The Lioness

Gil smiled. He filled his hands with her hair, all the forest-scented locks spilling through his fingers. She went close to him, lifting her face to kiss him. Between them now was only the question she had not answered.

“My love,” she said, “you’ve asked me another thing.”

He put a finger on her lips, gently. “Hush,” he said, his breath warm on her cheek.

It was in her mind to answer, to tell him no, to refuse the king’s offer of marriage. She would be a lightning rod as his queen, a Kagonesti woman to sit beside him, a servant raised up, a lover led from his bed to his throne. Rashas would run wild with the notion, would discredit Gilthas in the first week of his marriage and use the indignation of the kingdom to wrench him from his throne.

No, she meant to say. No, Gil. I can’t, you know it wouldn’t be the right thing.

She said nothing like that. She lifted the emerald from her breast and held it in her hands. She felt the gem tingling against her fingers, warming the flesh.

“Concentrate?”

His voice gentle, the king said, “Concentrate. Keep it firmly in your mind where you want to go.”

Kerian took a breath, and the emerald throbbed against her fingers. She gripped it, its energy stung, and she loosed it again. Cradling it now, as though it might fly away or bite, she closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of all thoughts. She slipped into her senses, smelling all the forest, the oaks, the stream rilling beyond the grove, the sweetness of the rich earth, and the ferns cut from the brakes that had made their woodland bed soft. She heard the whistle of a thrush, the whisper of wind, and on her skin she felt the sunlight. She thought of Thorbardin, the fabled city she had never seen. She thought of the legends she knew of the place, the tales she knew of Tarn Bellowgranite himself, the High King of the Eight Clans.

Around her, the world grew suddenly sharp, all her senses keen-edged. In the moment she realized it, she felt the oak grove fading, dissolving underfoot, around her.

“Thorbardin,” Gil said, his voice level, firm. “Thorbardin, Kerian.”

The word rang in her thoughts, chiming like a deep-throated bell.

She cried, “Gil!” as the whirlwind came roaring out from the forest, up from the ground, down from the sky. “Gil!”

Whatever he shouted, whatever word or cry, became lost, torn apart by the whirlwind, changed into a terrible roaring, a bellowing so deep, so loud it was as a storm with no beginning, no end.

From that storm came a voice, one lone voice speaking with unreasonable calmness about curses.

Chapter Eighteen

“Ah, now y’know there’s all kinds of curses,” said the dwarf. “Man’s a fool who doesn’t reckon that”

Kerian fell out of the whirlwind to find herself on her knees, the echo of magic’s bellowing still in her ears, her body feeling as though it had been hurled right across the Kharolis Mountains.

Kerian didn’t see the speaker, down on the floor of what she knew to be a tavern by the smells of ale, dwarf spirits, and roasting meat, of sweat, smoke, and fire. She was, though, relieved to realize that the dwarf was using his native tongue, the rough-hewn language of Thorbardin.

All right, she thought, that’s a good sign.

She tried to stand and failed.

The dwarf who spoke of curses continued to speak. His fellows continued to listen, eight or more dwarfs bellied up to the bar. Other than those drinkers, the tavern was empty. It had the feel of a place just opened, the regulars perhaps having been waiting at the door, the rest of the night’s custom coming later.

“There’s big curses and minor ones,” said the dwarven expert, “the curse of your mother-in-law and the curse of an unchancy god.”

“No telling which of those is worse,” said an old dwarf at the end of the bar. His fellows laughed, and one said he reckoned he knew.

Kerian’s belly felt loose and dangerous, as though she might heave up the last fine meal she’d eaten, the pastries, wines, and thinly sliced fruit, the braised duck, the … She dared not think on that now. She tried to breathe slowly through her mouth and tasted the tang of metal, steel and slag. The odor of sweat drying on skin and wool stung her nose. Quietly, she groaned and wished she hadn’t, yet no one seemed to notice her there on the floor.

Where in the name of all lost gods am I? She glanced right, she glanced left, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a doorway into a brighter place where people—dwarves—walked by, some alone, others in pairs or groups. Their voices washed in through the door and washed out again as they passed by.

“Eh, there’s all kinds of curses,” the dwarf said, now with the air of one who had just done with his subject.

Kerian tried to stand again and failed again. Ah, gods, her head hurt!

The dwarfs listeners at the bar variously laughed, grumbled, or questioned, and one youngster opined that he supposed this was how the tavern got its name. “Because it’s cursed.”