Robin McKinley - The Hero And The Crown

“Who taught you swordplay?” thundered Agsded. “No mortal can best me.” And the red sword looked like seven swords as it swooped down on her again; and yet Gonturan was seven swords in return, and struck them all away. I’m afraid you are no longer quite mortal—mortal, Aerin thought. She laughed, and the red blade wavered when she laughed; perhaps the laugh of his sister’s daughter echoed in Agsded’s brain as horribly as his did in Aerin’s. And as the red blade hesitated, Gonturan struck Agsded’s shoulder. An inhuman scream went up, from the red mage or from the blue sword, Aerin could not tell; and then Agsded’s sword came for her again, more swiftly than before, and Aerin could not even follow with her eyes as the two swords caught at each other, thrust and slammed and were hurled apart. “My Damarian blood,” she panted, “uncle, is not so cursed as you think; for I have swum in the Lake of Dreams, and I—am—no—longer—quite—mortal.”

“It will avail you naught,” he cried, and leaped back, and threw up his hands; and fire leaped up all around him. Fire. Real fire; red and orange, with hot thick smoke, and bright terrible arms that reached out for her. Aerin quailed, and there was no black cat nor white horse to help her. This fire was no mage illusion; she could smell it, and the heat of it beat against her face; and again Gonturan’s blue fire flickered and dulled in her hand.

Agsded laughed; and within the ring of fire he thrust his sword back into his belt and crossed his arms. “Well? Fire may still burn those who are—no—longer—quite—mortal.” He laughed again, and Aerin flinched from his voice even as from the licking flames; and the grey Crown was red in the firelight.

Someday, she thought tiredly, I must learn to go forward of my own free will. If only my horrible chest would let me think clearly. She raised Gonturan, and the blue fire cascaded over her; it was cool against her face. She closed her eyes—closing my eyes is stupid, she thought—and jumped into the fire.

It hissed and roared around her, but she ran forward and opened her eyes, and her uncle was just a little late pulling his sword free again, and Gonturan rose for a slash at his neck, the cut she had missed the last time. This time the blade ran true, and struck him squarely.

And bounced off with a harsh ugly sound, and with a nick in her edge; and the recoil was such that she twisted out of Aerin’s grasp and fell to the fiery floor, and Aerin fell with her.

“I am not precisely mortal either,” said Agsded, and grinned his grin again; and Aerin, looking up at the red sword that was about to sink into her, thought, I imagine I’ll be mortal enough when struck through the heart; I wonder what mage trick it is he uses—or perhaps it’s because he’s wearing the Crown. And because she had nothing else left to do, and because she was still holding the wreath in her other hand, she threw it at him.

He screamed. It was a scream that cut across all the senses, sight and touch and taste and smell as well as hearing; it was a scream sharper than any sword and as bitter as hatred, as fierce as a hunting folstza and as implacable as winter. Aerin had only the dimmest recollection, through the scream, of the surka wreath touching his face, falling over his head to ring his shoulders; of the dragon stone shining as brilliantly red as Agsded’s sword had been, but which now turned to the dull rusted color of old blood; of a smaller fire, within the ring of fire, rising around Agsded higher and higher till he disappeared from view, as the fire he had thrown between himself and Aerin sank and darkened and died; and still the scream went on. Aerin staggered to her feet, and found that she was clutching Gonturan with both hands; and that the palm of one was wet with her own blood where she had seized unwarily at Gonturan’s edge; and that her hands and arms glowed blue, and as she bent her head the hair that fell forward around her face was also blue, and when she looked down, her boots were blue, and there was a pool of blue spreading around them, and as the blue widened so did the tiny hairline cracks in the floor, which spread and crackled and sputtered as she looked, with Agsded’s scream still beating at her. Then the scream and the short sharp sounds the floor was making rose together in a tumultuous roar, and the stones on which Aerin stood gave way, and she fell, and saw the walls toppling in on her. It would be pleasant to faint at this point, she thought, but she didn’t, and she continued to clutch Gonturan, but she shifted the bloody hand to join the other on the hilt. When I land, she thought, I will fall over and cut myself in half on my own sword; but the fall may already have killed me. The sound of the mountain tower falling was so loud she could no longer make room for her thoughts, and so she gave up thinking and blackness hurtled past her, and heavy fragments of that blackness fell with her but did not touch her, and she wondered if she might fall forever, as she had climbed, and thus perhaps become the God That Falls, or perhaps the God That Climbs and Falls.

Then there was a shock, but to her feet or her skull or only her mind she did not know; whatever part of her was struck staggered, and she shook herself, and discovered that it was her head she was shaking, and then she blinked her eyes and looked up, and realized that she saw sunlight leaking through cracks as though through the ruined wails of an ancient building. At the same time that her confused eyes and brain figured out the sunlight she also realized that her feet were standing on something, that she hadn’t chopped herself in two by landing on Gonturan, and that she was no longer falling.

She took a hesitant step, for she could see very little, and small pieces of rubble crunched and scattered under her feet. The pile of fragments teetered and threatened to spill her into the bottomless blackness again. There is no sense in taking my luck for granted, she told herself sternly, and resheathed Gonturan, gave an absent rub at her chest, and then stood still, blinking, till her eyes began to readjust to simple things like daylight, and stone walls with cracks in them.

SHE WAS ON THE FLAT TOP of a small mountain of rubble; and off to her right, at its foot, was a break in the surrounding circular wall wide enough that she thought she could probably squeeze herself through it. She made her way slowly and cautiously down the slope toward the broken place in the wall, but the stuff underfoot shifted and slithered, and she came to the bottom sitting back on her heels, with the unwounded hand holding Gonturan up by the scabbard so she wouldn’t drag. She stood up and went toward the crack and, indeed, she could push through, although it was a tight fit; and then the sunlight dazzled her, and her abused legs turned abruptly to jelly, and she sat down quickly and put her head between her knees. Staring at the ground, she thought, I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. Food might help. The mundane thought made her feel better at once, and hungry as well. She raised her head. She still felt shaky, and when she had clambered back to her feet—ungracefully using Gonturan as a prop—her knees were inclined to tremble, but she almost cheerfully put it down to lack of food.

She looked around. Where was she? The black tower had risen from a plain where nothing grew; now all around her she saw jungle, trees with vast climbing vines (though none of surka that she could see), and heavy brush between the trees. The sunlight fell on the ruined tower and the little bramble -covered clearing it made for itself, but the light could not make much headway through the thick leaves. Ugh. It would not be a pleasant journey out. And where might she find Talat? She set out to walk around what remained of the tower.