Laurell Hamilton - Nightseer

Keleios resheathed the sword and snapped the locks in place.

Barrock said, “My lady, what will you do?”

“I will find another way.”

In the afternoon Keleios rode toward the sea. The white mare ran swift and sure footed along the cliff road. Someone, probably Methia, had given her the name of Snowball. Keleios chose to call her Cloudrunner. Keleios left the road when she was near Gull Cove.

It was the best place to find seashells, small but fine.

She found the steep and narrow path leading down and urged the horse to take it. The riding clothes were not exactly what Keleios had wanted. The entire outfit was blue velvet, too big, and hopelessly elaborate, but if someone didn’t mind a good suit being ruined, she would wear it. Her own boots, now clean, had been kept.

The sand that stretched out before them was white and caught the light in a thousand starlike crystals. Pulverized Mirlite had gone to make most of the sand, and each grain was a tiny prism.

She let the horse walk along the beach as it pleased, reins dangling in the sand.

She had felt the call ever since she began trying to think of a joining gift for Lothor. It was customary to give something of oneself, one’s own magic. Being an enchanter, there was not enough time, but being an elven enchanter, there might be.

Keleios walked just above the water line. The waves came in dark emerald green, capped with white foam. Seaweed rode the waves in brown strands. The waves crashed upon the sand, and the tide crawled up over the ground and retreated as if pulled back. A clump of seaweed the size of a large man had been pushed up on shore. Keleios walked through the wet collapsing sand and knelt beside the seaweed. The weed was brown and heavy. There nestled in its wet fishy tendrils was the shell. It was small no bigger than the end of her middle finger. It curled to a perfect spiral and was ivory white with shades of gold sketched down its swirling length. The lip that led inside of its whispering depths was a pale pink, flushed and beautiful.

It spoke to her like raw metal could. It said that here was something of the sea’s power. Here was a piece of magic given, not made. With a tiny bit of added power, it would be what she wanted it to be.

Water swirled over her boots and wet the bottom of her trousers. She stood and carefully put the shell in a small pouch she had brought for the occasion. Cloudrunner came when she called, snorting and nibbling at the salty taste of her hands. She led the horse back up to the cliff top, thinking as she went. The shell would be a charm to enable Lothor to breath underwater, for a time. Instant enchantment was not easy even for a half-elf, and given so little time, it would not be permanent. She smiled at the thought of the black healer gasping on the bottom of the boat. An adult who couldn’t swim—it was unthinkable. The smile vanished. This was a joining gift, and tonight they would bed together. She shivered, half in fear and half in something she could not put a name to. Suddenly, the wind felt cold on top of the cliff.

She dropped the reins and let the mare graze. Keleios walked to the edge of the cliff. She unbuckled the sword belt, unlooped the belt from the sheath, and held it for a moment listening to the distant mutterings of the sword. It pulsed and promised power and success in battle and magic. Keleios ignored it. She drew her sorcery out and began to build it in her mind. She would put a shield between the sword and herself. A shield to surround it, a prison to keep it from her. “I cast you out; I cast you down. Let the waves have you. Let them lock you away from me.” She drew all her strength and threw the sheathed sword out over the water. A thin wail sounded in her head. It spun end over end, glittering in the sun, and vanished beneath the waves.

When she returned, she was finally allowed in the room Methia had prepared for her. The bed was draped and canopied with veils and silk. The goosedown tick was so soft as to suck and hold her body when she lay on it. The coverings were done in cloth of gold and heaviest black. It was the color of mourning.

Why was it that Methia could always anger her, always? Then Keleios shrugged and laughed. Perhaps the black would make Lothor feel more at home.

Costly tapestries and hangings cloaked the walls. The scenes were all of battle, death, failed love: the failed love of Gynndon and Pestral, their gruesome suicides done in livid color; the battle of Ty-gor hill with its mounds of dead and dying. One man in particular seemed to reach out of the scene, begging for help, one hand held outward, beseeching, eyes full of horror and the coming dark. The far wall was hung with a hunt scene. The great stag fallen to its knees, blood frothing on its lips. The hounds roared down to tear at it.

Methia had the slyness of the court. She had done everything properly but in a backhanded way.

As dusk fell, Keleios stood looking out of the many narrow windows. The cream-colored dress was back on, and she had even consented to most of the undergarments, except for the stays. The things were so tight she might have passed out during the ceremony. She had left the dress plain without its half-cloak. A gold lace veil lay on the bed. Her hair had been brushed until it shone, wavy and thick, the candlelight catching hints of dark gold in it. Two thin braids, one on each side of her face, were intertwined with gold thread. It was the way a Wrythian elf would wear her hair for a wedding. No one but she would know, but then she was the one joining. Every comfort was needed.

She turned from the windows with a swish of silken skirts. Poth hissed and struck at the skirts. Keleios stooped, nearly knocking over a small table with the full dress. The cat hissed and backed away, fur stiff. “Poth, it’s all right; it’s still me.” She sat awkwardly on the floor and coaxed the cat to her. Poth came, sniffing her hand before allowing herself to be petted.

She had tried to talk herself into acceptance. He was young, handsome, half-elven. She could have looked farther and found worse, but he was evil. Keleios was beginning to realize that she herself wasn’t wholly good. The sword Ache silvestri had been evil and preferred her to Lothor. Or perhaps the sword didn’t feel like fighting with Lothor’s ax. Yet Lothor had trapped her into this joining. He had trapped her like an animal. Well, there was one more bite left in this trapped beast.

She cuddled Poth to her face. “No, I can’t fight him. I break oath if I fight. But I can’t just let him take me.” The cat purred softly, trying to comfort, but there was little comfort to be had.

She tried to stand, got tangled in the dress, and was forced to put the cat down and crawl upwards using the bed. There on the bed was Aching Silver, painful death. It lay on the neatly made bed; nothing disturbed, but the sword was there.

There was a whoosh and crackling of flames outside. Torch poles had been put all along the road to light the procession. They flamed now, casting gold-red shadows into the night.

The sword was cold to the touch. She unsnapped the locks slowly and drew the sword. It glittered and turned pale gold in the rich candlelight. It pulsed softly and spoke. “I am yours ... forever.”

“You are cursed, a cursed sword.”

The thing laughed, a strange sound without lungs to hold it. If possible, the laugh reverberated round the metal, giving a hollow sound to it. “Cursed, well, it depends on how you look at it.” It went into another peal of laughter.

She shoved the blade into the sheath and locked it, its laughter still coming muffled and tinny. She tossed the sheath back on the bed.

Groghe appeared with a night-blooming flower in his claw. The thing was white and as big as Keleios’ outstretched hand. The scent was heady and exotic. Methia had been using earth magic to get tropicals to grow in the winter-ruined climate. It was something their mother would never do, saying the plants weren’t as happy.