Thornspell (17 page)

I have to find her, he thought, his heart racing. I can’t fail now.

There was no further sound but Sigismund could not shake the feeling of pursuit, a presence stalking behind him as he ran along corridors and up stairs, crossing through hall after empty hall. The silence became eerie, threatening as well as sleepy, and time blurred, so that he could not say how long it was before he finally stepped into another hall. There was a dry fountain at its center and a drift of leaves across the floor. Rose canes had crept in through the broken windows and down the wall, but the stair he sought was finally there. He recognized the wrought-iron balustrade, with the rose cable twisting up it, from his later dream.

Sigismund paused at the foot of the stair and peered up. It did not seem like a high tower, but it was hard to be sure when the staircase spiraled. He hesitated, listening hard, but everything remained quiet, unmoving, so he shrugged and began to climb.

It was not long before Sigismund decided that this must be the tallest tower in the palace, for the stair wound on and on, getting steeper and narrower with every landing he passed. The walls grew plainer too, shifting from paintings and tapestries to plaster, then undressed stone. The windows were high and narrow, little more than arrow slits in the walls. There was a full-length mirror on every landing, but these too became shabbier as Sigismund climbed, with ornate frames giving way to cheap gilt and then to unpolished wood. The quality of the glass deteriorated as well, so that the reflections thrown back at the world were increasingly cloudy and distorted.

Why so many mirrors? Sigismund wondered. Surely it was unusual to have a mirror on every landing, even in a palace of this grandeur?

He climbed for what felt like hours, but the staircase showed no sign of coming to an end and finally he paused on yet another landing, staring at the inevitable mirror. The glass was mottled, with a ripple across its center, and at first it revealed nothing except a shadowy reflection of his own face, with gray stone behind his head. But as Sigismund continued to look the reflection began to break apart, fraying into an image of wind-tossed trees and a roof of curved wooden tiles.

“What—” he began, bending closer, but the trees had already boiled into clouds swirling around a tall white tower, then shifted again into a lover’s knot of briars, crawling across tiles and through a door with gold and lapis lazuli above the lintel. Sigismund straightened, staring, then reached out and touched the glass, which undulated beneath his hand.

“It’s the mirrors,” he whispered, “not the stairs. You must get to the top by going through them, but how?” He pressed at the glass with his fingertips, watching it bubble and stir like liquid mercury. He frowned, then drew Quickthorn and touched the fluid surface with its point. Light rippled, red and white along the blade, and then the glass parted from top to bottom, creating a narrow opening.

Sigismund’s mouth tightened but he turned the blade, holding the substance of the mirror to one side, and stepped into the gap. The glass pressed in on him, half fluid, half substance, and his skin crawled—but then he was through and standing on the same landing he had reached in his dream, after his return from the Faerie hill. When he looked back the mirror had gone, but there was a high, narrow door in its place, with the spiral stair twisting down to the world below. Sigismund shook his head, thinking that the magic that filled the palace was very strange, like an invisible maze designed to bewilder.

There was a door in front of him as well, with the blue and gold mosaic above the lintel and a thick carpet of rose leaves across the threshold. The rose vines twisted around and through the opening, and Sigismund already knew that they would choke the room beyond, climbing up the four posters of the bed and forming a living canopy above the sleeping princess. He also remembered that there had been an invisible barrier in his dream, preventing him from crossing the threshold. He raised Quickthorn again as he walked forward, but this time—whether because of the power in the sword or because the spell’s magic was lifting—he was able to step across the drift of rose leaves and enter the room.

It took time and care to negotiate the jungle of briars between door and bed, but the sleeping princess too was as Sigismund remembered. Her long golden hair fanned out across the coverlet, spilling to the floor, and her sleeping face was perfect as a flower in its beauty. He found it hard to drag his eyes away, but knew he had to work out how to wake her.

“Or will she just wake up anyway?” Now that, thought Sigismund, sheathing Quickthorn again, would be easier than having to shake her awake or shout in her ear. But the princess remained resolutely asleep, so in the end, feeling slightly foolish, he compromised and knelt beside the bed. “Princess,” he said, taking her hand and keeping his voice level, “the spell of sleep is at an end. It is time for you to wake up.”

Her hand was warm but did not stir in his, and her breast continued to rise and fall with the even breath of sleep. What next? Sigismund wondered, sitting back on his heels and looking for the slightest betraying flutter of her lashes. How do you wake someone who has been asleep for almost a hundred years?

He studied the room and the encroaching briars, thinking how they were everywhere in the sleeping palace, like the physical manifestation of the spell that had taken hold. He remembered how Rue could be summoned by plucking the herb of the same name and wondered if the magic here might work in the same way. He could at least try breaking off a rose and see what happened.

Sigismund chose the bloom that was closest to the princess’s head and reached up, snapping it off. He was not sure, but he thought her eyelashes might have stirred. His other hand tightened around hers. “Princess,” he said again, but this time he spoke in Balisan’s tone, resonant with command. “The spell that binds you is done. By this rose that is your symbol, I bid you wake!”

And whether because of some alchemy of the rose, or the memory of Wenceslas’s voice assuring him that kisses were both magical and powerful, Sigismund leaned forward and touched her lips with his.

The briars retracted with a hiss, uncurling from the bed posters and canopy and slithering back toward the door and windows, clearing the room. Sigismund wondered if the same thing was happening all over the palace, but then the hand in his moved. The princess lifted the sweep of her golden lashes, gazing up at him with eyes that were the color of aquamarines, a shade between green and blue.

“But I was expecting a prince,” she said, bewildered, “not a dragon.”

Sigismund stared back at her, wondering what on earth she was talking about. He saw her eyes widen and caught a flash of movement, heard the whisper of a footfall behind him. Rue, he thought, remembering his dream, and began to turn—but something slammed into the back of his head and he slumped instead, meeting darkness.

The Belvedere

T
here was pain like an ax blade in the back of Sigismund’s head and lights exploding behind his eyes. It was all he could do not to groan, but instead he lay perfectly still, trying to make sense of the voices and movement around him.

“So good of him to let us in,” said Flor’s voice, contemptuous. “What a fool! Did he really think we wouldn’t know once he began lifting the spell?”

“The perversion of the Lady’s death spell was clever. We would never have found our way here without this boy to lead us.” It was a faie who spoke, in the light cold voice that Sigismund remembered from the Faerie hill.

“Even vermin have their uses. But now we have the princess, and my grandmother’s ring is safe on her hand, so let the fools weep!” Flor’s voice was a crow of triumph. “Their counterspells and chosen prince have all been in vain—my grandmother has still prevailed.”

It was true, Sigismund saw, opening his eyes a crack. They must have flung him to one side after they struck him down, and he could look past a number of booted feet to where Flor stood by the door. The princess stood by Flor’s side, the Margravine’s ring blue against her finger. No one was holding her and her hands remained untied, but it seemed there was no need for restraint, since she was making no move to get away. She just stared straight ahead, her aquamarine eyes fixed on nothing—and seeing nothing either, or so Sigismund guessed.

They must have used the blue ring to ensorcell her, he thought, so that she has no will of her own. He felt sick to his stomach, and not just from the blow to his head. He wanted to believe that Flor must be under a spell himself, to do such a thing to another human soul, but the triumph in the golden youth’s voice suggested otherwise.

Don’t delude yourself, Sigismund told himself bitterly. Flor’s face may be golden, but his heart is rotten.

He wanted to close his eyes again, but the blue jewel had begun to pulse on the princess’s finger, like a small but brilliant star. It fascinated Sigismund, pulling his attention away from the rest of the room. It was hard to think clearly past the pain in his head, but he thought the ring was twisting the fabric of reality, sucking the room’s light and energy into itself.

“We have delayed too long and now the Lady grows impatient.” Sigismund was sure it was the same faie who spoke again. “We must do as instructed and bring the princess to her where she waits between the planes.”

“What about him?” An ugly note crept into Flor’s voice. “I want to finish him now.”

“He must stay alive until the Lady’s work here is done; she was adamant on that point.” The faie’s voice was without inflection, but it seemed to have an effect on Flor, who swore beneath his breath.

“Just as long as he can’t escape. I want him here when we return.”

“Without the girl,” the faie replied, “he can do nothing to stop us. And the binding the Lady gave us will seal him into this room.”

Flor hesitated, and this time Sigismund did close his eyes, trying to shut out the pulsating dazzle of the blue ring, but he could still see it through the darkness of his lids. He thought the pulse was faster now, the air in the room more warped, but still Flor hesitated. “Perhaps we should take his sword,” he said, “just to be sure.”

The faie’s alarm was palpable, even to Sigismund. “Do not touch the sword!” he hissed, and there was a whisper of agreement from his companions, like a breath of cold wind through the chamber. “It is powerful and treacherous, and best shut up here lest it do us harm or interfere with the Lady’s magic.”

“Look to the ring!” commanded another voice, a rasp beneath the chill tone. “It will destroy us all if we do not bring the girl to your grandmother at once.”

“Alright!” snapped Flor. “But I’ll leave this scum with something to remember me by!” He crossed the room as he spoke and kicked Sigismund in the side, a heavy vicious blow.

Sigismund had just enough time to force his whole body to relax, so that it stayed heavy and unresponsive as the kick landed. It was quite possibly the hardest thing he had ever done, but he needed Flor to believe that he was still unconscious. He nearly passed out in any case, from the pain and shock of the kick coming on top of the blow to his head. The darkness swam in until there was only a pinprick of consciousness behind his eyes, and when it cleared he was alone.

Sigismund lay where he was for some time, waiting until the pain from the kick subsided and staring straight ahead in much the same way as the ensorcelled princess had done. All they had to do was track me, he thought. I couldn’t have made it easier for them if I’d tried. They just waited for me to lift every layer of protective magic, then seized the princess as soon as she was awake.

There was blood in Sigismund’s mouth, but what he tasted was the bitterness of failure. How could I not have foreseen that happening? he wondered. And Syrica too—she must have known that was exactly what the Margravine would do. “Futile!” he whispered, and closed his eyes.

It was easy to give in and just lie there, drifting between the darkness and the pain, but something niggled, nudging at Sigismund’s awareness. The lights behind his eyes coalesced until all he could see was gold, the color of sunshine and Flor’s hair—the princess’s too. He could see it still, spilling across the coverlet and onto the floor, and the coverlet was golden as well, with gold thread stitched into the cloth.

Sigismund’s eyes flew open and he pushed himself up onto his elbows.
Gold,
he thought, trying to remember what Syrica had said to him the previous night. He frowned, because she had said so many things and his head hurt. Something about curtains, he thought, and how those on his bed had been the princess’s once, but her servants had removed them when the sleeping spell first took hold:
They tore down the curtains from the princess’s bed, laying one across the pallet they lifted her onto and covering her with another….

Sigismund raised his head and stared at the golden fabric on the bed. Not gold, he thought. Rose brocade with silver thread woven in, but definitely no gold. There had been no cover over the sleeping princess either, he realized, staggering to his feet. And there was no pallet in this room, just the four-poster bed. “Not here,” he said aloud. “Not
her
. All—a trick.”

Syrica, it seemed, had been cleverer than the Margravine anticipated.

It was amazing how his head cleared then, despite the pain and the blood in his mouth. He remembered the last mirror on the twisted stair, and his brief glimpse of some other place before the image shifted to show him the white tower and concealed chamber. There had been trees tossing and a curved roof with wooden tiles…or was it the tiles that were curved? Sigismund shook his head, reflecting that at least they did not have the real princess yet. And if what the faie had said was true, that meant he could still do something to thwart the Margravine’s plans.

But I don’t have much time, he thought. It won’t be long before the Margravine realizes that she’s been duped.

He felt a brief stab of pity for the substitute princess, knowing she would be unlikely to survive that realization. “So think!” he admonished himself savagely, and his hand clenched on Quickthorn’s hilt.

Fire blazed against his hand, and for a split second he was no longer standing in the tower chamber, but in a wooden belvedere with trees pressing close on every side. It was night, a great wind howled, and in the darkness a pale figure stirred, gagged with thorns and bound about by cables of vine. Then the vision faded and Sigismund reeled back, one hand still fused to the sword hilt, the other flung out to retain his balance.

“Layer on layer,” he gasped, “time and the planes overlapping each other at certain nodes. Strongpoints, beachheads—what a fool I’ve been, thinking I understood but never comprehending the truth. Until now.” And then, very softly: “Rue.”

He strode to the window and stared out. There were the two belvederes, the marble summerhouse on the lake and the second one further away, its wooden roof rising through green trees. And the roof, thought Sigismund, narrowing his eyes on that distant point, was curved at the eaves. But how to get there? His enemies had used a spell to seal him in, but he suspected that would prove ineffective without the real princess in their thrall.

“And I have Quickthorn,” Sigismund said, still very soft, “and a sprig of rue in my pocket.” He had put it there just before his last conversation with Syrica, and now he drew it out. The leaves had started to wilt, but the aromatic scent was strong as he held it to the light. “Rue,” he said again, speaking in a clear, resolute tone, and crushed the herb between his fingers.

The world shivered, then shook, and Sigismund thought that the tower was falling, or perhaps it was
he
who was falling, and the clouds of plaster and dust and the voices crying out were just a dream, or someone else’s memory. But the world was definitely spinning, although the masonry had become trees and branches now, the voices no more than the wind sighing. Sigismund drew a steadying breath and stepped forward, into the belvedere on its wooded hill.

The first thing he noticed was that it was very quiet. The world had righted itself again and there was no wind, just sunlight and leaf shadow speckled across the wooden floor. The second was the pallet, set in the middle of the belvedere, but it was empty except for a fall of rose brocade across it. Sigismund turned slowly, wondering, as the last of the herb slipped between his fingers and something stirred in the deeper shadows. He blinked a little, because the light seemed so bright after the tower, but decided that the movement was just another shadow. Then he blinked again and saw a silhouette against his closed lids, an outline that was still there when his eyes opened. Leaf and shadow stirred as a young woman stepped forward, her dark eyes lifting to meet his.

“Welcome, Sigismund,” she said, and held out her hands to him.

He did not recognize her at first, she was so richly dressed. Her gown was velvet over silk, and there was a golden fillet around her brow, a net of jewels and gold wire lying across her hair. Sigismund thought that the hair curled, though, the brown touched here with red lights, there with gold—and there was something elusive and familiar and bewildering about that tangle of lashes, and the gold flecks glimmering in the dark eyes.

It must, Sigismund thought, be the blow to his head, because his vision had blurred again and the outline of her outstretched hands wavered, becoming brown and scratched. He could see bare brown legs now too, and feet shoved into wooden clogs below a ragged hem. Then a sparrow flew into the arched roof and clung there, chattering at him, and the world cleared. The hands held out to him became smooth, the ragged skirt was a sweep of silk again, and Sigismund realized that what he had thought was a mantle, draped over one arm, was in fact a curtain of rose brocade.

He must, Sigismund thought, seem very stupid just standing there, staring at her. After a moment her hands fell, but her smile remained warm, her voice low.

“Don’t you recognize me, Sigismund?” She stepped close, lifting her hands to frame his face, and kissed him.

The touch of her lips was soft as rose petals, their taste rose water as Sigismund folded his arms around her and returned the kiss. He could feel the wing beat of her heart against the rapid hammer stroke of his own as he tightened one arm and lifted the other, tracing the fall of her hair beneath the jeweled web.

“Rue,” he murmured, struck by the wonder of it, when for so long she had been little more than a shadow. She smiled and answered him with another kiss.

“I feel as though there are stars,” she murmured, “shooting in my blood.”

The flecks in her eyes, thought Sigismund, unable to look away from them, were like torchlight on midnight water. Deep water, he added, feeling slightly off balance, as if he might fall in. He thought that he could stand like this forever, that he would never let her go.

“And you can speak,” he said, feeling the wonder of that too.

“I can now. I tried before, but the magic was too strong.” Rue’s tone was soft with regret, her eyes shadowed, remembering. “I could never quite break through it.”

Sigismund shook his head and realized that the pain from the blow had eased. “All these years I’ve thought of the sleeping princess as someone remote, distant as a dream, when all the time it was you.” He kissed her again, slowly, and they smiled into each other’s eyes. “That
was
you, wasn’t it, standing in the ditch the very first time I saw the Margravine? You did something when she tried to give me the blue ring?”

Rue nodded. “Syrica worked loopholes into her counterspell, to give me a chance to remain aware of the world outside the magic and to work against Farisie’s ambitions—if I could.”

It was strange, thought Sigismund, to hear the Margravine referred to by name. It made her seem less remote, if not less dangerous. Rue’s expression was turned inward, looking back at those dark days. “But we didn’t know how the loopholes would work, so Syrica placed objects in the world that could act as reference points for me.”

“Like these curtains,” said Sigismund, touching the brocade lightly, “and the rue planted in the palace herb garden.”

“Yes,” said Rue. “Your great-grandmother planted that, I think, with cuttings from our garden here, and scattered the briar seeds in the ditch where you first saw me. But initially, when the spell took hold, I was completely disoriented, lost beneath the weight of enchanted sleep. It was many years before I could locate any of Syrica’s reference points, let alone find my way to them, years in which Farisie had been busy building her strength. I had to be very careful that she never suspected my presence, even for a moment, or my small workings to thwart her will.” She shivered, although the sunlight streaming into the belvedere was warm.

Sigismund remembered the blue ring spinning into the white dust of the road, and their flight through the Faerie hill. “What would have happened if she had suspected?”

Rue looked away, a slight frown beneath her slim brows, then she shrugged. “She could have trapped my spirit, so that I would have been hers, body and soul, as soon as I woke up. Or she could simply have extinguished me, like someone snuffing out a candle flame. But,” she added, the frown easing, “I was both careful and fortunate, and she never found me out.”