are the only survivors of the Royal House of Ardhan. Mother, you are now queen. "
The distant cry of a bird was the only noise as shock, anger, sorrow-a cacophony of emotion-roared through the Grove. But no disbelief. No denial.
The truth in Crystal's voice was stronger than those.
"Everyone?" Tayer asked at last, her eyes wide, her voice trembling.
"Yes, Mother. Everyone. "
Mikhail looked out at Crystal through the numbness that thankfully seemed to be cushioning the despair, "You were in the Grove seconds after the sound died. How can you know what happened?"
"The centaurs foresaw Kraydak's attack. As I could do nothing to stop it, they sent me here to you. " She looked earnestly at her parents. "Although I'd have tried if there'd been time... "
"You could do nothing to stop it?" Mikhail inter- rupted, a dawning light of understanding showing on his face. "What could you possibly have done?"
Crystal backed up a step, laced her fingers together, and stared down into the pattern. "I, " she said softly, "am the other wizard. "
When Tayer, Mikhail, and Crystal brought their lathered horses to a stop in the People's Square, they were instantly surrounded by terrified men and women. Hands clutched and pulled at their clothing and the horses' harnesses.
Voices wailed, sobbed, and cried out in despair. Tayer and Mikhail sat like statues in the midst of chaos and stared in shock at the smoldering pile of rubble that had been the palace. Even Crystal, who had known what they would face, sat silent and disbelieving.
The blow had been well aimed. The outbuildings- the stables, the barracks, the servants' quarters-had not been touched. The old palace wall, with its seven new arches opening the palace up to the people, still stood. Only the palace itself had been destroyed. The great hulking stone edifice that had squatted ugly and supreme in the center of King's City was no more. It looked as if a giant had lifted his massive fist and squashed it flat.
A score of people-those of the Guard who had not been in the building at the time of the attack, as well as nobles, servants, and townsfolk-crawled over the wreckage. In several places, small groups marked another body being lifted clear. On the pile of debris that had once been the West Tower, a girl, no more than ten or twelve years old, crouched and rocked a broken, bloody body in her arms. The body had been so badly crushed it was impossible to tell at a distance if it was male or female, mother or father. The girl's face was wet with blood from pressing her lips against her grisly burden. Her eyes were wide with shock, staring ahead at nothing. She wailed, a thin high cry, sorrow and fear mixed together. It rose and fell to the cadence of her rocking.
On the very edge of the Square, atop the rubble of what had been the sunroom wall, four bodies lay. Around them stood a Guard of Honor. The guards' arms were red to the elbow and their uniforms were spattered with blood. Dull crimson stains marked the I sheets that covered, but did not hide, the identities of the four dead.
When Tayer's anguished eyes rested on what lay guarded there, she moaned softly and tried to swing off her horse. The mob clung to her in desperation, and she retreated, trapped. Mikhail peeled his hand from the pommel of his sword-it had gone there in a truly useless gesture of defiance when he first saw the destruction-and reached for Tayer's reins, his intention clear. If the crowd would not let them dismount, then he would force a way through on horseback.
Crystal laid her hand on his arm and, when he turned to look at her, shook her head. She dropped her own reins, took a deep breath, and sang.
If the song had words, no one afterward remembered them. It was more a song of feelings. It was reassurance, security, hope. It was the song a mother hums to her child as she tucks it in at night. It was powerful, universal, calming.
One by one, the crowd quieted as the song poured over them. Some began to weep bitterly, but the panic stilled. Even the young girl stopped wailing and turned to stare at Crystal with wounded eyes.
Crystal's gaze swept the crowd, resting briefly on each mourner. Not until all who needed it had drawn strength from the green fire of her eyes did she stop singing. The breezes carried the melody for a few sec-onds more, then they too were still.
Mikhail swung down to the pavement, the creaking of his saddle leather sounding unnaturally loud. He held up his arms to Tayer. She collapsed into them paused for an instant in the security of his embrace then, keeping a tight grip on his hand, started the long walk to the edge of the Square. The people parted let them through.
When she reached the bodies, Tayer knelt and lifted the edge of the sheet. They were all there: her father the King, Davan and Eyrik, her brothers, and Save Davan's pregnant wife. She brushed a lock of hair out of Savell's eyes and gently lowered the fabric, wiping her bloody hand on her skirt.
"Majesty?" a merchant asked quietly, his WOP falling into the silence like stones into water. "What are we to do?"
Tayer looked up at her daughter, but Crystal had banked the fire in her eyes and had no answer. She looked at Mikhail but he merely shook his head. The message was clear. Tayer was now queen. The choice must be hers.
The queen searched for her voice and forced it past her grief. To her surprise it neither quavered nor shook although it was husky with the tears that streamed down her face.
"We will bury our dead and we will prepare for war. "
War. Of all those in the Square, only Crystal didn't recoil from the word. Her eye had been caught by the glint of sunlight on red-gold curls and she stared horrified fascination at the man beneath them who stood at the edge of the crowd. It wasn't his beau she marked, nor that his sapphire robes were clean and unstained by blood or grime. It was the fact that in almost full light of the afternoon sun, he cast no shadow.
Aware of the scrutiny, he smiled up at her, raised one hand in a mocking salute, and faded slowly away. The breeze carried the sound of his laughter.
"Crystal?"
She turned slowly from the window. The voice was . not one she knew, but the face hovered on the edge of Memory. She searched until she found a name to fit
"Bryon?"
The tall, dark-haired young man flashed a dazzling smile and made an elegant leg. "At your command. " . Crystal stared in amazement. "Bryon?" she repeated.
Bryon gracefully straightened up.
"Ah, " he said. "I see you're puzzled. After all, it's been six years, how could you be expected to recog-nize me?" He leaned closer. "I'll let you in on the secret. " His lips hovered at the edge of her ear and is breath was a warm breeze on her cheek. "I've gotten taller. " Crystal backed away.
"So have you. " Bryon nodded solemnly, but his gray eyes danced. It didn't seem to bother him that the startlingly lovely creature his old playmate had grown into had a slight advantage in height.
Crystal-who had almost ceased to think of time, for the centaurs having all of eternity never bothered
with it-was suddenly aware of just how long those six years had been. This was the grubby companion of her childhood? This handsome courtier with the disarming smile who was planting warm kisses on the palm of her hand... who was planting warm kisses on the palm of her hand? She snatched her hand away.
"Bryon!"
"Crystal!" He mimicked her tone exactly, then threw a brotherly arm about her shoulders and pro-pelled her down the hall. "Come on. They want you in my father's library. "
His father was the Duke of Belkar. The House of Belkar was cousin to the Royal House through Meredith who had joined with Rael, the son of the Lady of the Grove. The current duke-had opened his town-house to what was left of the court.
"So, " said Bryon conversationally as they walked toward the library, "I hear you're a wizard. "
Crystal, preoccupied with analyzing the peculiar warmth radiating out from where Bryon's arm lay across her shoulders, merely mumbled an affirmative.
"Well, " he continued, apparently undismayed both by her lack of response and by the knowledge of the slaughter the ancient wizards had caused, "I suppose everyone needs a hobby. "
That penetrated. She twisted lithely out of his grasp and turned to face him.
People will be wary of you, the centaurs had said. They will treat you with caution and respect. Some will even be frightened. They'd never mentioned that some would be amused.
"Hobby? I have powers you couldn't even imagine and you call it a hobby? Don't you realize what I am?" She regretted the outburst the moment the words left her mouth, her voice sounding shrill and childish. Sounding, in fact, like the voice of a child overreacting to being teased. Bryon had always been able to get that response; that, at least, the six years apart hadn't changed.
But Bryon, secure in his victory, only smiled and held the library door open for her. "You're late, " he said.
It's difficult to impress someone who tied your braids to a pigsty when you were seven, Crystal reflected as she went into the room.
The library was large and Crystal was surprised by the number of books and scrolls it contained. The duke, a grizzled old fighter, had not stuck in her childhood memory of him as much of a reader. Tayer sat behind a massive table covered over with a map of Ardhan and the surrounding territory, trying to make sense of what Mikhail and the Duke of Belkar were saying. This was no easy task as the two men contradieted each other loudly and often, pulling the map back and forth while trying to make their point. Crystal felt sorry for her mother, caught in the middle of something she had no hope of controlling.
The only son and heir of the Duke of Riven leaned on the mantlepiece, staring into the ashes of an old
fire. Deep circles bracketed his eyes and he plucked nervously at the hilt of his dagger with one fine-boned hand. He had lost his mother and his younger sister in the destruction of the palace and it looked as if he would now lose his father to grief.
The Court Treasurer, one pudgy hand smoothing the burgundy velvet of his robe as though he soothed a cat, argued quietly with the Captain of the Palace Guard. They were the only two ranking members of the palace staff left alive.
A gray-robed Scholar stood to one side, listening. He had been with Belkar's household only a few weeks, but as none of the Scholars advising the royal family had survived the destruction of the palace, the duke had asked him to attend. The captain noticed Crystal first, and fell silent. One by one, all heads turned toward her. Even young Riven looked up from his sorrow. The room grew so still that a breeze could be heard dancing through the linden tree outside the window. The silence extended and became awkward.
Finally, Bryon, who had followed Crystal into the room, cleared his throat.
"I have brought the princess as you requested, sir. " The princess. Much easier to deal with than the wizard. The tension in the room eased and the duke came around the table to take Crystal's hands.
"It's good to see you again, child, " he said. "Though one could wish it were under better circumstances. " He leaned back slightly to look her full in the face although he carefully avoided meeting her eyes. It couldn't hurt to be careful around wizards, even if you had dandled this one on your knee when she was a baby. "You've grown some since we last met. "
"That was six years ago, sir. I was eleven. " "Ah, yes. " He dropped her hands. "Well, now, your father tells me you know Something of what attacked us. We've got to have details if we're to fight this thing, eh?"
Crystal glanced at Mikhail. Her father... As one of the six dukes, Belkar had to know the truth of her parentage. Whether he refused to acknowledge it out of disbelief or from respect for Mikhail she wasn't sure, nor did she care for she refused to acknowledge it herself. Mikhail was the father of her heart, all the father she would ever want. She met his eyes. He dropped one lid in a slow wink and, just for that instant, the tasks yet ahead did not seem so impossible "Now then, " the duke continued, "what's this you've got to tell us about Melac?"
Crystal discarded the princess with relief. The wiz ard answered.
"We aren't fighting Melac. We never have been.'" "Could've sworn it was a Melacian put a spear through my leg when I rode with the Elite, " muttered the Captain of the Guard.
"Perhaps. But he was a tool in another's hands. The Wizard Kraydak has ruled Melac since before the Lady died. " In Ardhan, there was, and always would be, only one Lady.
The room erupted into a flurry of questions and exclamations of disbelief.
Even young Riven was momentarily shaken from his stupor. Only Crystal and the Scholar remained silent.
When order had been restored, Mikhail turned to the gray-robed man. "You didn't seem surprised to hear that, " he said suspiciously. "You knew about Kraydak? About this wizard?"
The Scholar shook his head. He was as tall as the members of the Royal House, who were taller than most of their subjects, and was thin and wiry, his dark hair streaked with gray.
"No, milord, I knew nothing, but there have been rumors of how the Kings of Melac have a counselor who never dies and through him a weak and struggling nation became an empire.
Although there have been no great magics that only a wizard could perform, Melac's armies have had entirely too much help from the elements for it to have been coincidental. The Scholars have studied the ancient wizards... " His face twisted suddenly. "After all, they nearly sent the whole world to Lord Death. Of them all, only Kraydak had the power to survive the Doom. " He shrugged. "But I know nothing. Scholars have not been welcomed in Melac or her conquered countries for years. "
"Nonsense, " broke in the duke. "Why, I myself was in Melac not more than a year ago to try and hammer out some sort of treaty and there were plenty of Scholars about then, they certainly looked welcome ... flitting around like shadows... noses in everybody's business... gave me the creeps. " He suddenly remembered who he was talking to. "No offense, Lapus. "
Lapus smiled thinly. "None taken, sir. " Then the smile vanished. The Scholar's voice deepened and passion marred its smooth composure. "The gray-robed ones you saw were not Scholars whatever they called themselves. A Scholar has no master but knowledge and lets nothing, and no one, stand in the way of the search for Truth. "
Crystal studied the Scholar thoughtfully as he spoke. He was nothing like the genial teachers she and Bryon had shared as children. His intensity when he spoke of knowledge as the only master was almost fanatical. He reminded her very much of the centaurs. She missed her old teachers, and the feeling of certainty they radiated.
"I am old for lessons, " she began as Lapus finished speaking, "but I have been with the Elders for so long I know little about the ways of Man. " Her eyes, the muted green-gold of sunlight through leaves, locked onto his. "Will you teach me?"
Trapped in the quiet depths of her eyes, Lapus couldn't have said no had he wanted to. A pulse began to throb in his temple. With an effort, he bowed his head and forced his gaze to the tile floor.
"Yes, milady, " was all he said.
Crystal nodded once and turned away. The exchange had disturbed her as much as it obviously had Lapus, for all that had looked out of the Scholar's eyes when she held them with her own was the reflection of a tall young woman with ivory skin and silver hair. She wasn't supposed to see herself in another's eyes, her power looked through to their heart.
The duke cleared his throat and indicated the map on the table. "Lessons will have to wait, child, now we need plans for war. "
"Wage it any way you like, " the wizard told him curtly.
"Crystal... " Tayer said warningly, aghast at her daughter's rudeness.
Crystal sighed. She would have to straighten some things out with her mother.
"I will have no involvement in the fighting, " she explained.
Tayer looked at her in puzzlement. "But Crystal, you said we were fighting a wizard. "
"I beg your pardon if I've confused you, Mother, but I am fighting the wizard.
You fight only his armies. "
"Amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?" snorted the Captain of the Guard.
"The wizard... his armies?"
"No, it doesn't. "
"Well, what about that mess on the hill then? If that's not fighting a wizard, what is?"
"You didn't fight him though, did you?"
The captain remembered the three mighty and invisible blows that had reduced the palace to rubble. He'd been standing thirty feet away and yet had not been touched, although the sound nearly deafened him. His ears still rang with it.
He remembered the stream of blood trickling out from under the crushed stone and how it had lapped daintily against his boot. His ruddy face paled and he shook his head. "No, I didn't. But I would've, " he growled, "could I have got my hands on him. "
"If you'd got your hands on him, you'd be dead. " Crystal moved to the window and lifted her face to the sun. She drank in the warmth and light, saving it up against the darkness to come. She didn't want to be the world's savior... she didn't have a choice. Then she sighed and turned back to the gray despair that filled the library.
"The Scholar was right. Only Kraydak survived the holocaust and it took almost all of his great power to do it. He had his life but not much else. He was also afraid that the Doom which took the other wizards might still claim him so, defenseless, he hid. And he stayed hidden for over a thousand years, rebuilding his strength and gradually coming to realize that he had escaped completely. None of the shadows that lurked in dark corners were waiting to claim him.
"When he emerged, he found that people had changed. Having been free of the tyranny of the wizards for generations, they were not likely to bow down to the lone survivor and he was still weak enough to be killed if the mortals were determined enough. Kraydak took another road to the power he craved; he offered his services to the weakest king he could find. Not as a wizard, but as a counselor and a friend. He played on the king's weaknesses, on his yearning for power. He took the king to his tower and offered him the world.
The king took the offer and from that day to this he and his heirs have been figureheads, for the power of Melac is in Kraydak's hands.
"Armies moved out, always attacking where the defenders were weakest, protected by the knowledge that should they begin to fail, fire, flood, or some other seemingly natural disaster would come to their aid. Perhaps they lost a few battles, but they won all the wars. Melac became an Empire.
"Young men and women began to disappear into Kraydak's tower. Those who spoke of resistance or rebellion were visited in the night. The ones who lived went mad; most died. "
"We share a border with Melac, " the duke interrupted. "Why weren't we one of the first attacked?"
"We were. The battle that killed the Lady's love, was the beginning of Kraydak's push for an Empire. Fortunately for Ardhan, he forgot to take the mountains into account and his neophyte army had to fight the terrain before they met the enemy. He was new to mortal warfare, and so he lost. He hasn't returned for two reasons. Once he got his people moving south and east, the way of least resistance, momentum kept them moving away from us. The second reason concerns a prophecy, that in Ardhan would be born the last of the wizards and his possible defeat. "
"I always felt Melac was waiting for something, " Mikhail said quietly from where he stood at Tayer's back. "If you studied the border raids, it was the only thing that made sense. "
Crystal nodded. "Kraydak was waiting for me. "
"Well that makes no sense, " fumed the duke. "If he knew you were coming and you could defeat him, he should've taken the country to keep you from being born. "
"He was bored. "
"He was what?"
"Bored. Everything came too easily, there were no challenges, so he watched and waited and when he thought I would give him a good fight-but not one he felt he would lose-he let me know he knew I was here. "
Crystal stepped back and directed the duke's gaze out the window. Not far away people still moved amid the ruins.
"He destroyed the palace to tell me that the game has begun. "
Nyle, the young Lord of Riven, looked up. His eyes were rimmed in red and the whites were murky from lack of sleep. A piece of chestnut hair hung lank across his forehead. His lips curled back from his teeth and he glared at Crystal from under heavy lids.
"My mother and sister are dead, " he snarled, "and you think it's a game?"
"Kraydak thinks it's a game, " Crystal corrected him gently although her expression remained stern. "I have never been more serous. Much of my family died in the palace as well. "
"He wouldn't even be here but for you! He would've left us alone!"
"Perhaps. "
"Then it's your fault; your fault my mother is dead and my father is dying. "
He jerked away from the fireplace and turned toward her. "Your fault!"
"NYLE!"
Mikhail's bass roar blasted some of the glaze from the young man's eyes. He stopped and drew a long shuddering breath.
"Milord?"
"Go see to your father, " Mikhail commanded kindly. "He needs you by him. "
Nyle nodded slowly and began to leave the room, his shoulders bowed under his load of grief. At the door, he paused, and the face he turned to Crystal was damp with tears. "Your fault, " he whispered once more, and then he left.
"I would watch that young man, " Lapus said softly. "If he truly believes that the princess is responsible for the death of his family, he may try to harm her. "
Crystal looked at the Scholar and just a flicker of her power showed deep in her eyes.
"He couldn't. "
Mikhail stared at the closed door for a moment and then turned to Crystal. He made his Voice as impersonal as he could and hoped she would understand it was the prince who spoke and not her father. "I have to ask this-would it make a difference if you left?"
Crystal understood, she'd asked herself that same question. She shook her head and motes of light danced in her silver hair. "No. If I left, he would destroy Ardhan piece by piece until I came back to fight. "
The captain's scarred forehead had been furrowed for some time. Finally figuring out just what he didn't understand, he spoke.
"If this Kraydak never meant to go after us until now, why the raids every year?"
"He was studying us, " Crystal explained. "Studying our land and the way we fight. He wants a challenge not a rout. "
"Sounds like he's got all the angles covered, " muttered the duke. "And this is the man we have to beat... "
"No, " Crystal corrected again, almost severely. "This is the man I have to beat. "
"Can you?" Tayer's voice was heavy with fear, fear for her country, fear for her daughter.
Crystal heard. She looked out the window and watched something, someone perhaps, being lifted from the wreckage. The salvation of her people settled more firmly on her shoulders and she braced herself against the weight.
"I hope so. " And then, with a nod to her parents, she left the room.
Bryon stood aside to let her leave, then glanced up at his father. Go with her, said the duke's expression, she shouldn't be alone.
As this agreed perfectly with Bryon's desire, he bowed to the queen and followed.