Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,35
which mattered in the least. The ghost led me, and there was no treachery.
We descended a stair, narrow and steep, and I saw light below. Here was a cresset, filled with blazing wood and dripping embers. The ghost, which ought to have dimmed in the firelight, seemed almost a living man, a man young and nearly as tall as I, in livery of grey and crimson.
“Who is that?” Lurn’s voice came from behind me, but not far behind.
I did not speak, but followed our guide.
He led us to a second stair, a winding stair that seemed at first to plunge into darkness. We had descended this for many steps when I took notice of a faint, pale light below.
“Where are we going?” Lurn asked.
I was harkening to a nightingale. It was our guide who answered her: “Where you wished to go, O pawn.”
“Why are you talking to me like that, Valorius?”
I shrugged, and followed our guide into a garden lit by stars and the waning moon. He led us over smooth lawns and past tinkling fountains. The statues we saw were of pieces, of kings and queens, of slingers and spearmen, of knights such as I and pawns like Lurn. Winged figures stood among them, figures whiter than they and equally motionless; though these did not move or appear to breathe, it seemed to me they were not statues. They might have moved, I thought, this though they did not live.
“There can be no such place underground!” Lurn exclaimed.
I turned to face her. “We are not there. Surely you can see that. We entered into the stone of the mountain, and emerged here.”
“It was broad day!”
“And is now night. Be silent.”
That last I said because our guide stood behind her, his finger to his lips. He pointed, but I saw only a thick growth of cypress. I went to it, nonetheless; and when I stood before it I heard a muted creaking and squeaking, as though some portal long closed were opening. I pushed aside the boughs to look. There my eyes saw nothing. My father (who seemed to sit before me, his head cloven by the ax) had entered my mind and let me see him there.
I knelt.
He took his mantle from his shoulders and fastened it about mine. For a moment only I knew the freezing cold of the gold brooch that had held it. I reached for it. My fingers found nothing, yet I knew then (as I know now) where that mantle rests.
“What’s in there?” Lurn asked.
“A tomb,” I told her. “You did not come here to see a tomb, but to become a queen. See you the moon?”
“My lady? Yes, of course I see her.”
“She rises to behold your coronation, and is already near the zenith. There is a circle of white stones, just there.” I pointed. “Do you see it?”
It appeared as I spoke.
“No—yes. Yes, I see it now.”
“Stand there—and wait. When the moon-shadows are short and every copse and course is bathed in moonlight, you will become a queen.”
She went gladly. I stood before her; the distance was half as far, perhaps, as a boy might fling a stone.
I recall that she said this: “Won’t you sit, Valorius? You must be tired.”
“Are you not?”
“I? When I am to become a queen? No, never!”
That was all. That, and this: “Why do you rub your head?”
“It is where the ax went in. I rub it because the place is healed and my father at rest.”
The moon rose higher yet, and one of the white figures came to kneel before me. She held a pillow of white silk; upon it lay a great visored helm white as any pearl, and upon that a silver crown.
I accepted it and rose. Six more were arming Lurn, armor of proof that no sword could cleave: breastplate and gorget, tasset and tace. As earth circles moon, I circled her; and when her arming was complete save for the helm, poised that as high as I might. “From the goddess whom you serve, receive the crown that is your due.” Standing, her head was higher than my upstretched arms; but she knelt before me to receive helm and crown, and I set them upon her head. They felt no heavier than their own pale plumes.
Rising, she pulled down the visor to try it; and I saw that there was a white face graven upon the visor now—and that white face was her own.