Sunlight and Shadow (16 page)

“I ran away,” I said.

“Did you, now?” Lapin asked, and all of a sudden his grin spread wide. “Bet that shook up the Lord Sarastro. Your mother will be proud.”

“Oh, Lapin,” I said. And I threw my arms around him. I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see someone
in my entire life. “How is she? Is she all right?”

“She's just fine,” Lapin answered “It's you we need to be worried about. Come quickly now, Mina. I promised Tern we'd meet him over by those rocks.”

“Tern is the one who plays the flute?” I asked as I let Lapin hurry me along.

“That's right.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

Lapin shook his head. “That is a question he can best answer for himself. Though he is a prince. I can tell you that much.”

“A prince who plays the flute,” I said, “rather than use his sword. This fellow may be worth a look.”

“You're about to get your chance,” Lapin said. “Here he comes.”

I turned and saw a young man approaching. His clothing was travel-stained. His hair, the color of warm summer earth. And his eyes …

“I think we should be safe now,” he said. “Mother and child have been reunited.”

I watched as Lapin handed him back his sword.

“Lapin says you are a prince and that your name is Tern,” I said.

“Lapin is correct on both counts.”

“Tern,” I said. “That's a bird's name, isn't it? What did he do, call you with the bells?”

“He did,” Tern answered simply. “But he tells me his heart was full of you when he played them.”

And at that, the waters of my heart became as
clear as moonlight on a calm lake, and I discovered what it was that the flute had added. What my heart held now that it hadn't before.

“You think you love me,” I said, and watched his eyebrows shoot straight up.

“I don't just think it. I know I do,” answered Prince Tern, as fearlessly as any dragonslayer ever faced down his adversary. And now he looked me full in the face, his strange eyes meeting the strangeness of mine.

“Will you love me, do you think?” he inquired.

“I might,” I replied honestly. “In the meantime, I can tell you this much, though.”

“What's that?” he asked.

“I love the color of your eyes.”

At this, he smiled. “What color do you see?” he asked.

“One that has no one name,” I replied. “For it is comprised of too many things to be called by only one. Your eyes hold all the colors in the world, I think.”

“And yours, of the heavens.”

“Oh, for pity's sake!” Lapin exclaimed.” Why don't you just give each other a kiss and be done with it? I'm not sure how much longer I can stand this soulful carrying-on. I'll just leave you alone for a while, shall I?”

And so he did.

A thing which, in the end, turned out to be just as well.

Partings

That's right. I did it. I left them alone.

A thing you may wonder at, though, in all honesty, I think the wonder is that I didn't even think twice about it, at the time.

If you could have seen them together. Seen the way they looked into each other's eyes. I imagine that great explorers have this same look, upon finally sighting the new land for which they've spent their whole lives searching. A look of discovery and recognition, all at once. It seemed to me that I could almost hear their hearts change rhythm, striving to find the way to beat as one.

You've heard the saying, Two's company, three's a crowd? Of course you have. But I'll bet you didn't know I was the one who coined it. Well, I did. And this was the moment of its inception. The moment Mina and Tern first beheld one another.

It's not as if I went very far, though it may have been farther than I intended. The truth is, I wasn't paying all that much attention to where I was going. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself. A thing I am naturally somewhat embarrassed to admit, but which
I must, for, without this confession, what happened next makes no sense at all.

When will I find love? I thought. Surely, my time had come. I was older than the Lady Mina by almost eight years. Not only that, I had been playing the bells, trying to get the music of my heart right, almost literally from the day I was born. Fond as I was of them, one would think, by the law of averages alone, that I would have called to me something other than just another bird by now.

And so I have, I thought. I called to Tern.

A thing completely unique in the history of the bells. But, nevertheless, a thing that had ended up being much more important to the Lady Mina's heart than it was to mine.

It was at this point that I stopped my aimless walking and sat down with my back against the nearest tree. Above me loomed a rocky overhang. I took the bells and the hammer from the pack upon my back, settled the bells upon my knee, and cleared my mind. Then, I simply began to play, with no other desire than to hear the sound the bells made, to bring some consolation to my sore and lonesome heart.

I'd like to be able to tell you that the tune I played was sprightly and hopeful. But it was not. Instead, it was the most melancholy set of notes that I had ever brought forth. Filled not with hope, but with fear, and the fear was this: that the future would simply be
a continuation of the present. That it would hold no more than the past had held.

You should be ashamed of yourself, Lapin! one part of my mind said. But the other part had a ready answer: No. Let your melancholy have its voice, for despair is just as true a thing as that which is its opposite.

And, through the conflict in my own mind, I came to realize a thing I never had before. Always before when I had played the bells, my mind had played an active part. Thinking of the future. Commanding my hands to sound out every hope my mind might conjure. Wondering what the next moment would bring. Would it be another bird, or might this be the song which would, at long last, summon my true love?

But now, abruptly, the battle of my wits had ended in a draw. And so my mind fell silent and withdrew from the fray, leaving behind the thing I should have been listening to all along, of course. To say nothing of playing it.

The music of my heart.

And if, in this moment, both my heart and the music I played were full of despair, what of it? It was the truth, just as true as the love for Mina which had filled my heart when I had played the bells and called to Tern. And so I played of my weariness of summoning birds no matter how beautiful they were, and the pain and pleasure it brought me to be able to call another's true love forth but not my own.

I cannot tell you how long I played. I don't think the heart keeps time the same way the mind does. But, at last, my hands slowed and then grew still, for my heart was still a heart and not a bottomless well. I lifted the hammer above the bells and let it hover there, as if deciding whether or not to play just one more note. And, in that moment, I heard a rustle from the overhanging rock above my head.

I wonder what kind of bird it is this time, I thought.

I looked up. The face of a young woman stared back down.

Dark hair swung over her shoulder in a single plait, so long it seemed to me I might have reached up to tug on the end, though she was high above me. She had eyes as green as the boughs of the tree beneath which I still sat. I felt my heart begin to pound like a fist against a stout oak door.

I don't believe it, I thought.

My playing had called to another human being at last. Surely, she could be no other than my own true love.

Slowly, I got to my feet.

Speak to me, I thought.

And, as if she'd heard me, the young woman's lips parted and she spoke thus:

“Have you lost your mind?”

He stared up at me like the imbecile I was pretty sure he had to be.

“What?”

“It was a simple enough question,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. A difficult thing to do when you're calling across even the short distance which separated us.

“Have you lost your mind?” I asked once more. “Don't you know the woods are filled with the Lord Sarastro's soldiers? Do you want them to know where you are?”

“Of course not,” he answered automatically. Then I watched as his face paled. “Mercy upon us,” he exclaimed, and he spun around. “Mina and Tern.”

“You know where Mina is?” I asked. “Where?”

“Not far,” he answered as he quickly put away his set of bells. It was the sound of them that had brought me to him in the first place, though I'd been going in the opposite direction at the time. I wasn't quite sure what this meant, but I was quite sure I didn't have the time to think about it now.

“You have to get her out of here,” I said.

“I intend to,” he said. “Just as soon as you stop talking.”

“There's no need to get nasty about it,” I said. “Wait a minute and I'll come with you.”

I eyed the distance from the edge of the rock to the tree under which he stood, gathered up my skirts, then jumped. I heard his startled exclamation from below as I embraced an armful of pine needles and rough tree bark. Heedless of what it might be doing
to the fine garments I still had on, I clambered down.

“What?” I said when I reached the bottom. He was staring at me as if I'd grown a second head. “You never saw a girl climb a tree before?”

“Of course I have,” he answered back. “I've just never seen one fly through the air to do it until now. Are you finished playing twenty questions? If so, I suggest we get a move on.”

“I'm not the one who was making enough racket to bring the soldiers in the first place, you know,” I couldn't help but remark.

“For your information—,” he began. But he never finished, for, at that moment, several things happened all at once, and all of them enough to chill the blood.

I heard a man's voice cry out, followed by a quick and vicious clash of arms. A woman's voice, raised sharply in fear. And then, a voice I knew too well.

“Do not harm her, by the Lord Sarastro's command.”

Statos, I thought.

“Harm him, and you harm me, too,” I heard the Lady Mina say. But I had no time to wonder at the words, for the bell player beside me was starting forward.

“No!” I hissed as I caught him by the arm, I pulled back with all my might and still he dragged me halfway across the tiny clearing where we stood.

“No,” I said again, desperate to convince him now.
“Think! Don't just run off. If you go to her aid, they'll catch you, too. Then there will be no one to help her.”

At this, he stopped, though I felt the way his body trembled, like a horse longing to lunge out and race.

“How can I help her?” he asked. “Do you know?”

“I do,” I said. “At least, I think so. Not far from here, there is a grove that is sacred to the magicians of the Lord Sarastro's order. The lord intended his daughter to be married there this morning. Even if that no longer occurs, it is certainly where he will pass his judgment on her.”

“Them,” the one beside me corrected automatically. “Don't forget about Tern.”

“I can't forget about someone I didn't even know was there,” I said.

All of a sudden, his gaze met mine, and I felt that he saw me truly for the very first time.

“You are Gayna,” he said. “The daughter of the Lord Sarastro's forrester.”

“And what if I am?” I asked. “Now suppose you tell me who you are.”

“I am Lapin,” he answered simply. “I serve die Königin der Nacht, the Lady Mina's mother. Do you truly wish to aid her?”

“I do,” I said. “And we've stood around talking about it long enough. Come on. Let's go.”

The Brief Calm Before the Storm