Sunlight and Shadow (12 page)

“According to the prophecy, when the Lady Mina weds, the very world itself will change,” he said softly now. “And the powers of her parents, of the Night and the Day, will also change. They will at once grow weaker and more strong.”

In spite of myself, I gave a snort. “Just once, I'd like to hear a simple, straightforward prophecy.”

Statos gave a bark of surprised laughter. For a moment, I saw genuine amusement and appreciation light in his cobalt eyes. I felt a clutch inside my chest.

How much easier my life would be if I did not love you! I thought. How much less painful but how much plainer. How much less color there would be in the world.

“Who comes up with such things, anyhow?”

“I don't have the faintest idea,” Statos replied. “The powers that watch over the universe, I assume.”

“And they're interested in the Lady Mina and whom she might marry.”

He nodded, and the smile faded from his eyes.

“It seems that they are. The Lord Sarastro's interest is only natural, of course. He has devoted the Lady Mina's lifetime to finding the true meaning of the prophecy. Since it tells that the world will be altered not by the birth of a daughter but by her marriage, the lord has reasoned that the key lies in finding the right husband for her.

“But he hardly saw her until yesterday,” I protested. “How can he find her the right husband when he doesn't even know her?”

“He does not need to know her,” Statos said, both his tone and his expression betraying his surprise at my agitation over what he considered to be obvious. “In fact, he does not wish to.”

I think my mouth actually dropped open. I loved the Lord Sarastro, and I had trusted him since I was a small child. But there are some things that simply don't make sense.

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said. “Of course he needs to know her. How else can he find the proper husband?”

“By reason,” Statos said simply. “Reason and nothing more. This is why, much as he sometimes mistrusts
her, he gave the raising of Mina over to her mother, the Queen of the Night. The Lord Sarastro feared that, if he raised his daughter himself, if he watched her grow as other father's do …”

“It might be difficult for him to deny her if her choice was different from his own,” I filled in softly.

“That is it, precisely,” answered Statos. “He could not afford to run the risk that he would be swayed by his, or the Lady Minas emotions. More than her happiness is at stake in this. There is the fate of the world itself.”

“To say nothing of the fate of his own power,” I said suddenly, and I think it's fair to say that I surprised us both. This was as close as I had ever come to criticizing the Lord Sarastro. “The prophecy says only that the Lady Minas parents will each grow weaker and stronger upon her marriage. It doesn't say in what proportion.”

Statos nodded, his expression thoughtful. “That is true also. Therefore, the lord reasoned that the best choice for his daughter would be a member of his own order. Someone he knew he could trust absolutely, for he had helped to guide his steps himself.”

“You,” I said. “His favorite, his chosen apprentice. How well everything works out.”

“The Lord Sarastro has a reason for everything he does,” Statos said simply. “It is his way, the way of our order.”

“Why did he choose to raise me, I wonder?”

Then, even as I posed the question, a reason occurred to me. One my mind informed me just might break what was left of my already-battered heart.

“But surely you know the answer to that,” Statos said.

“So that he could know what a young girl was like,” I said, and I thought my own words might suffocate me. “To raise a girl without actually having to raise his own daughter. I am a stand-in. An experiment. A cipher.”

“Of course not,” Statos said at once. He moved to where I stood, turned me to face him, and grasped me by the upper arms. “He honored your parents, especially your father, Gayna. Raising you simply shows his respect.”

I felt a dreadful impulse to laugh and fought it down.

“Respect,” I said, and I looked up into those blue, blue eyes. “Honor. Those are fine words, Statos. But for all they speak of noble things, they come from the mind and not the heart. So tell me, what of love? Does the Lord Sarastro love me? Do you? Can you even love?”

I felt his hands flex, involuntarily, upon my arms.

“Gayna,” he said. “I-it does no good to ask such questions. They can change nothing.”

“My lord!” A brisk knock sounded on the chamber
door. At the sound, Statos started, his grip tightening yet again. “The hour grows late.”

“Merciful heavens!” Statos whispered. “The Lord Sarastro's audience. How can I tell him that his daughter has run away rather than bend her will to his?”

“Let me tell him,” I said, though the very words brought despair to my heart. “It is I who should bear the brunt of his displeasure, not you, for I showed her the way out.”

“No,” Statos said at once. And now, at last, he let me go. “I will tell him. I will do my duty.”

He turned toward the door.

“Just tell me one thing,” I said, and, at the sound of my voice, he stopped, though he did not turn around. “I have no idea what's going to happen next, but I don't imagine it's going to be very pleasant for me. Tell me the truth about this one thing before you go to the Lord Sarastro.”

“What do you want to know?”

More than anything in the world, I wished to close my eyes, so that I might not have to see his reaction. I kept them open.

“Could you have loved me? If there had been no prophecy, if it made no difference whose blood flows in my veins and whose in the Lady Minas, would she still have been your choice? Or might you have made another?”

“Why do you ask me such things?” Statos said,
and his voice was weary. “Have I not already told you they can change nothing?”

“I'm not asking that anything change,” I said. “All I'm asking for is knowledge. You ought to understand that. Knowledge is a thing of the mind. If you had been free to choose, would you still have chosen the Lord Sarastro's daughter?”

“I have always been free to choose, Gayna,” Statos said.

Then he went out, and closed the door quietly behind him.

In Which a new Friendship Is Formed

All that night, I played the bells.

I played until my hands went numb to the wrists, and then the elbows, and, finally, the shoulders. Until calluses formed upon my palms, hardened, and then split open. Until the bright blood trickled slowly down my fingers in a never-ending stream, and the bells themselves were colored red and gold. I played until I was beyond hunger, beyond thirst, beyond pain, but still within the bounds of hope.

Just as dawn was breaking, the birds arrived.

Every single bird I'd ever called to me in the course of my life swooped down in a great wheeling mass just as the sun burst over the horizon. Some settled on the ground at my feet in the clearing where I sat. Others lined the branches of the nearby trees. Still others turned in spirals above my head, making a great exclamation point in the lightening sky.

Yet, in spite of these different actions, all had one thing in common. Save for the beating of their wings, not one bird made a sound, as if knowing in their hearts, as I did in mine, that no other voice should be raised. Nothing must come between the
ears of the wide world and the call of the bells.

Last to come was the nightingale, who settled into her usual position upon my shoulder, though this was hardly her usual time of day to do so. I knew that she was there only by the quick flash of wings I caught out of the corner of my eye. I think my entire body had gone numb by then. The only parts still functioning were my arms, my hands, and my heart.

My mind felt as thin and blank as a sheet of pounded metal. Not that my mind was really all that important at the moment. The mind is a wonder and can accomplish many things. But it cannot accomplish the impossible. That is a thing only the heart can do, though a strong will helps also.

The impossible began to happen shortly before noon. That's when the young man finally showed up, stumbling into the clearing like a drunkard, then pulling up short. Blinking, as if he couldn't quite trust the sight in his own eyes.

At his arrival, every single bird turned to stare. Those on the ground looked up. Those in the trees looked down. Those still in the air ceased to beat their wings, opened them to glide, and craned their necks. As for me, I continued to play the bells. It had taken a long time for anything to show up, it was true. But there was no guarantee the first thing to show up was going to be the right one.

“I'm here,” the young man gasped, and he sounded so out of breath I wondered if he had run the whole
way from wherever it was that he had started out. “I'm sorry it took so long. I'm not too late, am I?”

At his words, the stone hammer slipped from my numb fingers and fell upon the ground, and the bright noonday was filled with silence.

“You are not too late,” I said. “Who are you?”

“I am called Tern,” the young man said. “And I'm a prince, if that's important.”

“Tern,” I echoed, not quite certain I had heard him right.

He made a face. “It's an unusual name, I know. It's a kind of seabird, to tell you the truth. But my younger brother's name is Arthur.”

“How nice for him. I am called Lapin,” I said. It was the first time I'd volunteered my name in as long as I could remember. “You don't have to tell me what it means. I already know.”

“Your name means something too?” the young man asked, his voice surprised. And at this, three separate things happened, all at once.

I threw back my head and laughed.

The birds opened their throats and began to sing.

And, muffled in a cloak to guard against the light of day, die Königin der Nacht arrived.

And new Plans Are formed

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

I felt a wild impulse to laugh and fought it down. It could, quite truthfully, be said I wasn't all that sure I knew anything anymore, though I had managed to find the one who played the bells and produce my own name upon request, both of which I took to be good signs.