Mallara and Burn: On the Road (3 page)

*So happy!* it said, its skeletal hand cool
and firm in Mallara's. And then, *I give you this gift.*

And there was music. Music that swelled and
roared and whispered, music that was at once sad and triumphant and
all things between. It filled Mallara, lifting her, sending her
hand-in-hand with the Winter King higher and farther into the
star-strewn heavens.

"Mistress!" shouted Burn, and the music fell
away, and the Winter King turned toward the new voice.

"Where are you?"

Mallara laughed. She looked down, upon the
Round, and there was Burn, twisting and spinning, bobbing and
floating like a leaf in a whirlwind.

Burn soared up toward the sound of her
laughter, and the Winter King gently lowered Mallara to the
ground.

"It's all right, Burn," said Mallara, as the
shimmer's blurry form rose up in the moonlight."He won't hurt
us."

* Welcome, welcome,* said the Winter King.
His three-sided pumpkin eyes shone bright and fixed themselves upon
Burn's blurred form.*New friend!*

Burn hung himself close by Mallara's right
side."Charmed, I'm sure," he said. Then he whispered to
Mallara."Interesting place for a dance," he said."Fashionably
astral. Aren't you going to introduce me to your partner?"

Mallara sighed. The stars, which had seemed
so near a moment ago, were high cold and far away. She stood again
in the empty space between the stones, and as she stood she
wondered if the stones had somehow grown taller, or shuffled
nearer.

Mallara spoke a Word, and raised her free
hand, and the Piper's music dwindled and died.

The Winter King went still. Mallara watched,
another Word at ready, but the sky and the stars and the stones
remained clear and solid.

Burn made a small buzz."We're not dancing,"
he said, in a whisper."And yet we're still here, wherever that may
be."

As Burn spoke, a shimmering spread across the
sky, and the fainter of the stars began to wink out, one by
one.

"The Word won't hold for long," said Mallara.
She met the Winter King's patient gaze, held out her hand to
him."Dancing or not, this place wasn't meant for us. Any of
us."

Bony fingers clasped hers, and a single faint
note of piping rose up.

"No," said Mallara, gently."Now is the time
for talk."

*Talk,* said the Winter King, as if the word
were new to him, or nearly forgotten. *Talk.*

Burn placed himself just within Mallara's
right ear.

"Mistress," he said, so faint she could
barely hear,"What in Finagle's name are you doing?"

"I know you," she said, ignoring Burn."Winter
King." The pumpkin-grin grew wider at his name."Oh yes," said
Mallara."That is your name. But can you think back? Can you find a
place in time before this place? Before these stones, before this
sky? Can you go back to a place before you wore this body?"

The Winter King cocked his head, and though
he did not reply Mallara knew the answer.

No. Mallara shook her head."Then it's too
late," she said.

Burn buzzed."Too late?" he said."Too late for
what?"

"Too late to free him," replied Mallara. She
squeezed the Winter King's fleshless hand, looked sadly down at his
footless leg-bones, followed them down into the perfectly flat
ground."He was once a Power, Burn," she said."But then people told
the stories, raised the stones. He came to dance, and they gave him
this shape."

"Making him a form-locked elemental," said
Burn."Isn't the creation of such, um, honored persons at the top of
the Order's list of things to never ever do?" He sailed once about
the King."If he is -- or was -- an elemental, why is he still
here?"

"The people who raised him grew afraid and
sealed the Round," said Mallara. She could almost hear the
whispered voices, from so long ago -- he walks beyond the Ring,
they said. He comes and goes and who knows where?

"So he's not really the Winter King," said
Burn."Begging your pardon, Your Pumpkiness," he added, quickly.

"Belief shapes form," said Mallara."He is as
real as you or I. He can't remember anything else. Even if I can
free him, he'll always be the Winter King."

Burn buzzed."Which leaves us with a difficult
choice."

Mallara nodded, once."I'm afraid so."

The brighter stars were flickering now, and
faint in the mirrored planes of the stones Mallara began to see
reflections of the carved, candlelit pumpkins that ringed the other
Round.

Burn hummed in contemplation."Pity," he
said."I really can't picture him as a threat. To anyone. He can't
help the bone motif, which after all he didn't choose."

Mallara balled her fists and mouthed a
swear-word and seethed inside. They raised him up, gave him shape,
made him kind and merry. And then they bound him to a dark place
with twelve old stones for company, knowing that elementals cut off
from the land grow weaker and smaller with time.

The sky above grew darker still, and the
pumpkins peeking out of the glassy stones grew brighter. If he is
truly bound to this awful place, Mallara thought, then dispelling
the Round will almost certainly unmake the King.

Dispelling the Round. No sooner had Mallara
thought it, than a deeper darkness began to gather between the
stones. She could hear, at the edge of her perception, an angry
round of dry whispers pass to and fro amid the stones. Who comes
among us?, it said. And, Who dares dispel us?

"Oh, Mistress," sang Burn."Our tall stiff
friends are awake. I do not believe they're planning you a welcome
brunch."

Mallara straightened. She pushed aside her
anger, bottled it up within her, forced herself to smile and meet
the Winter King's flickering eyes.

"You do not belong here," she said."You've
been tricked. These stones bind you to this place, keep others out.
Do you understand that?"

*No one comes now,* said the King, and the
light in his eyes dimmed. *No one comes but you.*

Mallara sang a Word, and her staff -- her
black iron shod staff, not her smaller wooden traveling staff --
fell from the air and into her hand.

"Mistress," said Burn."Whatever you're doing
is best done quickly."

"I am leaving," said Mallara. She let go of
the Winter King's hand."And now you must decide. Stay, and dance
alone until you are diminished. Or go with me, and risk
unmaking."

The pumpkin-head was still. Again, the
Piper's piping rose up, and Mallara stilled it with another stern
Word.

Mallara felt a prickling run up her neck.
See, hear! came the whispers. Hear what she speaks! See what she
does!

"Mistress," said Burn, from close behind
her."Hurry. They're up to something."

Mallara gripped her staff, which grew warm in
her hand."I can try to free you from this place," she said, to the
King."But you must know that if I fail, you will be no more. You
will die. Do you understand that?"

*I . . . understand,* said the King. He shook
his head, as if to clear it, and Meralda hoped the absence of the
Piper's playing would allow the King to think clearly once
again.

"Then you need to also understand that the
stones are awake, sir," said Burn."It's a simple choice," he
added."Stay and dance until you dwindle away, or take a chance that
the Sorceress can free you from the binding. Wait much longer and
the rocks will decide for you." Burn buzzed down close to the
Winter King's bony face."Look, Your Vegetableness, just ask her to
free you and let's all go home."

The Winter King considered. Mallara gripped
her staff, and ignored the powerful sensation that something -- a
tall old stone, for instance -- was creeping up slowly behind
her.

The light in the Winter King's eyes dimmed.
He shrank, perhaps a hand's breadth, and the bony frame stooped and
sagged.

*How long?* he said, and his voice was thin
and weary.

"I don't know," said Mallara."A thousand
years? More? I cannot say."

*A thousand turnings of the sun,* he said,
eyes downcast. *So long. None will remember.*

"Untrue," said Burn, before Mallara could
speak."Half the kids in the Five Valleys still put out hats for you
to fill," he said."And the Sorceress here was bemoaning your
absence just before she sneaked past the stones. You've never been
forgotten," he added."But -- Council of Mages be hung -- you have
been missed."

The King straightened, and his eyes flared.
*The small ones remember?* he said, and his voice boomed throughout
the Round. *They wait? Wait for me?*

"You bet," said Burn."It's Ollow's Eve beyond
the stones now, and who's going to spread all that cheer if you
stay here and dance for the rocks?"

*I will go,* said the King, sharp eyes
ablaze. *Take me with you!*

The Piper's music rose up, strident and
shrill, breaking Mallara's Words and drowning out her voice when
she tried to speak another. The Winter King reached out to her, but
before his hand met hers he spun away with a wail and fell again
into his twirling, footless dance.

Mallara, too, felt the pull of the music.
Dance for but a time, it said, and the sky above became the
tile-worked ceiling of the Imperial gala at Vo Sinte, and the
twelve old stones marble pillars hung with garlands of red roses
and trails of white lace. Dance for but a time, lady -- how can one
not dance, to such beautiful music?

"Mistress!" shouted Burn, from within
Mallara's left ear.

"I'm fine," muttered Mallara. She gritted her
teeth and stood still, her boots firmly planted, her black staff
gripped tight. The music beat against her like a driving wind for a
time, and then the bright ceiling and the soaring pillars faded,
until they were touched here and there with stars and angry
pumpkin-faces.

Mallara swallowed. Such music, she thought.
So sad, so sweet. How long has it been since I danced?

Burn darted close to her right ear, began to
bellow out a risqué Eryan tavern-ditty. "I saw the lass a
bathing'," he shouted, and the Piper's music fell away. "And my
heart began to pound --"

"Thank you, Burn," she said, letting out her
breath in a whoosh. "No more, please."

"I wasn't to the good part yet," replied
Burn, but he fell silent.

Sweat broke out on her forehead despite the
chill in the air, as she realized how close she had come to taking
that first, fatal step of the Round's long dance."You'll have to do
much better than that," she said, pushing back her hair. "Much
better."

Oh, we will, whispered the stones. We have
the King, they said. We shall have you as well, have you to dance
until your flesh falls away and your bones are ground to dust among
us.

Mallara spoke a Word. Her staff muttered
assent, and the Piper's music faded from about her, though the
Winter King still danced and leaped.

You shall dance for us, said the stones. We
shall find your music, and you shall dance.

The piping changed, sounded of strings and
horns, became a melody that rose and swelled and sent a shiver down
Mallara's spine.

Better, said the stones.

Louder, they said.

Mallara shook her head and raised her staff.
She forced the music away, concentrated instead on the chill in the
still air and the warm heft of the black staff in her hands.

"I didn't come here to dance," she said.
"Release the King. I will not ask again."

Mallara spoke a soft Word. The runes which
crawled and writhed about the staff halted, hastily re-arranged
themselves into three very long Words, and began to turn rapidly
about the shaft.

See what she does! said the stones. How dare
she!

Dance! they cried.

"No," said Mallara, and the lilting music
fell silent."I will not dance for you. Nor shall he."

We know best! shouted the stones. We will
have you!

Meddler!

Intruder!

Fool woman!

Mallara smiled and brought her staff down,
hard and fast. There was a brief light, and a rush of air, and a
sound like distant thunder. And then the Words on the staff
scattered, and the runes fell still, and the sky went black and
empty. Mallara's boots sank suddenly into the mud. Steam billowed,
whipped thick about her, and in an instant the air was white with
new fog. White, and heavy with the stench of seared mud, scorched
rock, and the sharper odor of flash-burnt pumpkins.

"Ouch," squeaked Burn, from Mallara's
shoulder.

Water sizzled and boiled in the dark,
sputtering and hissing as if it had been poured in a dozen red-hot
skillets -- or twelve hot slabs of stone.

Burn expanded his volume of blurred air and
flew a circuit about the ruined Round.

"Nothing here, Mistress," he said. He left
the fallen stones and circled Mallara, his passage leaving brief
tunnels in the fog."What of the King?"

Mallara peered through the mist, saw nothing,
felt a sinking in her heart. She spoke a soft word to her staff and
sent a handful of tangle-spells twirling up into the settling fog,
sent another handful up when the first three returned and spoke of
stones and pumpkin-shells.

Then the last tangle returned, and whispered
to her, and Mallara sagged. "Thank you," she said, and the light
was gone from her hand.

Weariness settled upon her like a cape and
hood of lead."He's gone, Burn," she said. She recalled the cold
smooth touch of his hands, the merry light in his wide, toothy
grin."I killed the Winter King."

Burn settled in the air before her."No,
Mistress," he said."Some lot of ignorant hedge-wizards did that, a
long time before your grandmother's grandmother was born," he
said."You tried to save him."

Burn's voice rose suddenly in pitch until it
was inaudible, and his hole in the fog wobbled and spun.

"Behind you!" he squeaked, and then he flew
over her shoulder.