The Crystal Heart (24 page)

He must truly have thought me a dimwit, if that was his argument. The liar of liars claiming truth on his side! ‘Sir, it is not you I speak of, but the old witch. How did you know she was telling the truth about you being a
feyin
?'

He stared at me. ‘She was,' he said flatly.

‘But you said she saw it in your hand, sir. I've never heard of such a thing.'

‘Just because a fool like you, Kasper Bator, from the thick-headed back of beyond hasn't heard of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist,' he snarled.

‘But how does it work, sir? Does she look in the lines of your hand, like an ordinary fortune-teller? Is that it? Do
feyin
have different types or numbers of lines in their hands than humans?'

‘No, you idiot. They do not. She had a special
feya
talisman. It showed her the truth, written in my hand.'

‘Oh! That's why you wear gloves, sir,' I said, with a diffident air. ‘So no one else would ever know. They are
special gloves, are they not? Designed to ward off magic like the Tower?'

The Commander looked at me sharply, then shrugged. ‘Yes. I had them specially made.' He spoke freely, almost carelessly. It was as if it didn't matter to him, what we learned, and the meaning of that indifference chilled my blood. But I could not allow myself to be distracted by any fear.

‘Then, sir, I wish we could see, with our own eyes, this proof. For only then would I truly believe. But it cannot be done.'

‘Why not, you fool?'

‘We have no proper talisman, sir. Only the crystal heart, and it is in pieces. It is useless for such a task, for it is only designed to ward off goblins.'

The Commander laughed. ‘Of course that's not all it does! And even in pieces it will show you what you want. Give them here, and I'll show you.' Impatiently, he held out his hand.

Izolda looked at me, anxious. I nodded. ‘Give it to him, my love.'

I could feel her other hand trembling in mine, and knew she was deeply uneasy. She trusted me to have some reason for what I was doing. But I was not certain of myself. Was it instinct or despair that had brought the notion to my mind that the crystal would somehow aid us? Not because it was a
feyin
talisman, but because it had once been a gift from the Prince to his wife. Love is stronger than death, the Prince of Night had said, and perhaps that's what gave the crystal its power. The eternal love of a young
feyin
prince for a human; the protective
love of a mother reaching beyond the grave; the belief of a true lover who never stopped believing in her man, even when his own faith had become faint. It could not work by itself – it had to be linked to love. But how it might work for us now, I had no idea.

We watched as the Commander slowly peeled off one of his gloves. His naked hand was big and strong, with long fingers. The pale skin bore the trace of old scars. Clasping the twin crystal halves between thumb and forefinger, the Commander brought them carefully together. As soon as they touched, a tiny tongue of blue flame leaped from one to the other.

‘Only at a true-blood
feyin
's touch will that blue light appear,' said the Commander. ‘That's what the old woman told me.'

As he spoke, the blue flame rose higher, stronger; then, as if drawn by a magnet, the two halves fused so that the crystal heart was whole again.

‘And that is …' the Commander began, when all at once the blue flame flickered, wavered and died. At the same time, the lights went out, and we were plunged into complete darkness.

It was a darkness so profound it was a presence, not an absence – a prowling, patient, hungry presence. I could hear the Commander's curses and Kasper's yells as they fought each other for control of the carriage. I groped on my hands and knees for the crystal, but when I found it, it lay dead and cold in my hand. No light appeared, not even a flicker.

Thought fled as my throat was suddenly grabbed, the Commander's fingers tight around my neck. Kasper came to my aid, but he was being pressed hard and I could sense him weakening. I had to do something – anything. Swinging out wildly, with the crystal still in my hand, I heard a crack and knew that I had connected with a skull. I gasped. ‘Kasper, are you all right?'

‘Yes. We've got to get out now,' Kasper panted, and then came the crunch of a lever and the hiss of the door opening. I could still see nothing as the darkness was even thicker out than in. It was only by touch that we found our way to the opening and fell out.

We heard a groan behind us. The Commander had only been momentarily stunned, and he'd come after us, of that there was no doubt. Safe in his carriage, he would hunt us like animals in the Forest – a forest that already I could hear awakening, stirring all around us in the darkness. It was not our enemy, but it was not our friend, either.

As we stumbled across the uneven ground, holding on to each other, disturbing thoughts chased themselves across my mind. There was no ‘secret' way out. The abyss was no legend. The Commander had not come this way to steal me from my father's palace ten years ago. He had come the same way he'd entered this time – through the Lake, undetected. He was a
feyin
who had spent the greater part of his life masking what he really was. He had learned how to hide in plain sight.

Yes, he had always intended for us to die. He still held all the cards, for whether we perished in the abyss as he'd planned, or in the grip of the Forest, what did it matter to him? We would be dead either way. And it would be Night itself that would have killed us. If I died here, in the grip of those ancient forces in the Forest or the abyss, it would be as though the whole
feyin
race had been reduced to nothing, as though Night had destroyed its own future. No need for any human to kill my father then – he would be dead on the inside.

That would be a great pleasure for the Commander, an irony to savour. He hated my country more than anything. I wondered whether that was not just because Night was the enemy of Krainos, but because, in its
feyin
pride, it was a symbol of everything he could have been
and chose not to be when he turned from his
feyin
nature to become a leader of men.

I was trying to hold my breath as well as my tongue. There were predators out there – the raised hair on the back of my neck told me so. The delayed dimming of the lights would have disturbed the Forest's usual patterns. And like wolves troubled by a blood moon, or bears awakening from hibernation, the Forest's predatory instincts were not quite as sharp as they might be. But it wouldn't last, I was sure of that.

At that moment, the darkness behind us lightened a little. I felt Kasper's hand tighten in mine. We did not need words to know what the other was thinking: the Commander had found the vehicle's searchlight. Around us, the Forest had frozen at the reappearance of light. In the feeble dimness, we could see the vague shapes of a big grove of stone trees not far away.

Kasper drew me close, and I could feel his heart racing against mine. ‘We'll go up a tree,' he whispered. ‘He won't expect that. Ready?'

‘Yes,' I whispered back.

We hurriedly made our way to the closest stalagmite of reasonable size, but it proved too hard to climb. We tried another and another, but each time we failed. It was as though the Forest itself was playing with us, luring us deeper. Inwardly, I was reciting every prayer I know, begging the Lady to save us, begging the Angels to help us, begging for a miracle. But I heard no answer echo in my heart. All I could hear was the Forest. I could hear its stony breath, faintly on the air. Its voice, hissing in thin whispers. Not words. It was alive and waiting patiently for the light to fade. Once it did, we would be …

Whispers. There they were again, and this time –

‘What was that?' whispered Kasper.

‘Sounded like …'

Again. And this time, it was clearer. ‘Who's there?'

A voice – a
real
voice, anxious and familiar, coming from … the stone tree we had just tried to climb. I peered into the darkness. Was someone behind it, trying to hide like we were?

‘Glarya,' I whispered, ‘is that you?'

‘Yes! Yes. Oh, dear Princess – wait. Wait.'

All at once the trunk of the tree shuddered and the hard stone shifted aside like a curtain, showing an opening in the stalagmite itself. For a heartbeat I feared that the Forest was trying to trick us into its maw, but then candlelight appeared, and Glarya's anxious voice whispered, ‘Come in, quick!'

It was like a miracle, like waking from a nightmare, the sudden change from the fear of the hunted creature to warmth and light and shelter at last. It was a very strange kind of shelter. As the panel closed behind us, I saw we were in a candle-lit, simply furnished room. In appearance, it was something like ground floor in a tower. Only, there were no other floors. On one of the walls, wooden pegs reached all the way to the top, jutting out at intervals like the rungs of a ladder. For a moment, I was puzzled. What was this place? And then I remembered what Izolda had said.

‘This is the watchtower!' I exclaimed. ‘The watchtower at the end of the world.'

‘Quite so,' said the young
feyin
woman whom Izolda had called Glarya. She'd been swiftly joined by Amadey and an old
feyin
couple that Glarya introduced as her uncle and aunt. We greeted each other with gladness and amazement.

‘I didn't know you were coming here,' said Izolda, smiling and hugging Glarya.

‘Neither did we,' said Glarya, smiling back. ‘But when we could not find my uncle and aunt at their house, someone told us they had been rostered to work here. Every Outland family takes turns to work here.'

‘It wasn't our usual shift,' said Glarya's uncle, ‘but the family that was supposed to do it had taken ill, so we took over.'

‘So we came along,' Glarya rushed in. ‘We told them what had happened, and they agreed to send a message to the Erlking on the longvoice.'

‘The longvoice?' I said.

Amadey pointed to a square crystal box mounted on the wall. It had glittering opal wiring, and under it, a small shelf where rested a sheaf of very fine translucent sheets of some papery material, and a long metal pen. ‘It's an Outlander invention that only works here, in this very place, apparently. And it works like a telegraph, I believe. Except it turns writing into voice. Don't ask me how – it's amazing.'

‘It's only supposed to be used in dire emergencies,' said Glarya, cheerfully. ‘We figured this was a dire emergency and, luckily for us, Auntie and Uncle agreed.'

‘And then we had to wait for an answer, which took its time coming,' added Amadey. ‘By then it was too late for us to consider going back through the Forest, so we decided to spend the night here with Glarya's family.'

‘All right,' said Glarya's aunt, firmly, ‘explanations can wait a moment. Please, my lady, please, young sir – sit down. Eat.' She ushered us to the table, where a simple but satisfying meal was laid out in front of us. There was
fresh bread, cheese and strong tea brewed in a samovar that looked almost identical to my family's one back in Fish-the-Moon, and just as cheerfully battered. I had not realised how hungry and thirsty I was until that moment.

After a few minutes of silence while we munched away, Izolda said, ‘You say there was an answer. From the Erlking, I mean.'

‘Yes,' said Glarya. ‘It said the Erlking and his son were on their way to Night with the Grand Duke of Almain –'

‘The Grand Duke!' Izolda and I echoed.

‘Amadey told us about how you'd once tried to seek the protection of Almain,' said Glarya's uncle. ‘And so we thought it necessary to mention this to our kinsman. Relations between
feyin
and humans are warm in Almain.'

Izolda stared at him. ‘Then does that mean …?'

‘Yes, Princess,' he said cheerfully. ‘The Erlking has not only released you from any binding to his son, he and the Grand Duke are willing to speak on your behalf, to both your father and the Supreme Council of Krainos.'

Glarya's aunt smiled at us both. ‘Our kinsman's heart was touched by the story of your suffering and your courage. He is a good man, not one to let pride stand in the way of what is right. Now it is up to the Prince. But I do not think he will stand in your way, not anymore.'

Izolda's voice shook a little as she answered. ‘I hope – I do so hope that you are right.'

‘Whatever happens,' I put in, ‘we are eternally grateful to you.'

‘Oh, absolutely,' said Izolda, and I saw the shine of tears in her eyes. ‘So grateful, always. To be safe amongst such good friends – you cannot imagine what it means …'

‘Then we are glad, very glad,' said Glarya's uncle, gently, and the others nodded.

‘But will you tell us what happened?' said Glarya. ‘How did you get out? Where have you been?'

And so we told them, each of us taking up different parts of the story. The strange thing was that, though it was clear this was all news to them, and though they were astonished by a good deal of it, I got the sense that one thing at least was not a big surprise for Glarya's aunt and uncle, as they exchanged a glance. It was like a vague puzzle at the back of my mind, something that didn't quite make sense, and suddenly it clicked.

Izolda saw the glance too, and it was she who said, ‘You suspected the Commander had
feyin
blood, didn't you?'

‘Well –' said Glarya's uncle Darag, uncomfortably, ‘not what you might call a real suspicion. Only a very vague notion that he seemed to have come out of nowhere – and that during the war he had shown uncanny skill in understanding how
feyin
think –'

‘I thought perhaps he must have had training with some solitary,' said Glarya's aunt Karin. ‘It's happened before. But now …' Her face darkened. ‘How could a man turn so against his own people?'

‘Who exactly are his people?' I said. ‘It is Krainos he betrayed first and foremost, with the tissue of lies by which he made us live.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Karin, gently. ‘He betrayed all of us.'

‘I wonder if my father had any such suspicion,' Izolda mused.

‘We do not know, my lady,' said Darag. His voice was a trifle dry. ‘Of course, we are not in the Prince's counsels,
but it seems to me that the Prince would have dealt harshly with such a renegade, if he had any certain knowledge of this thing.'

‘That's true,' said Izolda. She pointed to the longvoice. ‘May I send a message to my father so he knows I am safe?'

I watched as Izolda wrote her message on the tablet and pressed it on one of the fine sheets. She placed it onto the box, and the opal wires lit up, the sheet melted, and then a grainy voice coming from the box repeated the message Izolda had written on the sheet. But, though one part of me was awestruck, in another I was simply exhausted, unable to take in anything anymore.

The Prince's reply came swiftly:
Do not leave. You must wait till morning. Sleep well, my daughter.

Izolda's face lit up like a lamp, and I did not have the heart to say that I was not sure that her father had changed his mind. Well, it was more than I could think about, all I longed for was to lie with my love in the nest of blankets Glarya arranged for us at the far end of the room.

I do not even remember falling asleep, only taking Izolda's hand and holding on to her as we drifted off together into blissful peace and silence.