Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

Go. Build a nest. Raise young, and prosper.

And so they went, flapping heavily away through the hot, heavy air, bird-wise, and with the wisdom of birds, letting go of their rage and forgetting the thing that had bound them. Except not quite; keeping enough that they would never allow themselves, or their young, to be bound, ever again.

Maria took a deep breath, and flexed her hands, and the Lord of the Shadows now turned and pointed to a shadow that nearly made her sick. "There is the thing that is causing the Mother much pain."

It was hideous. Anger and pain radiated out from the little fetal-creature. It had wings, crumpled and twisted and deformed. It would never fly. But the small wings beat furiously, thrashing away the mere pressure of their gaze, that hurt, that burned it like acid. It was trapped by the magical confines of this place. It floated above the earth, a creature without weight-but still pinioned here, above Corfu. Pinioned with chains of blood-the nonhuman blood of its parents.

Her first reaction had been horror. Now she felt simply pity.

"It's just a baby!" she objected.

"Of sorts, yes." He waited-perhaps to see what she would do.

Not destroy it-blessed Jesu, it didn't know what it was doing! No, she had to-heal it? Help it? "What can I do for it? It's not on the earth of Corfu."

The Lord of the Underworld shrugged. "It's somewhere between death and life. That puts it in both of our realms. We can see it, and it can see us."

The anger, hurt and bitterness flowing from it were almost too much to bear. "Whoever did this must be a monster," said Maria, recognizing the unborn fetal thing for what it was.

"Elizabeth Bartholdy." There was a brief shadow moment of a beautiful woman. Plainly the twisted, warped creature saw it, too, because it howled in frustrated rage.

"How do we help the poor creature?" she cried, feeling its pain deep inside herself. It was a baby-only a baby-forced to do what it was doing.

"Remove its bonds. Remove just one of the sigils in its parents' blood. Wash them away." In the shadow now she could see the spidery tracings on the rocks of a blood that had never been red.

"With what? There is no rain or water because of the poor thing. If it would let it rain…" Maria sniffed. Swallowed. "I won't cry," she choked. "This is no time to cry!" She had to do something, not dissolve in tears! Crying wouldn't help-

"Why not?" the Shadow Lord asked, quietly. "Tears will wash as well as rain. It won't live, you know. It only survives in this sort of half existence because of the magics worked on it."

"I won't cry because it's soft to cry." She paused, feeling a strange stillness come over her. Like that blanket of understanding that had settled over her, letting her understand what she needed to do, a new understanding stole quietly over her in the stillness. "Maybe it needs something soft."

"Yes?" the Shadow Lord said, a hint, just a hint, of encouragement in His voice.

"I don't think it's ever had care or any love." She thought of Alessia, how even so loved a baby as she had nearly driven her mother mad a time or two.

"This isn't its fault. It's just a baby. A baby doesn't mean to make you miserable when it's hurting. It just doesn't know how to do anything else. And it's hurting, it's hurting so much, from what that awful woman has done to it!"

This time, it was rage that followed the words, it was despair, for all the children that had died because of those horrible people out there, for this poor little thing that had suffered the tortures of the damned, been forced into birth. No baby ever asked to be born, but this one had been tormented into existence, and nothing would make it better except to be ushered out of life-

Maria wept for it, a mother's tears. The tears fell down and into the shadow.

And the silvery blood-writing boiled. There was a brief moment of movement, of wind and of fire.

And then there was a surcease of pain.

The rain began. The clouds, so long held back, swept in, swept over the hawks in their new forest, so that they held up their heads to the falling rain and drank in the sweet water that washed away the foulness on their tongues. It swept over the peasant women who set out jars and bowls to catch it. It soaked into the earth, that drank it with a million thirsty throats, and sent it down into the streams, into the unseen crevices of the rocks, with the sound of life renewing, at last.

"It is in my kingdom now," said her new husband. "I have put it where it belongs."

"What else must we do?" asked Maria tiredly.

He shrugged. "The Mother's place has rain at last, and will heal. It has got its people again, and they love it. It is in a magical place with those that perished giving birth to it. They blame it no more than you, and now they can cherish it. With that, it will heal."

"What about the siege?"

"Ah." Tall already, he seemed to grow taller. And grimmer. "War is death's kingdom. Mine, not Hers."

"Hah," Maria replied, feeling anger giving her back her strength. "Maybe so. But I'm going to help."

Erik was on the battlements of the inner curtain wall, organizing and trying to prevent panic. Most of all, wishing silently that the inner walls had been built as the outer had: to withstand cannon. But the outer walls had been rebuilt not fifteen years back. This inner wall was probably a century old.

The outer wall had stood up to months of pounding. The inner wall would last weeks at best. Which was more time than they had water for, anyway.

A cannon across on the Spianada boomed. They must be mad! They should move them up first… a second, then a third cannon spoke. And Erik realized they were firing into the outer city. Into their own troops. Peering out to the enemy encampment on the other side of the Spianada, Erik's jaw dropped. For the first time since Svanhild's death he began to laugh. It was harsh sound, but it was laughter nonetheless.

The Hungarian camp was burning. Not as if from a little brave band in a small patch, but across a wide front. It must have taken thousands of men. And more and more of the Hungarian artillery fired into the Hungarian troops in the Citadel. If they spiked those guns before retreating… the inner citadel would last as long as its water held out.

Erik wondered whether this was Venice's forces at last. Like the rain, those had just never seemed to get here.

Manfred came up behind him, helmet under his arm and grinning like the cat that had eaten the cream. Von Gherens was just behind. "Well, Erik. What do you think? Half of them seem to be running back to camp. Are we going to sortie again?"

Erik shook his head. "The cannon-fire is doing it for us. As soon as it stops-"

A cold wet something hit him on the nose. Then another hit his cheek. "I don't believe it! It's raining!"

The rain came down in a gray, hissing curtain. So heavy that the view of the Spianada and then the section of the Citadel outside the inner curtain suddenly disappeared.

Manfred, Erik and Von Gherens stood there, rain driving in their faces, plastering their hair down, grinning at each other.

"Come on, you pair of loons," said Von Gherens. "Your armor's getting wet."

Behind them the Citadel was echoing-despite the rain-to cheers and cries of "San Marco!"

Erik was the last to leave the battlements.

He looked out at the rain, but he saw her face. And no one in the downpour could tell rain from tears anyway. He hadn't been able to weep, since that early moment in the hospital. Now, here, alone in the rain, where no one could see him, he could. Somehow it lifted a weight from his soul.

Giuliano saw the first heavy drops splash on the dusty earth. Like Erik he gaped. But he'd lived here all his life and he knew that when it rained here, it rained in earnest. "Sound the retreat," he said to the young Venetian with him.