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

while she spoke; still she was not certain how much he understood besides hope. “So,” she said, toying with an earring, a circle of amber ringed with pearls, “we will wait for the bird to return. Tell me what you remember of your wanderings.”
    “I remember sea. I remember the bird flying through a storm of burning arrows. I remember the face of a small boy just before he was caught in the bird’s fire. I remember waking in snow, in mud, sometimes in trees, sometimes falling out of the air and running from hunters.”
    “And before you were spellbound?” The earring fell off; she caught it in her palm. She dropped her other hand toward the metal on his wrist, but did not touch it. “What are these?”
    He gazed at them without a flicker of recognition. “Armor, of some kind, I think.”
    “May I see?”
    “They don’t come off.”
    “Do you remember any place? A city? A house?”
    He paused, made an effort. “I remember a doorway.”
    “A doorway?”
    He shrugged slightly. “Nothing more. A marble doorway, with a marble pot of flowers beside it.”
    “What was inside the door?”
    “A noonday shadow. That’s all I remember, except that I saw it, not the bird, because I remember the scent of the flowers and the soft air. It could be any door, anywhere. It means nothing.”
    “What did you mean when you said to the Holder, ‘All the time I hold’?”
    He was on his feet, then, with no warning. Meguet, pushing away from the table, saw the cry beginning in his face. Then she heard the midnight bells, and saw the fiery plumage streak his back. She checked her instinctive movement to Nyx’s side, having no desire to be caught in the enchanted fire. The bird finished the cry in midair. Fire swarmed at Nyx; Meguet heard Calyx cry out behind the silken, red-gold wall. Nyx opened her hand, held up her defense: an amber earring.
    Fire kindled in the amber, a reflection of the onslaught of flame. It kindled in Nyx’s misty eyes, washed them with color. For a time her mind was an amber, fire-filled jewel guiding the magic, inviting more, expanding endlessly as it flooded into her, while, to watching eyes, the small jewel in her handfocused and ate the fire. The gorgeous and magical imagery of the bird’s enchantments changed and changed again in her mind as it tried to change her: black roses, emerald leaves, snowflakes of silver latticed like the odd armor, birds with sapphire wings and eyes, golden lilies, bird-eggs of topaz and diamond. The threads of the spell were a tapestry of tiny detail worked by a skilled hand. Dimly, as she dragged the fire and rich images endlessly out of it, she heard the bird’s ceaseless cry.
    Then there was only pale moonlight in her mind, a final rose the color of mist. She could see again; she dropped her hand, blinking. The bird, perched on the chair, was silent. The air darkened slowly, candlelight and shadow. The faces gazing at her looked haunted, exhausted by the cry. She lifted the amber, red-gold now and cracked like glass, and put it back in her ear; her hand trembled slightly.
    “So the bird knows where it is,” she said.
    “Nyx,” the Holder breathed, and nothing more. Beside her, Calyx lifted her face from her hands; tears slid between her fingers. Rush, stunned by the sorcery, moved behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. The guards’ faces looked pinched, as if they had been standing in a freezing wind. Iris had gone. Nyx’s eyes moved to Meguet. Her face was composed, watchful, as always, but so white it might have been carved of snow.
    “That must have wakened the house,” Meguet commented. Her voice shook suddenly; she put her hand to her mouth, hearing an echo of the fury andthe sorrow. “Can you find a jewel hard enough to hold its cry?”
    “Maybe,” Nyx said softly. Her eyes were wide, luminous; they seemed to look through Meguet. “Maybe one.” Meguet, recognizing that expression, felt herself grow very still; she seemed to pick out of