Patricia A. McKillip - Cygnet 01 by The Sorceress;the Cygnet

Author:The Sorceress;the Cygnet
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-05-28T10:30:03+00:00

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CHAPTER 4

You burned a tinker in the thousand-year-old wood?” the Holder said incredulously. Half the household had stood in windows and doorways, on the parapet wall between the back towers, watching the silver smoke rising out of the trees. Household guard, riding out to investigate, had found Meguet and Rush emerging from the trees, grim, silent, exhausted from the twisting paths of the disturbed and dreaming trees. The Holder, the guard told them, would see them immediately.

“He was not a tinker,” Meguet said abruptly, breaking a silence that had lasted from the wood to Chrysom’s library, where the Holder and Calyx had been watching the oddly glittering smoke. “And he is not dead.”

Rush stared at her. “He’s dead. Whatever he is. I burned his house with him in it—”

“Why?” the Holder asked sharply. “What had he done? In Moro’s name, why did you set fire to a tinker?”

He closed his eyes. “I did not intend to. I was trying to circle his house with fire. Not burn it down.”

“Then why—”

“I missed.”

“Oh, Rush,” Calyx breathed, hands over her mouth. “You never could do that right.”

“He’s not dead,” Meguet said wearily. She began to tremble suddenly; methodically, she tried to unbuckle the sword belt dragging at her side so she could sit. Her hands shook; the buckle would not loosen. Calyx’s hands moved under hers, flicked it open; she sat down finally, the sword across her knees. The Holder touched a pin in her hair, frowning down at Meguet, then swung back at Rush.

“Why?”

“He was threatening Meguet.”

“A tinker?”

“She had drawn her sword against him.”

“So Meguet was threatening the tinker. And you set him on fire. I gather this was no ordinary tinker. Meguet, why did you take up arms against a tinker?”

“He isn’t a tinker.”

“Wasn’t,” Rush murmured.

“He isn’t dead.” She heard him gather breath; she leaned forward in the chair, gripping its arms, gazing at him. “The yellow star its lintel, the yellow star its roof, the four stars of red and pale marking its black walls, the blue star marking its door latch. That’s the house you burned, Rush.”

In the silence, the Holder pulled at a pearl hairpin. The pin came out; a strand fell. “That’s a Hold Sign,” she said harshly. “Meguet.”

“Yes.” She met the Holder’s eyes. She was still trembling; the jewels in Moro’s sword and the sword belt shivered with light. “And the dark house that falls from the sky, in the Wayfolk man’s tale.”

The Holder stared at her, her face waxen against her dark, scattered hair.

“What Wayfolk man?” Rush demanded, and the Holder turned, looking, in the cast of firelight, fierce, dishevelled, oddly like Nyx. Rush swallowed. He said again, more quietly, “What Wayfolk man?”

“A man with Nyx. Meguet saw him.”

Rush’s face whitened. Meguet found herself on her feet again, speaking as calmly as she could. “A young man wanting a spell from Nyx. He spoke of a little dark house falling out of the sky—”

“That’s a song,” Calyx said wonderingly. “The house you never leave.

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