The Cygnet and the Firebird by Patricia A. McKillip Read Free Book Online

wished she had thought to arm herself, for he was a man unaware of his own anger. The bird’s fury shaped itself into jewelled leaves; what form the man’s might take was as yet unknown, perhaps even to himself.
    But, entering, he seemed quiet enough. He barely glanced around himself; his eyes found Nyx and clung. Nyx gestured at a chair; he sat hesitantly, as if he had forgotten how. Meguet moved unobtrusivelyto a table near him, leaned against it. Rush joined her. The guards stood behind the Holder and her daughters, silent, watchful. Nyx, at the hearth, studied him, fingering a strand of tiny pearls sliding down over one ear.
    “Is there a name I can call you?” she asked. “One you might remember to answer to?”
    He was silent, dredging unknown fathoms of memory. He said finally, “Every name I reach for eludes me. It might be anything. Or nothing.”
    His face formed suddenly, clearly, under Nyx’s absent gaze, as if, until then, she had only seen the firebird. His eyes reminded her of something. She slid the strand of pearls behind her ear and remembered what: the little cobalt box on the mantel behind her. She blinked; the entire room was still, everyone fascinated, it seemed, by her silence. She gathered her thoughts, which had been fragmented by a color. “Two things I must do first. I want the bird’s fire and I want its cry.”
    His lips parted; he whispered, “How?”
    “I’ll tell you how after I have done it. I don’t want to be turned into a gaudy pile of leaves every time it looks at me. And the cry that bird makes is like the crying of every bird I have ever tormented in my sorcery. It would wear me to the heart.”
    He was staring at her, transfixed, as if she had just changed shape, or taken shape, in his eyes. He made a sudden movement, muscles gathering, his hands closing on the chair arms. The cry came and went like lightning in his face. Silver flashed from behindthe Holder as one of the guards moved. Meguet caught his eyes, held him still. Nyx continued, her voice grim but deliberate, “Mages find themselves sometimes on strange roads, in strange places. You can trust me, but you don’t know that. My past casts a shadow. If you want a mage without a shadow, you must fly farther north, to a mage called Diu, who is very old and tired, but would do a favor for me if I asked. You must—”
    “The bird found you,” the man said. He was still gripping his chair, but he had made no other movement. Nyx waited; he added, some feeling breaking into his low voice, “I don’t know how long the bird flew to find you. But, entering this house, it cried its magic until you listened. You must do what you can. What you want. The bird will choose to stay or go. It’s no question of trust. Or of choice, for me. I have no choice.”
    The Holder opened her mouth, closed it as the sorceress’s eyes flicked at her. Nyx said, answering her unspoken question, “I cannot know how the bird found me, or why, or if it was sent until I begin to work. I suspect that the spell was cast very long ago, and that the bird came here simply because it sensed a thousand years of magic in this tower. So I will assume that, for now, all I have to do is remove a spell.”
    “And if the bird was sent?” the Holder asked. “Perhaps by the mage who appeared yesterday? You may put the entire house in danger.”
    “Well,” Nyx said softly, “it won’t be the first time.”
    “But—”
    “You have heard that bird cry. Is there anything you would not do to stop it, if you could?” The Holder was silent; jewels sparked on her hands as they clasped, containing a mute argument. Nyx added, “I can stop it. I can help. If I bring down sorcery on this house, then we will find a way to deal with that. But now, the bird is here and the sorcerer is only a possibility. I must begin with the magic I see, not with the ghosts and shadows conjured up by fear.” She looked at the man again. He had not moved a muscle or an eyelash