Sunlight and Shadow (13 page)

Pull yourself together, Tern, I thought. You are a prince, after all

“Madam,” I answered, wishing I could say something other than what I was about to. “I regret that I do not. Though please don't take it personally. I seem to be saying, 'I don't know,' an awful lot all of a sudden. Though it might help things if I could see your face.”

I watched her turn her head in Lapin's direction, the movement as eloquent as if she'd spoken aloud.

Is this the best that you could do? it asked.

“He said his name was Tern,” Lapin offered mildly.

“Did he, indeed?” the woman said, and her head turned back toward me. “Perhaps this will help,” she
said. And she pushed back the hood of her cloak.

For the span of my swiftly indrawn breath, the world grew still. A great darkness reached out to cover the sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. And, in that moment, I released my breath, for I thought I knew. She pulled the hood back over her face and the sun shone out once more.

“Well?”

“There are tales in my land,” I said, “told mostly to lull children to sleep. Tales of a great queen who watches over the night. She is complicated, the tales say. Like the night, she is many different things at once. Some say she has a voice of silk. Others, that she has a will of iron. But all agree on one thing: Her beauty has no equal.”

“Just one,” answered the Queen of the Night. “My daughter. Will you look upon her likeness?”

“If it pleases you,” I said.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Lapin suddenly exclaimed. “I didn't play the bells until my fingers bled just so the two of you could sound like you're in the middle of a court audience. We haven't got a lot of time here, in case you've forgotten. Can't you just tell him what needs to be done and get on with it? Some of us haven't had much rest and are tired.”

I half expected her to strike him dead for his impertinence right on the spot, always assuming she actually had the power to do so. Instead the Queen of the Night simply smiled.

“You'll have to forgive Lapin,” she said calmly.” He can be annoying, especially when he's right and he knows it.”

“There's something you need me to do?” I asked. Perhaps all of this was about to make sense.

“Why did you come here, young Tern?” she asked by way of a reply.

“Because I had to,” I said simply. “The bells didn't give me any choice.”

“Bells,” said the Queen of the Night.

I nodded. “I heard bells,” I said. “And it seemed to me that they called to me. More than that, their call was a summons.”

“And so you answered it, just like that?”

“Not precisely,” I acknowledged. “I don't know how things are where you live, Lady, but, where I come from, knowing your heart and what it holds is considered pretty important.”

The Queen of the Night took another step toward me, so close that, if I had dared, I could have reached out and touched her.

“Did the call of the bells match what is in your heart, young Tern?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. “Not precisely. But it was as close as anything has ever come. Too close a match to be ignored, even if I had wanted to. And so I came. It's as simple as that. What does it mean? Do you know?”

“I do,” said the Queen of the Night. “But answer
me just one more question first. What color are your eyes?”

It would have to be that, I thought.

“That is a question not even my mother can answer, not to her own satisfaction, anyway,” I replied. “For I am told that my eyes change color according to the light.

“In the morning, they are golden. At midday, green. By late afternoon, they have mellowed to fawn brown. My brother, Arthur, insists that they turn gray as a pewter plate at twilight, then silver when the first stars appear in the sky. At full night, things are easier for all concerned, for, at a certain point, I simply close my eyes. My father calls them hazel, and says we should simply leave it at that.

“My hair is just plain brown,” I added after a brief pause.

The Queen of the Night smiled. “There is nothing plain about you, young Tern,” she said. She looked over her shoulder at Lapin. “Let your heart rejoice, for you have done well.”

At this, Lapin got to his feet and swept her a tired bow, a thing that made the birds around him eddy like leaves in a gentle wind.

“My heart can never truly rejoice until the Lady Mina's does.”

“Well spoken,” the Queen of the Night said, and she turned back to me. “Come walk with me, Tern, and I will tell you what you need to know.”

“I have a daughter,” the Queen of the Night said. “Mina, my only child. Last night, she was stolen from me by a mighty sorcerer, the Lord Sarastro, who intends to choose a husband for her. Unfortunately, he's also her father.”

That would be the night of the storm, I thought. The night the world began to change.

“I would have my daughter set free,” the Queen of the Night continued. “But more than that, I wish her to have the freedom to know, and choose, from her own heart. While her father holds her, this can never happen, for he would have her bend her will to his.”

“But—,” I said.

The Queen held up a hand for silence.

“I know what you will say,” she pronounced. “That many a father has chosen a daughter's husband. The fact that this is true has never made it right. But more than this, Mina's father broke an oath when he took her from me. I cannot trust him to do what is right for our daughter.

“Therefore, Mina must be set free, and so I set Lapin to play the bells.”

“Wishing your daughter to be freed from captivity I understand,” I said. “But I don't understand about the bells.”

“The bells have been in Lapin's family since his grandmother's time,” the Queen said. “They were a gift from the powers that watch over the universe. If
struck correctly, they enable the player to summon their true love to their side.”

“I don't think Lapin is my true love,” I said.

“I'm pleased to hear it,” the Queen of the Night answered with a smile. “But I set Lapin a special task, to play the bells in a way they had never been played before. He has known my daughter since she was an infant. It was his hopes for her that he held in his heart when he played the bells, not his hopes for himself. And this was the hope that I held in mine:

“That Lapin's playing would call to the one who could both rescue my daughter and win her heart, for the call of the bells would come so close to the music of his own heart that he could not refuse to answer its summons.”

“Oh,” I said. It was a pretty accurate description of what I'd experienced, I had to admit.

At this, the Queen of the Night gave a laugh as silver as her eyes. “Come,” she said, and she reached inside her cloak and drew out a locket made of silver. “Let me show you my daughter's likeness.”

“It doesn't matter what she looks like,” I said swiftly. “Not if she is the true match of my heart. And even if it turns out that she isn't, she's been wronged and needs to be rescued. I can certainly do that much.”

She paused then, with the hand that held the locket half-extended toward me. “I do believe you are afraid, young Tern.”

“Well, of course I'm afraid,” I said.

“Of what?”

“Of every part of this,” I answered, seeing no reason not to be completely honest. “It's changed my whole life. I'd be foolish not to be afraid, I think. But that doesn't mean I won't do what needs to be done.”

“Perhaps your whole life has been spent in waiting for this moment and you just didn't know it,” the Queen suggested. “In which case, all you are doing is fulfilling your destiny and not changing anything at all.”

“Perhaps,” I acknowledged.

“All right. Let's say you end up rescuing my daughter, but nothing more,” she said. “Not that that wouldn't be quite a lot. It would still be helpful to know what she looks like, don't you think?”

“You'll have to excuse me for being an idiot,” I said. “I think I've been up as long as Lapin has, for, as long as he played, I listened.”

The Queen of the Night threw back her head and laughed once more. Then she sobered, and those eyes like stars looked straight into mine.

“When Mina was taken, I was sure I'd never laugh again. Sure that my own heart was broken. I think you will do very well, young Tern. Now take this, and look upon my daughter.”

I've never really believed in love at first sight, though that could be nothing more than rejecting the notion because it hadn't happened to me, I suppose. And it isn't altogether accurate to say that love at first
sight is what happened to me at that particular moment. Because the truth is, this wasn't my first glimpse of the Lady Mina's face. I had seen it before.

This was the face that my mind had been conjuring, slowly yet surely, ever since I first played the flute that I had carved from the heart of the King's Oak, and heard it answered by a call of bells. Hazy, at first, its features indistinct, growing more and more clear the closer I came to the sound of the bells. Right up until the moment that I had burst into the clearing, at which point the sight of Lapin and all that had happened since had driven the image to the back of my mind.

But not, as it happens, from any portion of my heart. For, at the sight of the face in the locket, my heart gave a great leap, and, after that, all my mind needed was but a small step to understand the cause. It was the Lady Mina's face I had been moving toward, her call I had heard in the voice of the bells. And, as her mother hoped, so, now, did I. That the reason I had been summoned would be because the Lady Mina's heart was the one true match for mine.

“Well?” the Queen of the Night inquired softly. “Will you know my daughter when you see her again?”

“I would know her anywhere,” I said. “For her face is written in my heart.”

At this, she laid her hand upon my arm. “You give my heart hope, young Tern,” she said. “Lapin!”

A moment later, slightly disheveled, as if he had fallen asleep, Lapin appeared in a flurry of birds.

“Did I hear my mistress's voice?”

“There's no need to be cheeky just because you know I'm pleased with you,” said the Queen of the Night. “Besides, there's no time to rest on your laurels. I want you to go with Tern.”

“He's a prince!” Lapin protested. “They're supposed to be good at this sort of thing. He doesn't need my help.”

“He does. Mina knows you, while he is still a stranger. Though not, I hope, for very long.”

Lapin gave a great, exaggerated sigh. “Oh, very well. If I must do everything, then I guess I must.”

He is making it all up, putting on an act, I thought. He wishes to go as much as she wishes to send him.

“I will be glad of your company,” I said, and found that I meant it.

“Oh, well, that settles it then,” Lapin said, but I thought I detected a twinkle in his tired eyes. “It's not every day I get to be a sidekick to a prince.”

“Enough!” said the Queen of the Night. “Let my women tend to your hands, Lapin. Then you and Tern should set out at once.”

“Which way shall we go?” I asked. For, now that I didn't have the call of the bells to guide me, I realized I wasn't quite sure precisely where I was, let alone where the path by which I had arrived had gone.

“Lapin knows the way,” replied the Queen of the Night. “I have done all that I dare. Now it is up to you.”

In Which Many Things Begin to Converge