"Then why's it all coming apart?" She tried again to count the fires, but they flickered so much she quickly lost track.

"Galas."

There was that name again. It seemed a name to conjure by. If she breathed it too loudly, would those ten thousand men stand as one? Ten thousand hostile gazes turn on her? The queen was bottled up in that palace down there, and in days or hours they were going to storm its walls and kill her. Megan mouthed the name, but nothing seemed to happen.

"Is it rescue you are planning?" she asked. "What will you do, ride in and ask for her? `Pardon me, coming through, would you hand me the queen, please.'" She smiled.

"Rescue? No, I'm sure she'll die when they take the place."

"Then why are we here?"

"Not so loud."

"Excuse me." She placed a finger over her mouth, and whispered past it, "Why are we here?"

Armiger sighed. "I just want to speak to her."

"Before or after they kill her?"

"They have the palace well surrounded," he said. "Withal, I'm sure I could reach the walls; after all, they're watching for the approach of a large armed force, or for sallies from inside. The trouble is, how to get inside."

"Once you're there?"

He rolled over to look at her. It was too dark to see, but she pictured a puzzled expression on his face. "Why do you want to get into the palace?"

"You are an inconsiderate lout."

"What?"

"You're going to leave me here where the soldiers can find me?"

"Ah." He stared into the sky for a moment. "Perhaps you had better come with me, then."

Megan growled her frustration and stood. She grabbed up her cloak and stalked down the hill. After a moment she heard him following.

Armiger was without a doubt the most insensitive man she had ever known. She tried to forgive him, because he wasn't an ordinary person--but she had always a.s.sumed the Winds were better than people. Armiger, strange morph that he was, was worse much of the time.

Men, after all, were usually wrapped up in their own schemes, and thought about the things that mattered rarely if at all. She was used to having to prod them into remembering the basic duties of life. Armiger, though! On the day she took him in, Megan had taken on a responsibility and burden greater than any woman should have to bear. For it quickly became evident that Armiger was not really a man. He was a spirit, perhaps a Wind, one of the creators of the world.

Many times during the week-long ride here, he had gone from seeming abstracted to being totally oblivious to the world. He had leaned in the saddle, eyes blank, slack-jawed. This sort of thing terrified her. He forgot to eat, forgot to let the horses rest. She had to do his thinking for him.

Megan had come to understand that Armiger needed his body as an anchor. Without it, his soul would drift away into some abstraction of rage. She had to remind him of it constantly, be his nurse, cook, mother, and concubine. When he rediscovered himself--literally coming to his senses--he displayed tremendous pa.s.sion and knowledge, uncanny perception and even, yes, sensitivity. He was a wonderful lover, the act never became routine for him. And he was grateful to her for her devotion.

But, oh, the work she had to do to get to that point! It was almost too much to bear.

She had thrown her lot in with him, and this was still infinitely better than the loneliness of rural widowhood she had left. Fuming about him was an improvement over brooding about herself or the past. He was coming to appreciate her, and the vast walls of his self-possession were starting to crumble. She was proud that she was making the difference to him.

Surprisingly, she felt jealous of this queen, as if the great lady might steal her mysterious soldier. Well; anyone could be stolen, and as likely by a peasant as a princess. She found herself frowning, and resolutely pushed the thought away.

She reached the horses and murmured rea.s.surances to them. They had lit no fire tonight, and the darkness was unsettling. Megan was used to the presence of trees, but they had seen the last of the forest days ago. She felt naked amongst all this yellow, damp gra.s.s.

She heard him coming up behind her, and smiled as she turned. Armiger was black moving on black, his head an absence of stars.

"We need help from inside. We have to get a message to the queen," he said.

Megan crossed her arms skeptically. She knew he could see her. She just looked at him, saying nothing.

"There is a way," he said. "It will weaken me."

"What do you mean?" She reached quickly to touch his arm.

"I can send a messenger," he said. "It will take some of my... life force, if you will, with it. With luck, we can recover that later. If not, I will take some time to heal."

"So my careful nursing is being thrown out with the dish water? I don't understand! Why is this so important? What can she give you that matters? She's doomed, and her kingdom too."

He stepped into her embrace, and smoothed his hands down her back awkwardly. Armiger was still not very good at rea.s.surance.

"She is the only human being on Ventus who has some inkling of what the Winds really are," he said. "She has spent her reign defying them, and I believe she has asked questions, and received answers, that no one else has thought of. She may have the key to what I am seeking."

"Which is?"

He didn't answer, which was no less than she had expected. Armiger had some purpose beyond any he had told her about. For some reason he didn't trust her with it, which hurt. If it were something that would take him away from her, she should worry, but Megan was sure that as long as he could hold her, his other purposes mattered little. She closed her eyes and clung to him tightly for a while.

"What do you have to do?" she asked when she finally let go.

"Will you keep watch for me? This will take all my concentration."

"All right."

He sat down and vanished in the shadow.

"I can't see. How can I keep watch?"

He didn't answer.

For a while Megan moved about, fighting her own exhaustion and worrying about what he was up to. She stood and stared up the stars for a long time, remembering how she had done that as a child. The constellations had names, she knew, and everyone knew the obvious ones: the plowman, the spear. Others she was not so sure of. Her brother would know, but she had not seen him in years; he had never left their parents' village, and lived there still with his unfriendly wife and four demanding, incurious children.

How strange to be here. She repressed an urge to skip and laugh at the strange turns life took. The day when she found Armiger half-dead on the path near her cottage had started just like any other. Before she knew it, she was nurse to a wounded, emaciated soldier, listening to him rave in the night about the Winds and G.o.ds... and three days later she awoke in awe to the fact that he was so much more than a soldier, more than a man.

And he had let her come with him. They were, at least for now, a couple. It was as though she were suddenly living someone else's life. She shook her head in wonder.

A gleam of red in one of the horse's eyes brought her attention back to ground level. At first she thought Armiger had lit a fire, but the glow was too small and faint for that. She went over to him and crouched down.

Armiger sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. His hands were cupped together in front of him, and the glow came from between his fingers.

Seeing this, Megan stood and backed away. "Don't", she whispered. "Please. You're still too weak."

He made no move. The glow intensified, and then slowly faded away. When it was completely gone, he stood up, hands still cupped. Then in a quick motion he flung his arms up and wide, and brought them down again loosely. His shoulders slumped.

"There," he said. "Now we wait."

"What have you done?" She took one of his hands. The skin felt hot, and there were long bloodless cuts in his palms.

"I have called the queen," said Armiger. "Now we will see if she answers."

15.

Galas waited in her garden. It was a cool night, the air laden with water after evening thunderstorms. Their clouds still mounted up one horizon, giant wings lit by occasional flickers of lightning. The rest of the sky was clear, and stars were thrown across it in random swatches. The moon had not yet risen, but the night flowers were opening all around her, giant purple and blue mouths appearing from dense hedges that ringed deep pools. The garden was made around its pools, each one isolated by some artifice of growth so that it seemed a world unto itself, and a thousand years of tradition had dictated as many rules for its seeming disarray as the Queen had for her court.

She had decided to pause beside a long rectangular pool. Diadem, the moon, would rise directly above this pool tonight; that was what this pool was for, to catch the rays of its light on this and the following two nights of the year, to prove that harvest time was over. Throughout the rest of the year it was tended carefully by men and women whose lives were dedicated to the garden, but who would never see this nocturnal vision. All the night flowers would bow to Diadem, all transformed at the critical moment into a magical court, the queen herself its centerpiece. She loved this pool, and this garden, as few other places in her land.

She pulled her shift around her and delicately sat on the stone bench that was hers and hers alone to sit upon. Her maids had woven diamonds into her pale hair, in antic.i.p.ation of the lunar light; her shift was purest white, belted with onyx squares, and she carried in her right hand her short staff of office, carved of green jade.

Queen Galas smiled at the placid water. Total silence blanketed the garden. She knew quite well that Lavin was encamped within sight of the garden walls, but he was forbidden to attack on this and the next two nights by ancient custom more strict than law. It was the Autumn Affirmation and war was forbidden for its duration. It was a fine irony, she thought, that she should have this time to prepare for his coming. She smiled at the pool's beauty. Aware as she was that death and ruin lay in wait outside her gates, she marveled that such peace should maintain itself within.

"Flowers will grow on your grave too," she said to herself. "The moon also smiles on slaves and cripples."

The smile broke, and she lowered her eyes.

For a long time she sat like that. When she looked up again, Diadem was fully visible, like a brilliant jewel held aloft by the arms of carefully tended trees. Its reflection came slowly down the water towards her, lighting up the curves of bole and stem and creating that lovely illusion of animation that happened only once every year. She had missed the beginning of the event. She frowned a chastis.e.m.e.nt to herself and sat up straighter.

But a flaw had appeared in the full whiteness of the moon. She stood up quickly, as it resolved into a giant black night moth, two hand-spans across, of the sort that inhabited the mountains many days east of the palace. It dropped from the moon and fluttered across the surface of the pool, directly to Queen Galas. It paused in the air before her.

She sat down. "What do you want, little one?"

It dipped down, then up, and then appearing to gather its courage, landed on her knee. She had never feared insects, and sat admiring it, trying to pretend it was some sort of omen. That was no good, though--she was well past the stage where omens could tell her anything she didn't know. Lavin was coming; nothing would change that.

The moth beat its wings, but didn't rise. Suddenly it seemed to sprout another pair of wings, and then it gave one flap and... unfolded.

She blinked at the single sheet of paper that now lay on her lap.

Galas' fingers trembled as she reached to touch it. The sheet was square, smooth and dry, and slightly warm. Writing was faintly visible on it.

The skin of her neck crawled. She had never seen anything like this, never heard of such an occurrence. The morphs could change animals, she knew, but they didn't understand writing. Could this be a message from some new Wind, whom she had never met? Or had the desals, the Winds who had helped her take the throne, decided to intervene again in her life?

She picked up the letter by one corner, and turned it to the moonlight. She read.

May I humbly beseech Queen Galas, wife of this world, to grant an audience to a traveller? For I have not rested on green earth since before the ancient stones of your palace were laid, nor have I spoken to a kindred soul since before your language, oh Queen, was born.

I came as a falling star down your sky, and now feel again what it is to breathe. I would speak to one such as myself, whose eyes encompa.s.s this whole world, for I am lonely and own a question even the heavens cannot answer.

Signed: Maut.

Below this was another line of text. She read it and shook her head in wonder. Here were clear instructions as to how she could meet this being who had written her. Meet him or her tonight.

Galas looked up, wondering if she would catch sight of a trail of light across the skies. She looked at the paper in her hand. Of course I will speak with you.

She restrained an urge to leap from the bench and race inside. Who could she tell? Her heart was thudding and she was suddenly lightheaded. She buried her face in her hands for a moment. She breathed faint rain-scent from the paper she still held.

Galas commanded herself to become calm. She turned her attention back to the pool. All along its edge now waited handsome and graceful courtiers, fair and clothed in dewdrops and ivy. The garden's plants were cultivated just so they would appear this way for a few moments on this night. Ever since she was a girl, she had marveled at the human ingenuity that could create such art, and in the past the sight had served to strengthen her resolve to cultivate her land as though it too were a garden.

The shadowy figures all faced towards the rising moon, and the pool appeared like a flow of gla.s.s between them, a mirrored way down which Diadem's reflection moved to meet her.

This contemplation was uplifting, but sad this time. She imagined the faces of her real courtiers on these ephemeral shapes, and fancied herself the reflection of the moon. All brief, a mere shadow play soon to be ended by the blades and guns of the insolent general waiting outside. One shadow overtaking another.

Fear surged in her, and she closed her eyes. Stop, she told herself. I am not the reflection. "I am Diadem herself. All things take their light from me." Even the general who comes to kill me.

She looked down at the paper, and laughed a little giddily.

Then she stood to go inside.

The room where she chose to wait was really an old air shaft constructed to cool the Hart Manor, which was the center of the palace. Originally several other floors had openings onto the shaft, but some paranoid ancestor had walled them off. Galas had discovered the place as a girl, but it had gained new, symbolic significance for her after the desals placed her on the throne.

She came here sometimes to pace the three-by-three meter square floor, or scrawl insults on the walls, or scream at the clouds framed by tan brickwork far overhead. She had torn her clothes here, and wept, and done all manner of unmentionable things. Now she lay on her back, and stared at the stars.

Her visitor should be approaching the walls now. Its instructions had been simple: let down a rope at the centerpoint of the southern battlement, and be ready to pull. She had wanted to meet it there herself, and even now her hands pressed against the cool stone underneath her, eager to push her to her feet. But whatever happened she must not blunder out like a gauche ingenue. If this was a Wind coming to see her, she must meet it as an equal. She would wait.

But she wasn't dressed for this! With a groan she stood and left the shaft. One of her maids curtsied outside. Galas waved at her. "Our black gown. The velvet one. Be prompt!" The girl curtsied again and raced away.

Galas entered the shaft again and closed the stout door she'd had made for it. "Why now?" she said.

She kicked the door with her heel. "I'm almost dead! A day, two days." Crossing her arms, she walked around the room. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! You strung me up, after putting me here in the first place!"

Well, it's not like I haven't done everything in my power to disobey the Winds, she reminded herself.

She'd been wracked with tension for weeks now; so had everyone here. Her courtiers and servants were true Iapysians, and had no idea how to discharge such emotions. Galas showed them by example: she laughed, she cried, she paced and shouted, and whenever it came time to make a decision, she was cool and acted correctly.

But it was all too late. Lavin had come to kill her--of all people, why him? She had loved him! They might have been married, had not an entire maze of watchful courtiers and ancient protocols stood between them. She wondered, not for the first time, if this was his way of finally possessing her. She grimaced at the irony.

"Come on, come on." She hurried back to the door. Ah, here came the maids, bearing gown and jewel box.

"Come in here." They hesitated; no one but her ever entered this place. She was sure all manner of legends had grown up about it. "Come! There's nothing will bite you here."

The three women crowded in with her. "Dress me!" She held her arms out. They fell to their task, but their eyes kept moving, trying to make sense of what they saw. Galas sometimes spent whole nights in this place. She often emerged with new ideas or solid decisions in hand. The queen knew, from faint scratches around the hinges of the door, that at least one person had given in to curiosity and broken in. She imagined they had reacted much as these women to discover there was nothing here--no secret stairway, no magic books, not even a chair or a candle. Only a little dirt in the corners, and the sky for a ceiling.

They had wondered about Galas her whole life. Let them wonder a little more.

"Has the guest suite been prepared?" she asked.