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around her like a storm cloud.
"Birdreece dar Kinla," the ondan said.
"Get your damned shields down," Remeys whispered. "You're going to blow this,"
And my gut screamed trouble! The ondan knew Birdie's name. He hadn't stopped
at her house by accident. He probably hadn't met me on the road by accident. I
glanced at Remeys, found his face twisted by fury, realized he had his guitar
in hand and was beginning to sing at me. I sang my shields harder.
The ondan, oblivious to me, said to Birdie, "Once a black heron gave you the
egg of a white heron, and told you to destroy it."
Birdies face went white as death.
The ondan glanced back at me, saw what I was doing, didn't look at all
perturbed. He turned back to Birdie. "You see the egg before you now, grown to
a creature who has nearly ruined what was once a perfect plan."
Birdie shifted behind the door, and the terror in her eyes deepened into
something approaching madness.
"You knew what would happen to you if ever you crossed the Black
Heron," the ondan said, and beside me Remeys sang at me, and I felt the
pressure of his rage even through the shield I sang. I felt the compulsion to
silence, to surrender. I fought it.
Birdie shrieked, "You can't blame me I was going to kill her get away from me
the others wanted money for her!" all in one breath, and the ondan raised his
hand, and murmured something, and Birdie burst out of her house with the club
already arcing over her head, and light shot from the ondan's fingertips at
the same moment that the spiked head of the club buried itself in the ondan's
skull.
He didn't fall, but Birdie did. I was hoping... praying... that he would
topple to the ground, leaving me to deal with just Remeys, but he lifted the
club out of his skull, and I watched, sickened, as the crushed place closed
itself up. He turned to me and smiled. "The other two are dead already I
stepped through a gate Remeys made for me a few days ago to be sure. And you
can stop that odious singing now. I need to talk to you."
I kept playing. The pressure of Remeys's magic against my shields almost
buckled my knees, but I pretended that he wasn't pitching anything worse at me
than rocks and fruit. I had nothing with which to beat them no songs I
could sing to attack or destroy. The best I could manage was a holding action;
I could keep my shields up and keep the two of them away from me (maybe, the
doubtful voice at the back of my mind whispered) until someone came to help
me, but that would at last be futile. Because I could only sing for so long
before exhaustion slowed me, and help wasn't coming.
"Exactly," the ondan said. "Help isn't coming. So stop your singing and drop
your shields. I own you, girl. Have owned your life since your father tried to
ruin my plans years ago."
He could read my thoughts, I realized. He'd been responsible for my fathers
death, and indirectly for my mother's as well. He was the Black Heron.
The ondan shook his head. "Not precisely. Remeys and I together are the
Black Heron. He worked inside the keep, I worked outside. Together we intend
to rule Terosalle, and someday all the world. You, however, by surviving, and
putting yourself in the way of our work, and by adding your own inflections to
the 'Song of Belangia,' spoiled what would have been a perfect little two-part
spell to throw everyone in these parts into slavery to us. That little element
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of hope and idealism you put in softened the part you sang, and your damnable
resonance with the Pillar of the Sun sent it out much further than it was ever
intended to go. Now that the damage has been undone, we're going to have to
recast the damned thing ourselves. And for that, Remeys is going to need your
lute."
I kept singing, and my shields kept holding... but Remeys was a strong bard
with experience I couldn't begin to imagine, and he was determined to break
through my defenses. I was equally determined that he wasn't going to get
through. They weren't going to touch the lute.
"We will, though," Ondan Shanxi said. "We'll have it, and you will be our
hostage so that it will agree to work for us. As long as the lute does what we
say, you won't be hurt."
They were lying. Once they had what they wanted, I'd be dead or as good as
dead. I couldn't understand why they would want to destroy the world they'd
seen the pain their spell had caused before.
"It's not about destruction," the ondan said, and at the same instant I felt a
sharp stab of fire in my side. A weak spot in my shield had allowed some of
whatever Remeys aimed at me to get through. "It's about unimaginable riches.
We will hold the world at our feet. We will command everything.
Everyone. No one will keep anything back from us. We will be gods in
Terosalle we will take whatever we desire." He smiled at me, his eyes
narrowing. "And what we most desire right now... is the lute. You have no
weapons to use against us. We will get what we want. But if you fight us much
longer, you won't enjoy what happens to you when we get it."
Remeys changed his song, and the ondan raised his finger, and his smile grew
bigger. I couldn't hold off both of them at once.
And then, from nowhere, I recalled a song my mother used to sing to me when I
was tiny, before she'd left my father and me to do whatever it was she'd had
to do. She'd sung that lullaby to me every night while she sat by my bed. My
idea was stupid... but I remembered Ha and Giraud and the lovesong, and all
the bards in Bard Troman's study when I sang "Raider's
Pride."
Stupid idea, but...
I kept my shields up, and started to sing.
"Sleep, child, sleep, Trust that morn will come, Rest your head and close your
eyes
And wait for the new dawn, Still, child, still, For I am near your side, Hush
and rest your sleepy head And sleep the whole long night."
I had no weapons. No spells to kill or maim. All I had was that lullaby, that
one gift from my mother. I sang it, and she sang it with me, and we sang it
again and again, ringing the notes clearly on strings, echoing them back from
lute to voice, from voice to lute, adding depth and strength born of our
passion, and of my memories, and of love, which is the strongest magic of all.
Together, we bound the song to the ondan, and to Remeys.
"Sleep, child, sleep, Trust that morn will come..."
Their eyes closed. Remeys stopped singing. The ondan's hand lowered.
"Rest your head and close your eyes And wait for the new dawn."
They dropped to the ground, softly. Snored. I kept singing, taking no chances.
I spun the song around them tighter, and then I added a new last verse.
"Sleep, monsters, sleep, Sleep for a thousand years. When you wake forget your
hate Give no more cause for tears."
It wasn't good poetry, but it seemed to work as a spell. They curled on die
ground, not moving at all. When I stopped singing, they didn't budge. When I
tied their hands and feet, they didn't twitch. When
I found a couple of horses and managed, with much difficulty and swearing, to
drag them up an incline and onto the horses' backs, and when I
tied their hands and feet under the horses' bellies so they wouldn't fall off, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]