Caroline Spector - Worlds Without End

Stupidity.

That's how I came to be there. Had I bit of sense in my head I would have left them all to die. Hack- ing their lungs out, puking up what they'd barely managed to down a moment before.

Ignorant, superstitious peasants.

I knew there was a reason I'd stayed in the east for so long. In the east I wasn't looked upon as a black devil. The color of my skin was hardly com- mented upon.

But here among these backwards Englishmen with their pasty skin and bad teeth I was something to be feared, hated, and possibly killed. And the place they'd put me in might well do that.

It was called the Tower, but, of course, it wasn't. More like several castles and towers collected to- gether. Not that I'd had much of a chance to see any of it. I'd been brought here in the middle of the night and hadn't seen much of the light of day since. Sometimes I wondered if anyone even remembered I was there.

Once a day a jailer slid a plate of bread and por- ridge through the grate. I could hear him muttering catechisms under his breath. It would do him little good and likely lose him his head, given the political mood. But don't we all fall back upon the icons from our youth? The stories we recite to keep the monsters at bay.

And that was how I knew I must appear. Oh, I'd lost the pointed ears, thank goodness. The more ob- vious signs of my elven condition were muted now.

Magic was at a low ebb, though for some reason be- lief in it had never been higher. There were more charlatans and mountebanks claiming to turn lead into gold than you could swing a dead cat at. And they did a great bit of that, too. To drive out the de- mons.

Demons like me with my black skin and my white hair. My hair I could dye. Luckily, my eyes had changed to a brownish-gray color; otherwise I'd probably already be dead. What would they make of Vistrosh and his ceathral skin and pink eyes? I won- dered.

But here I was locked up tighter than a miser's hoard.

And how had I come to be here? My own weak- nesses, as usual.

"Help us," I'd heard.

I looked down and saw a young child, a girl, maybe eight. She wore a ragged tunic and her feet were bare and dirty. What desperation drove her to ask for help from any passing stranger? Much less one who looked like me.

"They're sick," she said.

"Who is sick?" I asked.

"Everyone," she replied. "Everyone except me."

But she didn't look well herself. Her eyes were bright and glassy and as I drew closer, I could feel the heat of fever radiating off her.

"Please," she said. Her hands reached out and I thought she might actually touch me, but she pulled away.

"What makes you think I could do any good?" I asked.

"Someone has to," she replied. "Or I'll be all alone. They'll… die."

I didn't want to help them. For as far back as I could remember I'd been trying to keep out of these things. To let Fate take her own course. It wasn't for me to decide. There were other matters that needed my attention. But as I looked into that pale feverish face another child came to my mind, and I found myself being led into the rude thatched hut.

The air was thick with the odor of a low-burning peat fire. There was a hole cut in the roof to let the smoke escape, but that only helped a little. Pallets lined the edge of the room. On them lay several peo- ple, all of whom were in various stages of the same sickness.

The grippe.

Why these people were so ill from it I didn't know. It was a common enough problem-not as frightening as the plague or cholera, which could pass through a town and leave it devastated hi a mat- ter of days or weeks.

At my feet lay an elderly woman. I knelt down beside her and took her wrist in my hand. Under my fingers her pulse felt erratic. I was closer to the power here; the pull of it too tempting to resist. As my eyes closed I began to see the pattern of her life. Thin and threadbare. Bleak colors woven together with an odd shock of bright blue.

It was so difficult to hold on to what I was seeing. The images were blurred and hazy, slipping away from me if I hesitated for a moment. But, healing her would be simple enough, I saw suddenly. It had been so long since I'd taken the risk. Since I'd wanted to.

There was a faint sound. It broke my concentra- tion and I turned toward it. There, shadowed in the doorway, stood the girl. For a moment her image blurred with one from my memory. I knew then I would help them, regardless of the risk.

Again, I took the woman's wrist. Tapping into what little reserves I'd tucked away, I focused all my concentration into bringing back the weave of her life. The heat flew through me then, sliding into her body, burning out her fever and pain. Hot ribbons of health wove themselves into her body.

I released her wrist then, exhausted by this minor act. I smiled a bit at this, I who had brought armies to their knees with a flick of my wrist, swooning at this child's play.

And what did my generosity get me?

A private room in the bloody Tower.

The people I helped weren't to blame. They couldn't have been expected to keep quiet about their miraculous healings, I suppose. Though I sus- pect the tale was embellished by the time it reached the ears of the clergy.

The Protestants and the Catholics had been going at it ever since Mary came to the throne, but the one thing they agreed on was that anything smacking of witchcraft was to be dealt with severely.

For some reason the local priest, who was the first person to see me after I was captured, didn't want to kill me right off. Perhaps it was my skin, or maybe he hoped to gain points with bishop. At any rate, I was taken to London and then sent to the Tower.

Where I remained for months.

I'd heard that there were prisoners here who'd been forgotten for years. But I tried not to dwell on that.

Spring passed, then summer.

All Hallows Eve.

Dark came early. Through my slit of a window, I could see the fine mist ushering a heavy fog. The flickering torches looked unreal and ghostly. A per- fect night for the devil's work. If you believed in that sort of thing.

I'd been'sitting in the dark for several hours. The worst thing about imprisonment was boredom. But this wasn't the first time I'd been in such a situation. Then I heard it. A faint sound from down in the base of the tower.

Then footsteps on the stone steps. They were coming to kill me, I knew it. After all this time, they had remembered and were dispatching me at last. The least I could do was go to my death on my feet. But somehow I couldn't force myself to move from the cold stone floor where I sat.

The sound of voices. I thought they might be ar- guing. Then more footsteps. The lock was opened and the door swung in.

I put my hand up against the sudden brightness of a lamp. A rustle of fabric. Any moment now I would feel the bum of the blade.

"You may leave us now," a voice said.

A voice I knew.

I dropped my hand and blinked. It couldn't be, yet it was.

Standing across from me, robed in heavy velvet and fur, was Alachia.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

She frowned. "You never have learned any man- ners," she said. "Do you not know that you are to rise in the presence of a queen?"

I snorted. "Blood Wood is long gone," I said. "Its ashes have been forgotten more times than either of us can remember. You're no more a queen than I."

"You never were ambitious," she said.

"No, just not foolish and vain."

Her frown deepened. Even with such a withering expression on her face, she was still beautiful. The skin was as pale, the hair as fiery red, and the eyes as blue. Not as stunning as she'd been, but part of that was due to the changes in the magic. Now her beauty was more human. 46

"You are an annoyance," she said. "But you are my cross to bear. Isn't that an amusing expression? Tell me, aren't you curious as to why I am visiting you?"