One-

Meguet Vervaine stood at the threshold of Chrysom's
black tower, swans flying at her back and shoulder
and wrists, swans soaring out of her hands. She had
stood so for hours. Dressed in black silk with the
Cygnet of Ro Holding spanning silver moons on man-
tle and tunic, she held the ancient broadsword of
Moro Ro, unsheathed, tip to the floor, guarding
against stray goose and cottage child's ball and wan-
dering butterfly, for within the broad, circular hall the
councils from the four Holds had gathered to discuss
their differences under the sign of the Cygnet and the
formidable eye of Lauro Ro. In Moro Ro's day, the
threshold guards would have faced both chamber and
yard, prepared for violence from any direction, not
least from the volatile councils. Meguet, armed by
tradition rather than necessity, faced the hall to keep
the sun out of her eyes. She had gathered her long
com-silk hair into a severe braid; her eyes, green a
shade lighter than the rose leaves that climbed the
walls of the thousand-year-old tower, kept a calm and
careful watch over the sometimes testy gathering.

2                Patricia A. McKUlip

Members of the oldest families in Ro Holding had
made long, uncomfortable journeys to meet for the
Holding Council in a place where, not many weeks
before, Meguet had found herself raising the sword
in her hands to battle for her life. She did not expect
trouble; it had come and gone, but some part of her
still tensed at shadows, at unexpected voices.

But only the councilors themselves had provided
any excitement, and that was contingent upon such
complexities as border taxes. There had been sharp
debate earlier in the day between Hunter Hold and
the Delta over mines in the border mountains, which
had kept everyone awake on the ninth day of the long
council. Now, the heavy late-afternoon light, the pi-
geons murmuring in the high windows, and Haf
Berg's young, pompous, querulous voice maundering
endlessly about sheep, threw a stupor over the hall.
Meguet heard a snore from one of the back tables,
Sne stifled a yawn. A sudden wind tugged at her light
mantle. The air was a heady mix of brine and sun-
steeped roses on the tower vines; it seemed to blow
from everywhere at once: from past and future, from
unexplored countries where wooden flowers opened
on tree boughs to reveal strange, rich spices, and
sheep the colors of autumn leaves wandered through
the hills....

She felt herself drifting on the alien wind; a sound
brought her back. The hall was silent; she wondered
if she herself had made some noise. But it was only
Haf Berg, sitting down at last, working his chair fuss-
ily across the flagstones. Lauro Ro watched him im-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD     3

passively. She sat at the crescent dais table, the
Cygnet flying like a shadow through tarnished mid-
night stars on the vast, timeworn banner behind her.
Her elegant face was unreadable, her wild dark hair
so unnaturally tidy that Meguet suspected Nyx had
bewitched it into submission. The Holder's heir sat at
her right, wearing her enigmatic reputation with com-
posure- Lauro Ro asked, * 'Will anyone challenge Haf
Berg's painstaking examination of the problems of
sheep pasturage on the south border of Berg Hold?"
There was a daunting note in her voice. Only a pigeon
challenged. Iris, on the Holder's left, consulted a pa-
per and whispered to her mother.

Rush Yarr sat beside Iris, and Calyx beside Nyx.
The two younger sisters, one fair and reclusive, the
other dark and distinguished most of the time by ex-
traordinary rumors, bore the intense scrutiny of the
council members calmly. When Calyx spoke, pearls
and doves did not fall from her lips. When Nyx spoke,
toads did not fall, nor did lightning flash. But it had
taken days for the anticipation to fade.

The Holder spoke again. Linden Dacey of Withy
Hold wished to bring up the matter of... Meguet
tightened her shoulders, loosened them. A knot
burned at the nape of her neck. She shifted slightly,
easing some of her weight onto the blade she held.
Across the room, the sorceress lifted her eyes at the
flash of light.

They looked at one another a moment: cousins
bound by blood and by secret, ancient ways. Memo-
ries gathered between them in the sunlit air. The

4                 Patricia A. McKillip

swans on the hilt and etched blade in Meguet's hands
had taken wing, Nyx had transformed herself from
bog-witch into Cygnet's heir so recently that the sor-
cery in that hidden time and place beneath their feet
must still be rebounding against the labyrinth stones.
The sorceress's eyes, mist-pale in the light, seemed
mildly speculative, as if, Meguet thought, she contem-
plated turning her cousin into a bat to liven up the
tedium. Meguet, returning her attention to the pro-
ceedings, half-wished she would.

Linden Dacey had brought up the matter of a bor-
der feud between Withy Hold and the Delta. A river
had shifted, or been shifted; the south border, defined
for centuries, was suddenly uncertain ... The great
Hold banners swayed and glittered above her head as
she spoke; eyes caught at Meguet. The Blood Fox of
the Delta prowled on starry pads; one eye glinted as\
if thought had flashed through its bright threads. The
Gold King of Hunter Hold, the crowned and furious
sun, glared out of his prison of night. Meguet, gazing
back, felt a sudden chill, as if the face of spun gold
thread were alive again and watching.

Someone from the Delta interrupted Linden Dacey.
There was an interesting squabble on the council
floor. Old Maharis Kell jerked mid-snore out of his
nap. The Holder let it rage a moment, probably to
wake everyone up. Then she cut through it in a voice
that must have brought a few cottagers in the outer
yard to a dead stop. Rush Yarr slid a hand over his
mouth. Calyx, catching a tremor in the air, glanced at
him. Rush, Meguet noted, had recovered his sense of

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD     5

humor—or discovered it, she wasn't sure which, for
he had loved a sorceress who was never home for so
long that likely even he didn't remember if he had
one. Calyx had entered the doorless walls of the tower
he had built around himself, and he found her inside
his heart.

Linden Dacey, finished finally, yielded debate to
the chastened Delta councilor. Gold streaked sud-
denly through a west window. Meguet eyed her
shadow, guessed at the time. Another hour. if that...
The Delta councilor bit a word in half and was still.
Meguet raised her eyes. On the dais, no one breathed.
Behind her the yard was soundless. Not a child's
shout, a groaning wagon wheel, an iron blow from
the smithy, disturbed the sudden, bewitched silence.
Meguet stared at Nyx, wondering if, bored or day-
dreaming, she had thrown some spell over the coun-
cil- But Nyx was entranced by the table, it seemed;

she gazed at it, wide-eyed, motionless.

Someone had slowed time.

In the weird stillness, Meguet heard a footfall in
the grass behind her. She whirled, her heart hammer-
ing, and brought the broadsword up in both hands. A
man stood within the tower ring, staring up at the
solitary black tower. The flaring arc of silver from the
door as the broadsword cut through light startled him;

Meguet felt his attention riveted suddenly on her. In
the brilliant, late light, the stranger cast no shadow.

She drew a slow, noiseless breath, tightening her
hold on the blade, trapped in a world out of time by
his sorcery and by her peculiar heritage: the sleepless

6                Patricia A. McWp

compulsion to guard what lay hidden within the tow-
er's heart. The man's face, blurred by the dazzling
light or perhaps by shifting time, was difficult to see.
He seemed a profusion of colors: scarlet, gold, white,
dust, blue, silver, that sorted itself out as he moved,
crossing the yard with a strong, energetic stride.

Tall as she was, Meguet was forced to look up at
him. His hair and skin were the same color as the
dust on the hem of his red robe and his scuffed yellow
boots, as if the parched gold-brown earth of some vast
desert blown constantly through sun-drenched air had
seeped into him. A strange winged animal embroi-
dered in white wound itself in and out of the folds of
cloth at his chest. The robe was belted with a curious,
intricate weave of silver; silver glinted also at his
wrists beneath his sleeves. A pouch of dark blue
leather was slung over his shoulder; another, of dusti/
yellow silk, hung beside that. He stopped in front of
Meguet's blade- She saw his face clearly then, as sur-
prised by her as she was by him.

His eyes flicked over her shoulder at the motionless
hall, then back to her. His broad, spare face was
young yet under its weathering; his eyes, a light,
glinting blue, were flecked with gold.

He said, amazed, "Who are you?"

Meguet, abandoned, with only a broadsword to
protect the house against sorcery, found her voice fi-
nally. ' 'You are in the house of the Holders of Ro
Holding. If you have business with the Holder, pre-
sent yourself to the Gatekeeper."

He glanced behind him at the little turret above the

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD     7

gate, where the Gatekeeper leaned idly against the
stones, a motionless figure in household black watch-
ing something in the yard. "Him." He turned back.
"He looks busy." He touched the blade at his chest
with one finger, but did not turn it. He grunted softly,
his eyes going back to Meguet. "This is real."

"Yes."

"Well, what do you expect to do with it? You can't
keep me out of this tower with a sword. How can you
have the power to see me through shifted time and
still wave that under my nose? What are you? Are
you a mage?"

"You have no business in this tower, you have no
business in this house, and you have no business
questioning me."

"I'm curious," he said. "You eluded my sorcery,
and I had only thought to come and go so secretly no
one would ever know."

"Why?" she asked sharply. "Why have you come
here?"

"I want something from this tower."

She felt herself grow so still that no light trembled
on the blade. "You may not enter."

"There are a thousand ways to enter a tower. Every
block of solid stone is an open doorway. You can't
guard every threshold."

All fear had left her voice; it was thin and absolute.
"If I must, I can."

He was silent, puzzled again, at the certainty in her
words. "It can't be the sword," he said at last. "The
magic is in you, not that. True?'' He caught the blade

8               Patricia A McWp

in one hand, so quickly that not the flick of an eyelash
forewarned her. She wrenched at it; it might as well
have been sunk in stone. "Not," he mused, "the
sword, then." He loosed it as abmptly. She steadied
herself, breathing audibly, while he studied her, his
eyes quizzical, secret- "Perhaps," he said finally,
"it's what you guard in this tower that gives you such
power. Is that it?"

She raised the blade again, swallowing drily. "No
one may enter the tower at this time without permis-
sion from the Holder. Those are my instructions. You
may not enter."

"But the Holder will never know," he said softly.
"What I want has been hidden for centuries. No one
knows it is here, and no one will miss it when it is
gone. I will never return to Ro Holding. Let me pass-
If all you're brandishing against me is a point uf
honor, you won't be dishonored. No one will ever
know."

"I will," Meguet said succinctly. "And so will
you. Honor is a word you would not bother to toss at
me, if it meant nothing to you. You may not enter."

He was silent again, so still he might have put him-
self under his own mysterious spell. His eyes had nar-
rowed; light or memory flashed through them. "What
made you time or honor's guardian?" he breathed.
"You have seen a few of its back roads, its crooked
lanes and alleyways. Haven't you. But you are not a
mage- Or are you?" She did not answer. He stepped
closer, she did not move. He stepped so close that the
blade snagged the golden eye of the winged beast

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD     9

across his chest. He said, "If you do not let me enter,
I will turn every rose on this tower into flame."

"Then you will bum what you have come for."

He moved closer. The blade turned a little in her
hands as if the animal had shifted under it, and she
felt me sweat break out on her face.

"I will seal every door and window in this tower,
and turn it into a tomb for those you guard."

"It is already a tomb." Her voice shook. He
stepped so close the blade slid ghostlike into him. Her
shoulders burned at the sudden weight, but she held
the blade steady under his expressionless gaze.

"If you do not let me enter, I will kill you."

"Then," she said, as sweat and light burned into
her eyes, and the clawed, airy animal whipped be-
neath the blade like a desperate thing, "one of us will
die."

He stepped back then, as easily as if the great
sword were made of smoke. The animal turned a
smoldering eye at her and subsided into the cloth. The
blade trembled in her hands; still she did not lower
it. The mage's face changed; the expression on it star-
tled her.

"You deserve better than a doorway," he said
abruptly. "What kind of upside-down house is this
where no power but honor is pitted against the likes
of me? You can't stop me. You can barely hold that
sword. It is shaking in your hands- It is so heavy it
weighs like stone, it drags you down. It is heavier
than old age, heavier than grief. It falls like the setting
sun, slowly, slowly. Watch it fall. Watch the tiny

so

Patricia A McKillip

flame of light on its tip shift, move down the blade
toward your hands. Watch it. The light trembles
among the silver swan wings. What is your name?"

"Meguet Vervaine."

"Is it night or day?"

"I do not know."

"Are you awake or dreaming?"

"I do not know."

"Are you a mage?"

"No."

"Have you a mage's powers?"

"No."

"How do you have the power to see and move
through shifted time?"

"I have no power."

"Then who gives you power?"

"No one."

"You have power. You are standing here talking
to me when no one else in this house can move."

"I have no power."

"What gives you power?"

"Nothing."

"You are guarding something from me as stead-
fastly as you guard this door. I will enter this tower.
Do you have the power to stop me?''

"You may not enter."

"Do you have the power to stop me?"

Meguet was silent. Wind brushed her face, a cool
breeze smelling of twilight. For a moment she stared
senselessly at what she saw: the inner yard, the tow-
ers, the outer yard through the arches, where cottag-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    II

ers' children flung a ball back and forth, and the
Gatekeeper on the ground, his back to her, opened the
gate to a couple of riders. Then she looked down at
her hands. They were locked so fiercely, so protec-
tively around the hilt of Moro Ro's sword that her
fingers ached, loosening. The smell of roses teased
her memory. I fell asleep, she thought surprisedly. /
had a dream....

Then the Holder's voice snapped across the cham-
ber. "Meguet!"

She turned, startled. The sword slipped out of her
hold, rang against the stones like a challenge, and she
saw beside it the rose that had flung itself off the outer
wall into the room to lie burning in her shadow. She
dragged her eyes away from it to the dais.

Nyx had vanished.

Dream shifted into time, became memory; she felt
me blood leap out of her face. She reached down,
snatched up the rose and began to run.

On the dais, the sorceress had felt the sudden shift of
time.

Intrigued, she simply sat still, not a difficult thing
to do for one who had spent nights in the black de-
serts of Hunter Hold watching the constellations turn
and the orange bitterthom blossom open its fullest to
the full moon. She saw Meguet bring up the sword
in her hands, turn. The fair-haired stranger stopped at
the threshold. Nyx's attention focused, precise and
fine-honed, on her cousin, who was waving a blade
of sheep grass against the wind. Their voices carried

12 Patricia A McKillip

easily across the eerie silence.

She watched, unblinking, while the stranger came
so close to Meguet only the swans on the sword hilt
protected her. Light sparking off a jewel in Nyx's hair
would have alerted the mage; when he forced her to
move, he would not see her. But he backed away from
Meguet, passed around her, left her defending a
breached threshold in a dream. He had paused, for
some reason, to pick a rose off the tower vines. He
dropped it in Meguet's shadow. He passed among the
councilors with no more interest in them than if they
had been hedgerows. At the stairs, beneath the Blood
Fox prowling between green swamp and starry night
on the Delta banner, he hesitated. The power within
the tower was complex, layered as it was with Ctuy-
som's ancient wizardry, household ghosts, the im-
press upon the centuries of every mage or Cygnet's
guardian who had left a trace of power lingering in
time. Beneath that lay the entombed mage and the
vast and intricate power within the Cygnet's heart. He
would not recognize that power, but he would be
aware, like a man stepping to the edge of a chasm at
midnight, that something undefined was catching at
his attention. To separate what sorcery the stranger
had come to find from the emanations of power and
memory within the ancient stones would require at
least a walk up the spiral stairs. When the stranger
had felt his way through the lingering magic beyond
the first curve, Nyx rose. She formed an image of
Chrysom's library in her mind, book and stone and
rose-patterned windows, and stepped into it.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    13

She waited.

The sight of Nyx reading at one of the tables made
the stranger pause a heartbeat, as if his glance into
the council chamber had snared her in his memories.
But she gazed down at the page—a list of cows who
had calved four hundred and ninety years before—
with rapt attention. In that magic-steeped chamber he
would not notice her mind working. He had reached
his goal; his attention flicked like a needle in a com-
pass toward what he had come to steal.

The stone mantel above the fireplace was littered
with thousand-year-old oddments of Chrysom's that
had somehow survived accidents, misplacements, pil-
fering and spring cleaning. Nyx had no idea what they
were, besides volatile and unpredictable. The stranger
glanced briefly at them. He stood in the center of the
room, sending out filaments of thought like a spider
spinning a web, into tables, hearth, book shelves, an-
cient weapons, cracked, bubbled mirrors, tapestries on
the wall. He ignored Nyx, who, surrounded by mys-
teries, was reading about cows. He moved finally,
abruptly, across the room to kneel at the hearth. His
hands closed around one of the massive cornerstones
that was crusted with centuries of ash. He tried to shift
it. Now that he had shown her where it was, Nyx
asked before he found it,

"What in Moro's name are you looking for in
there?"

He was so startled that he nearly leaped back into
his own time. Parts of him faded and reappeared; a
wing on his robe unfolded in the air and folded itself

14 Patricia A McKif/ip

back into thread- He did not so much turn as rearrange
himself through shifting moments of time to face her.
She recognized the white animal then, from some of
Chrysom's ancient drawings: She thought he had
imagined it, from some tale so old there was scarcely
a word for it in Ro Holding. The mage, his face a
few shades paler than dust, studied her while he
caught his breath.

He said abruptly, "You were in the hall, down
there. I remember you now. Your eyes."

She lifted a brow, "You saw me watching you?"

"No. I remember their color, when I passed the
dais. Like a winter sky. You are a mage. It's hard to
tell, in this house."

"People who belong in this house recognizi( me
easily." She rested her chin on her palm, contem-
plating him. "You are a thief. You are not from Ro
Holding, or I would know you by now; your remark-
able power would have caught my interest."

' "You have some remarkable powers yourself,'' he
said with feeling. * 'You nearly turned me inside-out,
scaring me like that."

"I know a few things," she said.

"You don't know what's in this stone. You never
knew anything at all was in there. I can name it. That
makes it mine."

"Fine," she said drily. "I will let you keep the
name. You may take that and yourself out of this
tower. How dare you bewitch this entire house and
wander through it, pilfering things? What kind of bar-
baric country taught you that?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    15

"Only one thing," he pointed out. "One pilfering.
That's all I need. Something you have never needed-
Let me take it and go. I'll never return to Ro Holding
again."

1 'You have more than theft to answer for. You dis-
turbed my cousin Meguet. You threatened her and
tried to coerce her." He opened his mouth to answer,
did not. Nyx continued grimly, running one of Ca-
lyx's pens absently in and out of her hair, "You used
sorcery against her."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was curious."

"You were cruel."

He drew breath, his eyes nicking away from her;

she saw the blood gather under his tan. ' 'I was never
taught," he said finally, "to make such fine distinc-
tions. In my country, ignorance is dangerous; curi-
osity can be ruthless. But I would never have harmed
your cousin. 1 only wanted to know—''

"I know what you only wanted to know." She
paused, her own eyes falling briefly. She took the pen
out of her hair and laid it down. She folded her hands
in front of her mouth and looked at the stranger again.
"But it's none of your business. Now leave this house
in peace."

He paused, his eyes narrowed faintly, light-filled,
hidden. "You're curious, too," he said slowly. "You
want this thing only because you don't know what it
is." She nodded, unperturbed. For a moment their
eyes held, calculating, and then, abruptly, he yielded,
tossing up a hand. * 'I never expected to find this tower

16 Patricia A McKiHip

so well-guarded. And now I have run out of
rime...."

And he was gone, to her surprise, as easily and
noiselessly as light fading on stones. Distant sounds
wove into the air again: children shouting, cows low-
ing as they came in from the back pastures. The
Holder, she remembered suddenly, would be discov-
ering the empty chair beside her. But Meguet would
reassure her. Nyx knelt at the hearth, touched the
stone with her hands, and then with her mind. Neither
moved it. She wrapped her thoughts around the stone,
feeling its weight and texture, its size: a single block
of charred marble in a hearth so old the stones were
all sagging into one another. As she studied it, she
felt something watching her. She lifted her heaJ. A
crow winging out of the mantel gazed at her out of
its black marble eye.

She reached up, touched the eye. Nothing moved.
Above it, in relief, the Cygnet flew the length of the
mantel through a black marble sky, its eye aligned
with the crow's eye. She had to stand on air to reach
it. The Cygnet's eye moved nothing- She stood think-
ing, her own eyes flicking across the scattered con-
vocation of crows, until in all their black stone eyes
the pattern formed.

It was a constellation: All the eyes were stars, de-
picting the Cygnet flying across the night. A riddle,
she thought, no one outside of Ro Holding would
have guessed. She felt a rare impulse for caution, but
dismissed it immediately, too close to the mystery,
too curious. One after another she touched the dark

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    17

stars. The stone, its mortar sifting drily into the fire-
bed, swung free.

She barely had time to look into it, when something
struck her—a wind, a thunderbolt—and flung her at
the mantel and then into it among the crows. She
cried out, startled; her mouth was stopped with stone.
She concentrated, found the face of one of the crows
and gathered herself like a thought in its stony mind
and then into a point of light within its eye. Beneath
her, she saw the mage looking into the hollow stone.

Meguet, slamming the library door wide, knocked
a shield off the wall. The mage, barely glancing up,
flung a hand out impatiently, murmuring. The animal
leaped from his breast, a sinuous blur of white that
poured to the floor, bounded upward again, catching
air with its wings, claws out, aimed at its prey. Me-
guet threw up her arm, wielding a rose against it.
Something—the streak of red in the air, a sound she
made—caught the mage's attention. His head
snapped around. For an instant the rose stunned him.
Then he spoke sharply. The animal halted in mid-
flight; white embroidery thread snarled in the air. Nyx
dropped like a tear out of the crow's eye, reappeared
in front of Meguet. The air seemed to snarl in her
wake as she dragged remnants of the mage's spell
from the air and threw them back at him. The mage
began to fray in different directions at once, as if he
were spun of fine threads of time, all unravelling. He
cried something before he vanished. The cry skipped
like a rock across water, snatched the gently falling
thread. Cry and thread whirled away into nothing.

18 Patricia A McKilhp

Meguet sagged against the open doorway, felt air
and brought herself upright. "Moro's name," she
whispered. "What did you do to him?"

Nyx, her eyes flooded with color, untangling her-
self from her sorcery, looked bewitched herself,
something only half human. "I'm not sure," she said.
"I've never done that before."

"Is he still alive?"

"I have no idea." She drew a deep breath then;

her eyes relinquished color, became familiar. She
glanced toward the noise that had followed Meguet
up the stairs. She touched her cousin, who, having
fought some ancient and very peculiar sorcery not
many weeks before, seemed oddly shaken by a tidy
piece of work. "Stay here. Keep them out^ If he
comes back, this time not even that rose will stop
him."

She crossed the room quickly, knelt at the hearth.
Meguet, watching the air for a warning of color, was
jostled by the first of the guard who, weapons drawn,
flung themselves precipitously toward the threat to the
house. Several of the more agile councilors were
among them. Meguet heard the Holder's voice farther
down the stairwell.

She turned briefly, stilled the guard with a gesture.
They quieted, peering over Meguet's shoulders at
Nyx, who was gazing meditatively into a cracked,
charred stone adrift from the hearth. The silence
spread; subdued whisperings passed it back to the
crowd at the top of the stairs, until it reached even
the Holder. Meguet felt her coming in eddies of

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    19

movement as the guard pushed a path clear for her.
She joined Meguet, who was guarding yet another
threshold, eyed her daughter, and went no farther.

"What is it?" she asked. She had evidently flung
a trail of pins down the stairs; most of her hair had
fallen loose. She was frowning deeply; her black eyes
were expressionless, wintry, but she kept her voice
low, "Was she harmed?"

"No. There was a strange mage. a thief, trying to
steal something—she may still be in danger."

"Moro's eyes, she knows enough sorcery to make
Chrysom sit up in his tomb—why didn't she just let
him have what he wanted?"

"Because she doesn't know what it is."

"I thought she knew everything by now."

"She's trying to be careful."

The Holder stared at her. "Really. And how did
this thief get past the Gatekeeper9"

"He slowed time."

The Holder's response caused even Nyx, feeling
through the stone for mage-traps, to raise her eyes.
The Holder, still furious, lowered her voice mid-
sentence, "—in the middle of the Holding Council,
wandering among us at will, it's unthinkable, intol-
erable. You couldn't stop him?"

Meguet sighed noiselessly. "I tried. All he wanted
was something of Chrysom's, nothing more serious.
I had no power against sorcery. Nothing but a
sword."

The Holder was silent, gazing at her quizzically.
Her eyes dropped to the rose in Meguet's hand. Me-

Patricia A. McKillip

20

guet, staring at it, felt the color blaze into her face.
She lifted her other hand, pushed it against her eyes,
and saw the rose again, lying beside the sword in her
shadow.

She let it fall, as if a thom had pricked her. "I was

bewitched."

"Apparently," the Holder said curiously. "But, I

wonder, by what?"

A murmuring rippled through the crowd at Me-
guet's back; she looked up to see what the mage
wanted so badly out of the stone that he had stopped

the world.

Nyx held it in her hand: a golden key.      ,

-Two-

Nyx was crouched under a table in the mage's library
a day later, picking at a crack in the stone floor with
her fingernail, when the firebird flew over the gate.
Engrossed, she did not immediately hear the effect of
its arrival. The Hold Councils and most of the house-
hold were at supper; strings and flutes from the third
tower played a distant, ancient music in the peaceful
twilight that wove among the reeds and drums from
the cider house. Nyx, dressed for supper, had forgot-
ten it. Cobwebs snagged in her dark hair; absently,
she had rearranged the elaborate, jewelled structure
until pins and strands of tiny pearls dangled around
her face. Her black velvet dress was filigreed with
dust; she had walked out of her shoes some time ago.
Her eyes, usually the color of bog mist, were washed
with lavender. Her face had taken on a feral cast; she
seemed to be scenting even threads of smoke in-
grained in the ancient stone.

The disorderly clamor of people and animals finally
intruded into her concentration. She straightened

22 Patricia A McKUlip

abruptly against the table top. Someone pounded on
the door, then opened it.

"Nyx!"

It was Calyx, who, looking high and low in the
shadows, finally looked low enough. Nyx, rubbing her
head crossly, said, "I thought I locked that door.
What in Moro's name is that racket in the yard?"

"It's a bird," Calyx said dazedly. "What are you
doing under the table? And what have you—" Her
voice caught; color washed over her delicate face. She
found her voice again, raised it with unusual force.
"Nyx Ro, what have you done with all the ancient
household records I was studying?"

"Over there," Nyx said, waving at a cairn of books
as she crawled out. "A bird. What bird?"

"They're all jumbled up! I had mem all in order,
a thousand years of household history—And look
what you've done to this room!"

A pile of chairs balanced on a tiny wine table;

shields and furs and tapestries hung in midair above
their heads; bookshelves climbed up the stairs to the
roof. Spell books, histories, accounts, diaries, rose
like monoliths from the floor. Nyx, her arms folded,
stood as still among them, eyes narrowed at her sister.

"Calyx," she said softly. "What bird?"

"Look at this mess! And look at your face! There
are black smudges all over it."

"That would be from the chimney. Calyx—"

"You put your face up the chimney?"

"Evidently."

"Why," Calyx asked more precisely, "did you put

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    23

your face up the chimney?"

"Because I'm looking for something," Nyx said
impatiently. "Why else would I crawl up a chim-
ney?"

"I have no idea- I thought, after studying sorcery
for nine years, you'd pull an imp out of the air to do
it for you. Maybe I can help you. What is it we're
looking for?"

"Most likely a book."

Calyx stared at her. "Did you," she asked omi-
nously, "look on the bookshelves?"

"Oh, really. Calyx." She wiped at ash with her
sleeve, her breath snagging on a sudden laugh. "You
do keep dwelling on nonessentials. After studying
sorcery for nine years, I have learned how to clean
up a room." She picked her way through the chairs
to the windows. From that high place, she could see
the parapet wall linking the seven white towers, most
of the cottages clustered beyond the wall, and the vast
yard with its barns and forges and craft houses that
dealt with the upkeep of the household and the lands
that rambled endlessly within the outer wall. One
thing caught her eye instantly at that busy hour.

"The Gatekeeper is not at the gate,"

And then she saw the flash of fire that scratched
the air with gold and turned a rearing cart horse into
a tree with diamond leaves.

Meguet had been silting with the Gatekeeper in his
turret when the bird flew over the gate. Dressed in
corn-leaf silk the color of her eyes, strands of tiny

24 Patricia A McKilltp

jewels braided into her rippling hair, she had aban-
doned guests and musicians in the supper hall, pulled
on her oldest boots and wandered into the summer
twilight to talk to the Gatekeeper. She had seen noth-
ing of him the day before; at the Holder's request she
had stood watch in Chrysom's library most of the
evening, while Nyx puzzled over the key she had
found. Some of the gossip had evidently found its
way to the gate; as she entered the turret, the Gate-
keeper handed her a rose.

She eyed him; his lean, sun-browned face, with its
silvery-green swamp-leaf eyes, was expressionless.
She said, "It was red, not white."         \

"I hoped you'd like this better." Then she saw the
beginnings of his tight, slanted smile, and she sighed
and slid onto the stone bench next to him.

"I was hoping no one had noticed. Does gossip
blow on the wind across this yard? Or do you hear
through stone?"

"People like tales." He put his arm around her
shoulders. "For nine days you've stood at that tower
door with a sword in your hands. When you suddenly
toss it aside for a rose, it causes comment. What was
he like, this mage who gave you the rose?"

"You should know," she said grimly. "You let
him in."

He stirred; his eyes flickered away from her, across
the wall, where the lazy tide sighed and broke. "He
did get past me. Odd things have, in this house. Tell
me what happened. No one saw him but you and Nyx,
and the tales being spun around this mysterious mage

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    25

make me afraid to open the gate."

She smiled at the thought. "You'd open the gate
to winter itself. Or time, or the end of it." She
brought the white rose to her face, breathed in its
scent. He opened her other hand, dropped his lips on
her palm where thorns had left an imprint.

"You fought a battle with the red rose."

"I nearly lost it," she said, and heard his breath.

"Tell me," he said, and listened with the hard,
expressionless cast that his face took on when some-
thing disturbed him. He applied a taper to his ebony
pipe before the end of it, blowing smoke seaward, his
eyes hidden. She told much of the tale to the rose,
turning it in her fingers, finding memories in its whorl
of petals.

"Is he expected back?" he asked. "Or did she kill
him?"

"She doesn't know. She told the Holder that if he
is alive he might return, since he seemed that desper-
ate."

"Fora key? To what?"

"Nyx thinks a book. Some secret magic book of
Chrysom's."

"I thought she had all his books."

"So did she."

He turned his head, tossed smoke downwind.
"What kinds of things would a mage keep hidden?"

"That," she sighed, "is why Nyx refuses to let the
stranger have what he wants, which is the advice that,
at some length, the Holder gave her. If she knew, she
might let him take it and stop threatening the house.

26 PatnciaA McKillip

But she is spellbound by this book that she can't even
find."

"So is the stranger, it sounds, stopping time and
threatening to bum the house down for it."

"What was that like? Did you feel time stop?"

He shook his head. "Your com-silk hair caught my
eye; I turned to look at you. I was hoping you would
turn. Then I blinked, and there was your face. Then
you vanished into the tower, and what caught my eye
was the blade of silver light on the stones justj inside
the door. A moment later one of the tower guards ran
for help. And I guessed what the light must be. I
nearly left the gate. But I didn't want to risk trouble
letting itself out while I was gone, though it had wan-
dered in without my help. So I waited. And the tales
started flying like birds out of the tower, each one
more colorful than the last." He touched the rose in
her hand. "They all said you were safe." He paused,
his eyes going seaward again, where white birds
flashed over the water and dived- "I caught the gist
of it: a mage, a key—"

"Don't say it."

"And a blood-red rose."

She looked at him, said recklessly, "You were
watching; you must have seen him pick it."

He blinked, wordless, then pulled her close sud-
denly; she heard his heartbeat. "What do you think?
That I would have stood here sunning myself like a
tortoise while you defended a sleeping Holding Coun-
cil alone against a mage who could have left you

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    27

lying on your shadow as easily as the rose? Is that
what you think?''

"Yes." she said, for there were gates within gates
into the house, and she suspected he watched them
all. "No. Yes. What I think is that you know exactly
what comes and goes through that gate."

He was silent. His hold eased; he dropped a kiss
on her hair, and said finally, "So I do. And in case
die mage considers knocking at the gate next time,
tell me what I should look for."

"A man," she said. "taller than me, by a few
inches. With hair a dusty golden-brown and light eyes
like water. The animal is embroidered on his robe."
She paused, thinking back. "He wears silver at his
wrists—' *

"Old?"

"No older than you. Taller than me—"

"You said that."

"And he moves like a man accustomed to space."

"You noticed a lot in an eye-blink," he com-
mented drily. She looked at him, her eyes still and
clear as the sky where the sun had set and the memory
of light lingered. He swallowed a word. His face
dropped toward hers. Their lips touched. And then he
turned abruptly, snatching her breath along with his,
and she saw the firebird over his shoulder.

It seemed to blow out of the sea like spume, so
white it was, and so fast it flew; then, as it passed the
turret, she saw the fiery wingtips and the long, grace-
ful plumes that trailed behind it like flame. Its talons
were silver. It gave a cry of such fierce fury and de-

28 Patricia A. McKillip

spair that it drove the blood from her face and brought
the Gatekeeper to his feet. The busy yard stopped as
if it were spellbound again. With the cry came fire: a
forge-fire, and a hammer, and the hand holding the
hammer froze into silver.

Meguet hit the ground running before she realized
she had moved. There were cottagers' children trans-
fixed by the swooping bird; there were animals every-
where, it seemed—horses, cows still coming in to be
milked, chickens, hounds. The bird, crying' again,
turned a comer of a barn into bronze, and nicked a
hound*s ear. The hound bellowed, blundered into the
cows; there was a small stampede toward the be-
witched forge. Stable girls hurried to take in the
horses, ducking their heads under their arms as at
pelting hail. The bird wheeled above a group of bare-
foot children who had twisted themselves into a knot
with a piece of harness. Meguet and several of the
cottagers ran toward them as they struggled franti-
cally- The bird's fire missed the children, hit a cat
slinking away into the shadows and turned it into a
jewelled sword. Meguet snatched it up. Wielding it
above the children, she startled them into tears. She
cut them free of each other; they scattered, wailing,
then turned again, too fascinated to find shelter.

She saw Rush Yarr and a few of the younger coun-
cilors on the tower wail with bows; household guards
were racing to position themselves along the crene-
lation. She saw Rush fix an arrow, draw back and
aim. She slowed, feeling a sudden, unreasonable dis-
may form like a shout in her throat. The bird, a swirl

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    29

of white and red, cried its enraged sorrow; fire swept
the wall, and all the archers ducked. The stones them-
selves turned gold.

"Nyx," she breathed. The Gatekeeper, struggling
with a panicked can horse, shouted at her.

"Meguet!"

"I'm going to get Nyx! Tell them not to shoot!"

"It's not the bird in danger," he retorted, holding
the horse as stablers unhitched the lurching cart. "It's
-you standing there waiting to be turned into a silver
rose."

"It cries so," she said, puzzled, hearing it again, a
sound that made her throat constrict. The horse
reared, throwing the Gatekeeper; it elongated itself as
the fire hit it. Its dark hide turned to wood; harness
rustled through its still, shimmering leaves to the
ground. Meguet, hand to her mouth, stifling a cry,
stared at the Gatekeeper. He glittered no more than
usual, and, rolling promptly under the cart, seemed
unharmed.

He shouted at her, "Go!"

She went, still carrying the transformed cat, out of
habit, and dragging her skin high above her boots as
she ran. Nyx, who seemed to have fallen like a rose
off the vines, appeared abruptly in front of her outside
the dark tower.

"I'm here," she said, putting a hand on Meguet's
shoulder to keep from being run over. The bird cried
above them; transfixed, they followed it with their
eyes. Calyx, hanging precipitously out a window,

30 Patricia A. McKillip

ducked suddenly inside. A shower of bronze apples
scattered on the grass.

"Roses," Nyx said tersely, eyeing them. "Not
Calyx."

"Moro's name," Meguet said, dragging at air.
"What is it?"

"A firebird."

"It cries like wood might cry in the fire. Why does

it cry like that?"

v
"They do, according to sources. The cry 6! the

firebird is fierce, desperate, terrible. So Chrysom
wrote of, he thought, a fabled bird."

"It sounds human," Meguet said simply, and Nyx
looked at her, a colorless, dispassionate gaze. A line
ran between her dark brows; she opened her mouth
to answer, then turned her head as the guard, followed
by curious guests, fanned across the tower yard. The
bird cried again, wheeled at them, and they retreated
beneath the archways of the tower wall. Fire washed
through the archway at their heels, glazed the cobbles
with opal. "Nyx, can you do something?" Meguet
pleaded. "Before it gets hurt?"

Nyx glanced at her again. "You have a peculiar
fondness for birds,' * she said drily. She lifted her hand
as to a falcon; the bird circled the dark tower, circled
again. Meguet, watching, thought she saw a thread
form between Nyx's uplifted hand and the bird, a gos-
samer strand of air that shimmered faintly with light
against the evening sky. The bird cried once again,
spiralling down toward them. Onyx roses swayed on
the vine, broke free. Something else flashed in the

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD

31

comer of Meguet's eye: Rush Yarr's blood-fox hair.
She turned, running again across the yard as he
crouched in an archway, following the bird with his
arrow.
"Rush!"

She knew his aim; it was far better than the sorcery
he was evidently breathing into his bow. Concentrat-
ing, he did not hear her. He shot. Behind Meguet,
Nyx flung out another thread. It caught the arching
arrow mid-flight; the bird, riding air to meet it, picked
it up like prey and cried its fiery rage. The fall of red
and gold streaked the dusk. Meguet, running headlong
into it, felt a moment of complete astonishment before
her eyes filled with gold and then with night.

The evening was suddenly very quiet. The bird
flew up the black tower and disappeared. Rush's bow,
dropping on the bespelled cobbles, seemed to echo
within the tower ring- Nyx, motionless at the foot of
the tower, met his stunned eyes. After a blank mo-
ment of shock, during which her brain seemed capa-
ble only of grappling with analogies, she regathered
her attention and picked at the weavings of the force
that had transformed Meguet. The spell, at first touch,
seemed oddly seamless. Calyx, emerging breathlessly
from the tower, bumped into Nyx; she stirred, blink-
ing, overwhelmed again. As if the still emerald leaves
had beckoned, they drew the three, along with guards
and fascinated guests, to stand staring, speechless, try-
ing to see Meguet among the leaves and roses.

"Oh, Rush," Calyx whispered reproachfully.

"I didn't—I swear I didn't even see her!" He

32 Patricia A McKillip

touched a glassy leaf tentatively; his eyes sought
Nyx's. "Can't you do something?"

**I was trying!" she flared, exasperated, and Rush
flushed a dull red.

"I'm sorry. I am so clumsy with sorcery. It makes
me blind and deaf and extremely stupid."

Nyx did not bother to answer. She touched the
rose-tree here, there, with her mind. It was a great
jewel of malachite and emerald, with ruby, garnet,
amber and moonstone blossoming among closed^ouds
of paler jade. Within the jewel was Meguet; seeking
her, Nyx found veil after veil of fire, and, at last, the
face of the bird.

It was masked, like a swan, with red plumage; its
eyes were golden. Sensing her, it cried. The Cygnet
in front of it, flying on a long triangle of night sky,
melted into a strange vine with swan-shaped leaves.

The bird was on the tower roof- Nyx spun her
thread again, flung it like a message: / am the one
you seek. The bird landed a moment later, noiseless,
glowing faintly, its white and fiery red bruising the
dusk, clinging, with silver talons, to the malachite
leaves.

The faces around Nyx resolved themselves again.
The Gatekeeper's was among them, pale, expression-
less, hard as the jewel he stared at.

"Apt," he commented. His hand slid among the
leaves and silver moms, closed gently around the
stem. Nyx saw him swallow. "It was me put the idea
into its head," he added, ten years of courtly smooth-
ness swamped suddenly by his river-brat's accent.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    33

"Me shouting at her like that." Like Rush, he sought
Nyx's eyes. She said slowly, her arms folded tightly,

"It's an intriguing spell. I can't seem to find her,
only the bird. It should be simple, but it's not."

"I'll wait," the Gatekeeper said.

"The bird is waiting, too," Calyx said wonder-
ingly. "It's not screaming now. Is it real? Or sor-
cery?"

"I can't tell yet," Nyx said. She held its eyes, look-
ing, with her smudged, jewel-framed face, as fey as
the firebird. Voices disturbed her; they all turned, saw
the Holder and her oldest daughter, surrounded by
household guard, half the Hold councilors and their
assorted families.

"There it is'" someone cried, as they crossed the
yard. They gathered in sudden, perplexed silence
around what it clung to. The Holder, her hair nearly
as dishevelled as her daughter's, studied the firebird
grimly. The guard ringed it, arrows poised; Calyx
cried in horror,

"Don't shoot it! You'll hit Meguet!"

"Meguet," the Holder exclaimed, then took in the
truant Gatekeeper, his hand, and what he held. Her
dark eyes widened; her voice, raised, caused even the
firebird to shift. "Moro's eyeteeth! I'll wring its
neck!"

"Mother," Nyx breathed.

"That's Meguet? Are you sure?"

"Magic seems to follow her in that shape," the
Gatekeeper said.

"Why," Lauro Ro demanded of Nyx, "are you

34 Patncsa A McWip

just standing there? Arc you waiting for the roses to
bloom?"

"I'm waiting," Nyx said tartly, "for some peace
and quiet."

"After alt that time in the bog, what you don't
know about birds, inside and out, you could thread a
bead with. How could you let this happen? Can she
breathe in there? Is she even alive?"         i

Iris, her stately and practical eldest, glanced at
Nyx's frozen face, and then at the guests fascinated
by the sorcery and by the threat of explosion between
the Holder and her unpredictable heir. Troubled, she
touched her mother's arm. "Mother, Nyx knows what
she needs to work with, and if it's peace and quiet,
you could at least stop shouting. How could anything
possibly be Nyx's fault? Do you think there is any-
thing she wouldn't do for Meguet?"

The Holder looked at her dusty, barefoot heir,
standing dark and stilt, with the first wash of light
from the rising moon spilling over her shoulder. She
gestured at me guard; they lowered their bows, but
kept their tight, watchful circle. Nyx, her voice low,
taut, said,

"There is no reason to think she isn't alive. But
the bird's magic is random, uncalculated, and very
strong. What I need to know is if the bird is the sor-
cerer or the sorcery. The maker of the magic, or sim-
ply its bewitched object. For some reason, it's
difficult to tell. It shouldn't be this difficult, but it is.
I can't find Meguet at all. You'll have to be patient.
Please. If you startle me bird, it may scream again,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    35

and I'll have twice the mystery to undo."

The Holder sighed. Arms folded, pins dangling in
her wild hair, she looked much like her magical
daughter. "I'm sorry," she said. "All this sorcery
makes me edgy. It's quiet, now. And not afraid of
any of us. It didn't, most likely, fly into my house to
turn Meguet into a rose-tree. Was it looking for
you?"

"I think so."

"The guard say it snatches arrows out of midair."

"It caught mine," Rush said. "Meguet was run-
ning to stop me; she got tangled in its cry."

"There's a blacksmith in the yard with a silver
hand," the Holder said grimly. "If this bird is the
sorcerer, it has much to account for. May we watch?
If it turns you into a black rose-tree, may I wring its
neck then?"

Nyx smiled a little. "Please." The smile faded; her
brows twitched together again. "What intrigues me
most is something Meguet said. She has no power of
sorcery, but sometimes she can make very compli-
cated things very simple, by looking at them from an
angle I miss. She said about the bird: It has a human
cry. That, I think, must be what makes its cry so ter-
rible."

The bird had not stirred since the Holder startled
it; it clung like something carved of marble to its
spell. A curve of moon rising behind the east tower
caught in its silver talons; they flashed like blades. Its
eyes, flooding with moonlight, turned milky. Nyx
looked at it, leaving her mind open, still, tranquil, an

36 Patricia A McKillip

invitation for whatever violence or enchantments or
speech it might be moved to. It gazed back at her, as
still as she. She tried again to find some thought of
Meguet within its spell: Leaves moved through her
eyes, endless leaves and petals of carnelian and
beaten gold, as if she wandered through an enchanted
garden.                                     >

Moonlight touched the jewelled leaves, spilled its
cold fire over the bird. It roused abruptly, crying its
fierce and terrible cry, but its fire only fell pale and
spent, harmless as the risen moon's light. As it
moved, leaves trembled. The Gatekeeper, still holding
a stem, found his hand at Meguet's neck, her hair
falling over his arm. For a moment her eyes were
malachite, and then they were her own, blinking, sur-
prised, at the Holder's face. The bird landed at her
feet in a flood of light. The cry it gave, as it trans-
formed itself, was ftilly human.

Three-

He looked without expression at the arrows aimed at
him, as if he did not recognize them, or as if such
things, in his peculiar life, were commonplace. Me-
guet, stooping instinctively for the sword she had
dropped, started as it slunk away under her hand. No
one else moved; his cry held them spellbound. But
nothing of its raw fury and despair lingered in his
face; he did not seem to realize he had made a sound.

He was oddly dressed, in a tattered dirty tunic of
blue silk, and an embroidered belt of raw red silk.
Beneath that he wore a close-fitting garment of gold
thread or mail. His soft leather boots were torn and
scuffed. He wore strange metal bands at his wrists,
intricately fashioned, as if strands of molten metal had
been poured over each other in a wide filigree. They
looked fire-scorched, so blackened they might have
been made of iron. His hair, thick, black, fell past his
shoulders. The moon, striking his face at an angle,
illumined half: a dark brow, long bones at cheek and
jaw, skin drawn tightly across them. The other side
of his face was dark.

38 Patricia A McKilhp

He did not speak; he seemed resigned to whatever
impulses his actions might have inspired. Nyx, con-
necting moonlight with the pale fire that had come
out of the bird before it changed, asked abruptly,

"How long are you human?"

He seemed surprised that she had thought to ask.
"Until midnight." His voice was nearly inaudible.
"Then the bird hunts."

"What," the Holder asked sharply, "does it
hunt?"

"I think mice."

"Who are you? What kind of outlandish place are
you from, flying into my house, frightening my
household, turning my niece into a rose-tree?''

Meguet, glancing around for the niece in question,
took a step backward suddenly, found her own shape
against the Gatekeeper.

"The bird cries. It changes things." His voice held
a hollow, haunted weariness. "I cannot stop it. Are
you the mage?"

"No. I am the Holder of Ro Holding."

"Ro Holding." The blankness in his voice was
stunning. Then he added, ' "The realm of the Cygnet.
I have seen the black swan flying on warships' sails-
Or the bird has. One of us. Or perhaps it was only a
picture. I don't remember."

"Do you remember your name?" Nyx asked. He
looked at her for a long time before he answered.

"You are the mage."

"I am Nyx Ro. And mage, sorceress, bog-witch,
something of everything." She was holding his eyes,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    39

speaking slowly, calmly, using words like tiny grap-
pling hooks to draw and fix his attention. "You are
ensorcelled. You came for help."

"Yes," he breathed. "The bird cries for help—it
transforms its cries to jewels, gold, anything precious
to catch the eye."

"How did you know to find help here?"

"The bird knew."

"You are the bird."

He opened his mouth, closed it. His face changed
suddenly, like shifting flame: For a moment he was
going to scream. And then it changed again, forget-
ting. "No. The bird is the sorcery."

"How long have you been ensorcelled?"

"I do not know. A week. A month. A century. I
do not know."

"Where are you from?"

"I have forgotten."

"What is your name?"

"I have forgotten," he whispered. Nyx was silent;

her own eyes, catching the moon's pale fire, turned
misty, inhuman. Meguet, resigned to the expression
in them, knew she had ensorcelled herself by her own
curiosity. After a moment, Nyx loosed the man,
turned her gaze to the Holder. Her brows crooked
questioningly. The Holder, equally resigned, flung up
a hand.

"All right. I am curious, too. But I will have no
more sorcery from that bird. Keep it out of sight, and
in Moro's name give the man something to eat be-
sides mice."

40 Patricia A McKillip

The man slid to his knees. His head bowed; he held
his arms together as if they were bound, elbow to
upturned wrists that the strange, latticed metal pro-
tected. His fingers spread wide and flat, a gesture that
riveted Nyx's attention. "This to the Cygnet," he
said. "All the time I hold."

The Holder sent him, under guard, to be fed,
washed, clothed and presented to Nyx's scrutiny in
the mage's tower before the bell in the north tower
changed night into morning. Nyx returned to what a
hasty eye might have deemed the disaster in the li-
brary. So orderly was her chaos that she saw at a
glance Calyx's futile attempts to straighten things.
Musing, the stranger's gesture repeating itself in her
mind, she stared into the eye of the Cygnet flying
through black marble above the mantel. Beneath the
Cygnet, things glinted in candle and torchlight: tiny
opaque bottles, dark glass boxes that refused to open,
mysterious things carved in amber, wood, gold, that
had no openings yet when shaken moved from the
liquid rolling within them. She fingered a seamless
cobalt box; something buzzed in it like a furious in-
sect. She still did not know, after years of wandering,
study, work, what magic lay within that tiny box.
What she had finally learned was why she was still
ignorant.

The door opened; Meguet, about to enter, stopped
in the doorway with an amazed face peering over her
shoulder. She turned with barely a flicker of expres-
sion, and took the tray that had followed her up. The
door closed; she stood, with more expression, looking

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    41

for a place to set Nyx's supper.

"Just let it go," Nyx said. Meguet, who had been
transformed into a rose-tree with less notice, yielded
calmly to the whims of sorcery and left the tray hang-
ing in midair. "Thank you."

"Your mother asked me to bring it. She said you
hadn't eaten all day."

"How could she remember that? I didn't." She
waved the tray across the room. Meguet, glancing
around, caught sight of ancient weapons hanging like
icicles above her head. She moved promptly, joined
Nyx at the hearth, where nothing hung overhead but
a faded tapestry. Nyx, bread in one hand, cold chicken
in the other, asked,

"Where is he?"

"In a bath, I think. What is it in you that causes
furniture to behave in such a peculiar fashion?' *

"I prefer a world in a constant state of transmuta1-
tion," Nyx said with her mouth full.

"Is that what you will tell the Holder?"

"Is she coming up?"

"She's hardly in the mood to leave you alone up
here with a man who turns cart horses into trees by
breathing."

"Oh."

"So she said." .

Nyx shrugged. "The bird's spells wear away by
moonlight. Luckily. You made a beautiful rose-tree."

"A rose-tree," Meguet said with feeling. "In front
of half the household. Why did you wait for the moon

42 Patnaa A McKilhp

to rescue me? You could have spared me some dig-
nity."

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know.'*

Meguet gazed at her. She folded her arms, leaned
against the mantel. She rarely made unnecessary
movements; the heel of her boot ticked uneasy ques-
tions against the hearthstones. "You mean you
couldn't."

"I couldn't." She put down a chicken bone, eyed
it with a bog-witch's speculation, then licked a fin-
ger. "That's what fascinates me so. To break a
spell, you simply unweave it, strand by strand, until
the spell does not exist. Of course, doing this, you
are liable to catch the attention of the sorcerer who
cast the spell, who may look askance at your med-
dling. I couldn't undo the spell over you because I
couldn't find a single strand. It was of a piece, that
magic, like a single jewel. Very beautiful."

"You mean if the moon hadn't risen—"

"Eventually I would have worked it through. There-
is always a way. Always. But the moon worked fas-
ter."

Meguet was silent. A night breeze drifted through
the windows, scented with roses; she saw in memory
the rose on her shadow. She asked slowly, her fingers
gripping hard on her arms, "Is there a connection
between the mage and the firebird?"

"I don't know." Nyx poured wine, stared into it
without drinking, her dark brows knit. "Is there a

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    43

connection between a mage looking for a key and a
firebird flying over a wall? If the mage had come a
month ago and the firebird tomorrow, I would say no.
But they came one after another, and both from lands
beyond Ro Holding."

"He spoke of warships."

"Then the spell may be very old and the mage
dead. Which may make it easier for me. Or more
difficult, if the spell is archaic. How long has it been
since warships sailed under the Cygnet on Wolfe
Sea?"

"Centuries." Meguet shivered suddenly, envision-
ing time- "Ensorcelled so long, no wonder he cries
like that. But will the mage or sorcerer be dead?
Didn't Chrysom live for centuries before he even built
this house for Moro Ro?"

"Legend says."

"What did he say?"

"Chrysom said very little about himself; he hid his
life behind his spells. And apparently he hid a few
spells as well, locked away in a secret place.... Me-
guet, if you had something to hide in this room, where
would you hide it?"

"Up the chimney. Under a hearthstone. In a table
leg. Unless I were a mage. Then—" She shook her
head helplessly, blind to sorcery. "I don't know how
mages think."

"I do. I want to know what you think."

"What am I hiding?"

"A spellbook. It may not look like a book; it may
look like a doorknob. It might even be a book within

44 Patricia A McKHlip

a book, lines hidden between lines, words within
words, but I've searched every book in here that was
made before Chrysom died."
"Someone took it."

"No."

"How do you know?"

"Because the spells would have become common
knowledge by now. I've suspected for some time that
a book had been lost or hidden. What gave the vis-
iting mage a clue to look for the key, I have no idea.
Perhaps he will come back and I can ask him. Perhaps
he realized what I did: that Chrysom hints now and
then at spells which are unknown, even to the mage
Diu, for he never told me."

Meguet nodded blankly. The ancient mage Diu, a
descendant of Chrysom's, was such a legendary figure
it was difficult to conceive of him still alive and swap-
ping spells. "Why? What made you suspect?"

"These," Nyx said, touching the mysteries on the
mantel. "He never makes use of them in any book
I've ever seen, and I thought I had all his books. And
because I came across an odd mark now and then at
random, in the margins of his spellbook: a C or a
crescent moon holding an M in its arms. The key has
the same design on its handle. I've always thought
the spells he marked with that sign were incomplete,
or so old they are little more than curiosities. But now
I know he completed'them in another place. A secret
place, locked by the key he hid."

"But why would he hide them?"

"That," Nyx said softly, "intrigues me most of all.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    45

What kinds of spells did he feel compelled to hide?"

Meguet recognized the gleam of compulsion in her
eye: the sorceress in pursuit of the unknown. It had
led her most recently into a morass, and the house
into turmoil. Meguet said resignedly, "So you tore
the room apart searching for this secret book that may
or may not exist."

Nyx nodded, unperturbed, chewing again. "Every
crack, every glass rose, every stone and every stone
bird in this hearth. I've searched as a mage searches,
and I've searched with nothing more than my eyes
and my bare hands."

"Then it's not here."

"I think it is here.... Chrysom kept everything he
used in this room- He lived here; his bones are still
here, buried beneath this tower. Even after a thousand
years, these old stones are saturated with his magic.
They send a signal like a beacon, a ghostly signal,
but visible to those who can see the imprint of
power...."

"Like the bird? Is that what drew it?"

Nyx was silent, her eyes on Meguet while she
mused, using the calm in her cousin's face to focus
her thoughts. "I still don't know," she said at last,
"where that bird's sorcery comes from. Perhaps it
was simply made to find this place. Or any place of
power."

"For yet another mage?" Meguet looked shaken.
"Nyx, how many mages will we have to contend
with?"

Nyx shrugged. "It's only speculation. I'll worry

46 Patricia A McKiUip

when I find something to worry about." She paused,
listening, the wine halfway to her lips. She put it
down abruptly. "Like now. My mother is coming."

The room composed itself in an eye-blink, as if,
Meguet thought, its tidy self had been simply waiting
in abeyance around the moment of time Nyx searched
through- Carpets and skins lay underfoot, weapons
and tapestries hung on the walls, books surrounded
them on shelves and pedestals. The account books
Calyx had been studying lay open on a table, her pen
angled on a page to mark a place. The mound of
chairs that had been balanced in an impossible pyra-
mid on the wine table fanned around the hearth; not
a shadow or a flame had been misplaced. Nyx picked
her supper out of the air and set it on a table. The
door opened.

The Holder entered, followed by her two older
daughters, and Rush Yarr; a pair of armed guards
flanked the stranger. Even dressed in more civilized
fashion, he looked formidable, tall and muscular,
something of the bird's wildness about him. Meguet,
remembering the rage and desolation in his cry,
wished she had thought to arm herself, for he was a
man unaware of his own anger. The bird's fury
shaped itself into jewelled leaves; what form the
man's might take was as yet unknown, perhaps even
to himself.

But, entering, he seemed quiet enough. He barely
glanced around himself; his eyes found Nyx and
clung. Nyx gestured at a chair; he sat hesitantly, as if
he had forgotten how. Meguet moved unobtrusively

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    47

to a table near him, leaned against it. Rush Joined her.
The guards stood behind the Holder and her daugh-
ters, silent, watchful. Nyx, at the hearth, studied him,
fingering a strand of tiny pearls sliding down over one
ear.

"Is there a name I can call you?" she asked. "One
you might remember to answer to?*'

He was silent, dredging unknown fathoms of mem-
ory. He said finally, "Every name I reach for eludes
me. It might be anything. Or nothing."

His face formed suddenly, clearly, under Nyx's ab-
sent gaze, as if, until then, she had only seen the fire-
bird. His eyes reminded her of something. She slid
the strand of pearls behind her ear and remembered
what: the little cobalt box on the mantel behind her.
She blinked; the entire room was still, everyone fas-
cinated, it seemed, by her silence. She gathered her
thoughts, which had been fragmented by a color.
"Two things I must do first. I want the bird's fire and
I want its cry."

His lips parted; he whispered, "How?"

"I'll tell you how after I have done it. I don't want
to be turned into a gaudy pile of leaves every time it
looks at me. And the cry that bird makes is like the
crying of every bird I have ever tormented in my
sorcery- It would wear me to the heart."

He was staring at her, transfixed, as if she had just
changed shape, or taken shape, in his eyes. He made
a sudden movement, muscles gathering, his hands
closing on the chair arms. The cry came and went
like lightning in his face. Silver flashed from behind

48 Patricia A McKilhp

the Holder as one of the guards moved. Meguet
caught his eyes, held him still. Nyx continued, her
voice grim but deliberate, "Mages find themselves
sometimes on strange roads, in strange places. You
can trust me, but you don't know that. My past casts
a shadow. If you want a mage without a shadow, you
must fly farther north, to a mage called Diu, who is
very old and tired, but would do a favor for me if I
asked. You must—"

"The bird found you," the man said. He was still
gripping his chair, but he had made no other move-
ment. Nyx waited; he added, some feeling breaking
into his low voice, "I don't know how long the bird
flew to find you. But, entering this house, it cried its
magic until you listened. You must do what you can.
What you want. The bird will choose to stay or go.
It's no question of trust. Or of choice, for me. I have
no choice."

The Holder opened her mouth, closed it as the sor-
ceress's eyes flicked at her. Nyx said, answering her
unspoken question, "I cannot know how the bird
found me, or why, or if it was sent until I begin to
work. I suspect that the spell was cast very long ago,
and that the bird came here simply because it sensed
a thousand years of magic in this tower. So I will
assume that, for now, all I have to do is remove a
spell."

"And if the bird was sent?" the Holder asked.
"Perhaps by the mage who appeared yesterday? You
may put the entire house in danger."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    49

"Well," Nyx said softly, "it won't be the first
time."

"But—"

"You have heard that bird cry. Is there anything
you would not do to stop it, if you could?" The
Holder was silent; jewels sparked on her hands as
they clasped, containing a mute argument. Nyx
added, "I can stop it. I can help. If I bring down sor-
cery on mis house, then we will find a way to deal
with that. But now, the bird is here and the sorcerer
is only a possibility. I must begin with the magic I
see, not with the ghosts and shadows conjured up by
fear." She looked at the man again. He had not
moved a muscle or an eyelash while she spoke; still
she was not certain how much he understood besides
hope. "So," she said, toying with an earring, a circle
of amber ringed with pearls, "we will wait for the
bird to return. Tell me what you remember of your
wanderings."

"I remember sea. I remember the bird flying
through a storm of burning arrows. I remember me
face of a small boy just before he was caught in me
bird's fire. I remember waking in snow, in mud,
sometimes in trees, sometimes falling out of the air
and running from hunters."

"And before you were spellbound?" The earring
fell off; she caught it in her palm. She dropped her
other hand toward the metal on his wrist, but did not
touch it. "What are these?"

He gazed at them without a flicker of recognition.
"Armor, of some kind, I think."

50 PatnciaA McKillip

"May I see?"

"They don't come off."

"Do you remember any place? A city? A house?"

He paused, made an effort. "I remember a door-
way."

"A doorway?"

He shrugged slightly. "Nothing more. A marble
doorway, with a marble pot of flowers beside it."

"What was inside the door?"

"A noonday shadow. That's all I remember, except
that I saw it, not the bird, because I remember the
scent of the flowers and the soft air. It could be any
door, anywhere. It means nothing."

"What did you mean when you said to the Holder,
'All the time I hold'?"

He was on his feet, then, with no warning. Meguet,
pushing away from the table, saw the cry beginning
in his face. Then she heard the midnight bells, and
saw the fiery plumage streak his back. She checked
her instinctive movement to Nyx's side, having no
desire to be caught in the enchanted fire. The bird
finished the cry in midair. Fire swarmed at Nyx; Me-
guet heard Calyx cry out behind the silken, red-gold
wall. Nyx opened her hand, held up her defense: an
amber earring.

Fire kindled in the amber, a reflection of the on-
slaught of flame. It kindled in Nyx's misty eyes,
washed them with color. For a time her mind was an
amber, fire-filled jewel guiding the magic, inviting
more, expanding endlessly as it flooded into her,
while, to watching eyes, the small jewel in her hand

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    51

focused and ate the fire. The gorgeous and magical
imagery of the bird's enchantments changed and
changed again in her mind as it tried to change her:

black roses, emerald leaves, snowflakes of silver lat-
ticed like the odd armor, birds with sapphire wings
and eyes, golden lilies, bird-eggs of topaz and dia-
mond. The threads of the spell were a tapestry of tiny
detail worked by a skilled hand. Dimly, as she
dragged the fire and rich images endlessly out of it,
she heard the bird's ceaseless cry.

Then there was only pale moonlight in her mind, a
final rose the- color of mist. She could see again; she
dropped her hand, blinking. The bird, perched on the
chair, was silent. The air darkened slowly, candlelight
and shadow. The faces gazing at her looked haunted,
exhausted by the cry. She lifted the amber, red-gold
now and cracked like glass, and put it back in her ear;

her hand trembled slightly.

"So the bird knows where it is," she said.

"Nyx," the Holder breathed, and nothing more.
Beside her. Calyx lifted her face from her hands; tears
slid between her fingers. Rush, stunned by the sor-
cery, moved behind her, put his hands on her shoul-
ders. The guards' faces looked pinched, as if they had
been standing in a freezing wind. Iris had gone. Nyx's
eyes moved to Meguet. Her face was composed,
watchful, as always, but so white it might have been
carved of snow.

"That must have wakened the house," Meguet
commented. Her voice shook suddenly; she put her
hand to her mouth, hearing an echo of the fury and

52 Patricia A. McKillip

the sorrow. "Can you find a jewel hard enough to
hold its cry?"

"Maybe," Nyx said softly. Her eyes were wide,
luminous; they seemed to look through Meguet.
"Maybe one." Meguet, recognizing that expression,
felt herself grow very still; she seemed to pick out of
Nyx's mind the jewel that hung there. "You do it so
easily, Meguet, when you need to, but I have never
tried. Yet I saw it all within the Cygnet's eye...."
"What?" Calyx and the Holder asked together.
"All the fractured moments within the whole, like
light fractured within the prism ... a moment shirting
into all its layers. If I could throw the bird's cries into
another layer of time, we would not hear them and it
would still have its voice. I have taken its fire. That
cry is its heart and the only word it knows. I will not
take its heart." She paused, her eyes clinging to Me-
guet in lieu of the great dark prism beneath the tower
that was the Cygnet's eye. "I looked into the Cyg-
net's eye, and saw its power. But did it only show
me things I could never know? Or did I take that
power?" Meguet, transfixed, birdlike, could not look
away. The room was soundless. "You wander
through the walls of time at need; so did I, that one
time, flying faster than thought. But can I wander at
will? I am the Cygnet's heir: Did it give me only what
I needed, or what I wanted? I wanted everything I
saw.... For that one moment, I flew within time, but
did I fly? Or did the Cygnet?" The black tower walls
wrapped around her like the small, circular chamber
at the heart of Chrysom's maze. Concentrating, her

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    53

gaze still on Meguet, she saw the black prism, the
faceted eye of power, hanging in the still darkness
within a triple ring of time. "You could cry into that
silence," she told the bird. "I did."

The bird cried. She heard it standing once again
beneath the great prism, which was no longer dark,
but fire-white, sculpted with planes of light. The cry
filled the chamber, buried deep where only the Cygnet
would hear it. It cried, and cried again; the stone walls
echoed with its tale, as if it had found the safe and
secret place to tell it. Nyx, gazing into the prism, lis-
tening for one familiar word, saw Meguet's face re-
flected in every plane. Then she saw Meguet, in the
shadows on the other side of the prism, caught in the
tangle of cries, as if Nyx, using her face to open mem-
ory, had pulled her into the fractured time.

She blinked; the prism faded, and she saw Me-
guet's face again, a stillness in it like the stillness of
stone. The mage's tower circled them again, with its
triple ring of stone and night and time. Color flooded
suddenly into Meguet's face; she stared, incredu-
lously, at Nyx. The bird cried, but its cries were
soundless now, its story hidden.

The Holder and Calyx were both on their feet.

"Where did you go?" Calyx demanded, aston-
ished. "You both vanished."

"I sent the bird cry into the heart of the maze,"
Nyx said. She ran her hands through her hair wearily,
scattering jewels, her eyes on Meguet. "I seem to
have pulled us both along with it."

"That's not possible," the Holder said. She ap-

54 PatnciaA McK.illip

pealed to Meguet. "Is it?"

"No." She drew breath, shivering slightly. "There
was no need for me there."

"I needed you," Nyx said. "You took me there in
memory. Who knows which of us guided whom? The
bird is crying to the Cygnet instead of to us, which
means we can all sleep soundly." She dropped her
hand on Meguet's shoulder, and smiled a little,
tightly. "Maybe that's all we did; walk back into
memory, and leave, appropriately, a bird cry there."

Meguet, still standing tensely, shook her head.
"You shifted time," she said simply, "not memory."
She paused, listening to her words, or to other words
echoing under the moonlight. The Holder said softly,
her dark, troubled eyes on the sorceress's face,

" 'All the time I hold-' "

- Four-

Meguet watched the dawn unfurl like a wing of fire
across the Delta. She had wakened early, anticipating
a summons, and had seen the Gatekeeper, anticipating
dawn, extinguish the torches beside the gate. Beyond
the wall, the waves picked up light, rolled it into
scrolls and unrolled it again, like a spell in some for-
gotten language across the sand. She dressed quickly,
without waking her attendants, pulling swans down
her wrists and across her shoulders, for despite the
mysteries and magic, there was yet another prosaic
day of council ahead of them, if they could dodge the
sorcery falling headlong out of the air. She braided
her hair as she went down. Crossing the yard, she
caught a breath of the moist, dank sweetness of the
inner swamps, lily and mud and still, secret waters.
The Gatekeeper's face turned toward it; she wondered
if he had smelled it, too, if he were breathing in mem-
ories. And then he saw her.

His breakfast followed close behind her. He shared
it with her, the tray balanced between them in the tiny
turret. He buttered hot bread for her, offered pale,

56 Patricia A McKillip

spiced wine from his cup, peeled quail's eggs. She
nibbled, weary and absent-minded, listening, in some
deep part of her, for the Holder's voice.

He said, "I saw light all night from the mage's
tower."

Her eyes, following the white thread of a gull's
flight, nicked to his face. "Then you were awake all
night."

"I thought it best," he said wryly, "the way things
have been getting past me." He cut wafer-thin strips
of melon and passed her one. "I don't know what to
expect next."

She saw then the familiar shadows under his eyes,
that came when he saw too little or too much in the
small lonely hours of the night. She set the tray aside
abruptly, shifted to sit beside him.

"Nobody knows," she said, and told him what the
firebird had said, what Nyx had done. When she fin-
ished, her head in the hollow of his shoulder to dodge
the flood of morning light, he commented,

"She has a way with birds."

Meguet lifted her head, eyed him narrowly. He let
her see the faintest line of a smile beside his mouth.
"You had better be smiling," she said dourly.

He smoothed her hair, "It's not so long ago that
she had us all dancing at shadows because of birds.
Now here's another over the gate so fast it left the
Gatekeeper of Ro House standing with his mouth
open in a wake of pinfeathers. I might as well row
myself back to the swamp."

"Take me with you," she sighed. "I'm house-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    57

bound with this council. I want to pick lilies in a bog
and have you braid them in my hair."

"They must be getting edgy, the Hold Councils."

"They're curious. I'm edgy. The Holder looks as
if she swallowed a thunderbolt. Her house was spell-
bound by a mage with no good intentions who may
or may not return, and her heir is up in Chrysom's
tower with a bird who may be trouble or may not,
but most likely has trouble on its tail. In the middle
of this, she has to sit through speeches about sheep."

' 'What kind of trouble does she look for from the
firebird?"

"The mage who cast the spell."

He made a soft sound, stirring. "Another one?
How many mages are we looking at?"

"Maybe this one will knock on the gate."

"They don't seem in the habit of knocking. Why
would a mage twist a man out of his shape for all but
a few moonlit hours? Only to make him remember
that he's human?"

"That's all he does remember."

"Not what he did to get himself turned into a
bird?."

Meguet was silent, thinking of the cries that came
and went across the man's face like lightning across
a barren landscape. She said, "The bird remembers."

"But not the man." His eyes strayed seaward. "So.
I must watch for a dangerous and cold-blooded
mage."

"If he's still alive. And if—" She paused again,
her brows crooked uncertainly, her eyes on another

58 Patricia A. McKillip

bird: the Cygnet, flying across the mantle of the bell
ringer entering the north tower to summon the coun-
cilors together.                               ]

"And if what? What do you see, Meguet?"

She blinked, her thoughts clearing. "I see that I
must leave you."

"If what?" he asked insistently, holding her with
nothing more than the tone of his voice, his eyes. She
gazed back at him, perplexed, hearing again the ter-
rible, desperate cry of the firebird.

"If" she said, "the bird is innocent."

Nyx, present to the outward eye during the council
that day, was so preoccupied that Calyx touched her
once or twice, wondering obviously if she were still
breathing. All her attention was focused in the high
tower room, where the mage might return. He would
want the key. He would guess that she had hidden it
in a different place. She had spent some rime before
dawn trying to turn it invisible, or change its shape
into one of Calyx's hoary household records, or a rose
among the hundreds on the tower vines. It resisted all
enchantment. She gave up finally and put it in her
pocket, a solution which would have horrified the
Holder. Nyx did not approve of it herself, but she had
run out of ideas by morning. The mage might disrupt
the council, demanding the key, but the worst he
would most likely do would be to give everyone
something to talk about besides border tolls. The bird,
she suspected with no particular evidence, might fare
differently. So she had separated them, the key and

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    59

the bird, in hope that me strange, ruthless mage, seek-
ing one mystery, would ignore the other.

She carried the key with her to the great hall in the
third tower, where the councilors ate savory delicacies
with their fingers, drank wine, and continued their
endless debates while families and guests slowly
gathered from woods and gardens, city shops and
neighbors' houses, for supper. She had promised the
Holder that for one evening at least, she would not
shut herself up behind another locked door with yet
another bird. But birds and rumors shadowed her, it
seemed. As she bit into melted cheese wrapped in
butter pastry, young Darl Kell of Hunter Hold, who
had eyes like some of the frogs she had used in her
fires, asked with a bluntness he meant to be charming,

"Is it one of yours?"

She raised a brow mutely, her tongue busy dodging
hot cheese.

1 "The great bird in the tower. A bit of your leftover
magic from the swamp?"

She coughed on a pastry crumb. "No," she said
when she could speak- "If nothing else, I'm tidy. If
I transform something, it stays transformed, and I
don't leave it a voice to complain with."

Darl Kell flushed to his broad ears. "You're not
like your sisters," he said, and stalked off to gaze at
Calyx. Nyx brushed crumbs off her silk and wished
she could be as tidy in life as she was in art. Someone
pushed wine into her hand and said, his voice too
close to her ear,

"He could stand some room for improvement, if

60 Patricia A McKillip

you're in the mood to transform."

She looked up, into the smiling eyes of Urbin
Dacey, whose father led the Withy Hold Cound-l- He
was tall and black-haired and amber-eyed. She had
noticed those eyes several times during the council,
and had wondered what perversity they watched for.
She took a sip of wine, and answered equably,

"I don't transform by whim. And I don't practice
such sorcery on humans.'*

"Pity. His ears could stand some." He turned
deftly, lifted a plate of stuffed mushrooms as she
opened her mouth. "What sorcery do you allow your-
self to practice on humans?"

"As little as poss—"

"You have been practicing some on me."

"What?"

"I've felt it in the council chamber. You meet my
eyes with your pale moon eyes. You draw at me.
Calyx is very beautiful, but she is day, and you arc
night, secret, beautiful, mysterious, perhaps danger-
ous. Are you dangerous at night?"

Nyx gazed at him, a mushroom halted midway to
her mouth. "What in Moro's name are you talking
about?"

His smile never faltered. "I believe I make myself
clear. I am falling a little in love with you."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous." She bit into the mush-
room, added, chewing, * 'Love is the last thing on your
mind."

He was silent, looking down at her so long that she
wondered if she had left mushroom in some unsightly

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    61

place. "It's a game," he said lightly. "You should
leam to play it. It gives the world grace."

He slid the glass from her hand, took a sip of wine,
and slipped it back between her fingers. She said
softly, "And how well you play it. You must practice
often."

"I'll teach you."

"Unfortunately, I lack grace." She set the glass on
the table and stood quietly, not moving or speaking,
simply looking at him until his smile finally faltered
and he turned away.

She picked up the glass again, took a hefty swal-
low. Someone else stepped to her side and marvelled,
"You made Urbin Dacey blush."

She lowered the glass with some relief. "Rush."

He brushed a crumb off her sleeve. "It takes a
complex sorcery to discomfit Urbin. He won't give
up easily, though. I've seen him watching you. He
plays a game he hates to lose."

' 'I have no time for games,'' she said, feeling the
weight of the key in her pocket- Rush looked at her
silently a moment; she glimpsed a familiar curiosity
in his eyes and wondered what realm she had ne-
glected to explore- He asked the question in his eyes.

"Does sorcery preclude love?"

"I wouldn't know. It's not in Chrysom's books."

"Is that all you—" he began, then saw he was
being teased. He smiled a little, still curious, while
she helped herself to a plate of tiny biscuits rolled in
poppy seeds and spices. She said, because he wanted
to know,

62 Patricia A McKilhp

"1 take after my mother, who roamed Ro Holding
when she was young and found three fathers for three
daughters. Sorcery does not preclude curiosity, and I
have satisfied my curiosity at times. But—"

"With whom?"

Like her mother, she ignored the question. "But
you have to stand still for love. I could never stand
still."

"Like Urbin," he said, then flushed a little. But
she mulled that over calmly.

"Maybe. But at least I'm honest."

"Yes," he said, not looking at her, but she saw the
memories in his eyes. "Urbin has a thousand ways
of saying one thing. You don't hide behind language,
which is why he can't find, among his thousand ways.
the one way to make you listen. Neither could I," he
added, but lightly, and she smiled, seeing no bitter-
ness in his eyes.

"Now," she said, "we listen to one another." She
touched his arm and turned, to find Arlen Hunter in
her path, who had come to tell her what he believed
about her, and what he didn't, feeling it was important
for her to know. She extracted herself abruptly from
his muddle of awe and prurience, deciding that no
effort to please her mother was worth becoming civ-
ilized for this. She slipped away to wait for moonrise.

Across the hall, Meguet, disarmed, dressed in red
silk and gold, found siege laid against her own pa-
tience. Tur Hunter, blue-eyed, golden-haired, heir to
Hunter Hold, had lost, he said, his heart to her green
eyes. He was smiling, but relentless, burning hot and

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    63

cold, and willing to fight a slight to his pride. She
said carefully, "My own heart is bound to this house;

my eyes are not free to stray."

"Not from the gate?" he said, his smile thinning,
and she felt the blood rise in her face. "Your whims
are your business, but you should have some respect
for your own heritage. What in Moro's name can you
do with a Gatekeeper?''

"Love him," she said simply, with no tact what-
soever. Tur Hunter snorted, flushing.

"What will you do? Marry him and live among the
cottagers?"

She shrugged slightly. "I hadn't thought. If past is
status, some among the cottagers can trace their fam-
ilies back a thousand years, when Moro Ro's status
in Ro Holding was that he had a bigger cottage than
anyone else and a bloodier sword."

"And what does your Gatekeeper have?" he re-
torted. "Bom among tortoises and river rats, he still
has the swamp in his voice. You'll tire of that soon
enough."

"Then," she said, keeping her voice steady with
an effort, "it is not worth your breath to interfere,
since I will cast him aside eventually over the cadence
of lilies and slow dark water and small birds in his
voice."

Tur was silent a breath, then changed weapons.
"Now," he said solicitously, and took her hand in
his, "I have put you in the position of having to de-
fend him. I have made you angry. That was hardly
my intention. If the Holder hasn't interfered in your

64 Patricia A McKilhp

infatuation with the murkier side of the Delta, it must
be because she is wiser than I am, and knows it is
like the elusive, colorful swamp lights, of little sub-
stance and will burn itself out. Tell me what I can do
to persuade you to forgive me."

She almost suggested something. But the Holder
was beside her suddenly, as if summoned by the
swamp lights smoldering in the air between them.

"Tur," she said, fixing a dark eye upon him, "stop
trying to lure my niece to Hunter Hold; I need her
here. She is one of the foundation stones of this
house, like my Gatekeeper, and I won't free her for
all the gold in Hunter Hold. Go and get me wine and
take it outside and drink it." She took Meguet's arm,
forcing Tur to loose her hand, and led her to the
hearth. It was cold, unoccupied, and offered a mo-
ment of privacy within the crowded hall.

Meguet said softly, "I can fight my own battles.
Though I didn't think I would have to."

The Holder, who loved fires, eyed the empty grate
wistfully. She said, "Neither did I, but then I never
admitted to anything I had to defend. Anyway, I
wanted to talk to you. When you are not guarding the
Holding Council, I want you with Nyx."

Meguet, startled, said, "There's not much I can do
for her."

"I know that and I don't care. I don't want her
alone with that stranger, and you're the only one in
the house she would put up with." She kicked the
grate moodily, and turned, gazing at the placid, mur-
muring hall as if mages were concealed in the hang-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    65

ings or underfoot beneath the carpets. "I want you
with her in those night hours when the bird becomes
human."

Meguet was silent, seeing again the rich and stun-
ning shapes the bird's cry had taken in the yard. "I
wonder where he came from ... I wonder if anyone
is alive to miss him or search for him."

"I'm wondering who cast that spell and when
Nyx's meddling will bring yet another mage to my
door."

"If that mage is still alive."

"There are too many mages." Her fingers lifted to
her hair, searching for pins to pull, but they were too
well hidden. She folded her arms instead, frowning at
her shadow in the torchlight. ' 'Nyx assumes the mage
is dead. I assume otherwise, for the sake of my house.
That is why I want you with her. She trusts you, and
you have more common sense than she does."

"Only for an ordinary world."

"That's the one I want to keep her alive in," the
Holder said grimly. "She has so much power, and
she has hardly scrubbed the mud off her feet from
that morass she trapped herself in."

"The power was given to her freely."

"It's not her heart that worries me now, it's her
magpie curiosity that picks at anything glittering of
magic. She's facing a twisted sorcery unfamiliar even
to her. She may have terrorized the population of
birds in the swamp, but she never made anything hu-
man cry so desperately. And all she can see of the
sorcery is something she can't do herself—she's blind

66 Patricia A McKiUip

to danger. Even the young man seems dangerous to
me."

"Yes."

*'I don't think he's just an innocent under a spell.
He looks powerful and unpredictable."

"Like Nyx, not long ago."

The Holder's brooding attached itself to her. "Me-
guet Vervaine, are you counseling compassion over
common sense?"

"Never," Meguet said flatly, "where Nyx is con-
cerned. But given the murkier sorcery she has dabbled
in, she may have more success with a bird with a
questionable past than a mage with a tidier history
would."

The Holder made an undignified sound. "Let's
hope his past is tidier than hers. Wherever his past is.
Or was."

"Perhaps he is from Ro Holding and he simply
can't remember. He does remember the Cygnet flying
on warships."

"He'd have to be a very old bird."

"Or a young man trapped outside of his time."

The Holder touched her eyes. ' 'That is something
Nyx would find irresistible. But how much does she
know about time? Is that common knowledge among
mages?"

"She pulled me within time to stand beneath the
Cygnet's eye. For all I know she may have all the
Cygnet's power."

The Holder drew breath. "Moro's bones. It's un-
precedented." Her eyes moved over the hall, search-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    67

ing. "Where is she? I asked her to stay through
supper."

"I saw her talking to Rush. And then to Arlen Hun-
ter."

"I don't see her."

"She must be here," Meguet said, failing to find
her. "She doesn't forget things."

"She forgets unimportant things," the Holder said
darkly- "Supper, her shoes, sleep, time. Maybe that
mage returned without our knowing, ensorcelled us
all again between a bite and a swallow. Maybe," she
added, with some hope, "he has found the book him-
self and vanished back into his own secret country."

"It can't be all that secret," Meguet pointed out,
"if he has heard of Chrysom."

The Holder closed her eyes. "Don't raise side is-
sues," she said tersely- "Find Nyx before the moon
rises and I lose her again to that demented bird."

The bird's eye reflected a sorceress within its golden
iris. It perched on a window ledge; its shadow, cast
long and black by the torch beside the window, cut
across the sorceress's path to take shape against the
hearth; a faceless dark beneath the stone Cygnet. Nyx
was aware of the bird's scrutiny and its shadow. She
moved imperturbably through both, continuing her
search for the missing book and waiting for moonrise.
She had explored everything but the oddments on the
mantel. There, she reasoned, it must be: the mage's
voice buzzing inside the cobalt box, the barely per-

68 Patricia A. McKiUip

ceptible shift of weighty thought within the emerald
bottle.

The bird opened its beak. No cry came out of it,
no fire, but the sorceress turned to face it.

"Be patient," she said. "I haven't forgotten you."

She folded her arms, leaned against the mantel,
frowning slightly, studying the bird. The red on its
folded wingtips made an elaborate chessboard pattern
against the white. Its longer plumes trailed down the
stone, delicate puffs of white that stirred at a breath.
Its sharp talons caught light like metal; the mask of
fiery feathers around its eyes gave it a fierce and se-
cretive expression. Nyx, slowly dissolving within an
amber eye, saw only herself in its thoughts. Whatever
language it spoke—bird or human—was hidden.

"You arc well guarded," she commented, returned
to herself on the hearth. The bird did not shift a
feather, as motionless as if it had become one of its
own enchantments. The fire still hung in Nyx's ear.
She toyed with it absently. The bird opened its beak
soundlessly, in recognition.

Red the color of the bird's mask snagged her eye.
She turned her head, studied a tiny red clay jar on the
mantel. It was shaped like a hazelnut with a flat bot-
tom and a cap of gold. The clay was seamed with
minute cracks, as if whatever it held had seeped out
centuries before. Nyx picked it up, weighed it in her
hand. Chrysom, who had, centuries after his death,
gotten suddenly more complex, might have left an
empty bottle on his mantel, or a mage's trap. A day

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    69

or two ago she had known how he thought. Now, she
was not so sure.

"Well," she said, and met the bird's intent golden
stare. "Better sorry than safe."

She gazed down at the jar, letting her thoughts flow
like air or water into the spider web of cracks. The
rough, dry edges permitted her only so far, no farther,
into their tiny crevices. What stopped her, she
couldn't tell; it had no substance. The gold cap,
molded into the clay by the slow shift of particles of
metal, seemed solid; touching it, her thoughts turned
into gold.

It was of a piece, like the bird, like the bird's en-
chantments: a weave of magic so fine she could not
isolate a single thread- Baffled, she withdrew from it,
fascinated by her ignorance.

She put it back on the mantel, picked up a round
bottle of opaque, swamp-green glass, no bigger than
her palm. Its neck was short, slender, and had no
opening. But it was not empty. Something within it
shifted against the glass sides; the bottle tilted slug-
gishly in her hand, then rolled upright. Her thoughts
grew crystal, rounded, green, then eased inward,
dropped away from the glass into the tiny pool of
magic it enclosed.

She fell into a great pool of nothing. The world lost
hold of her, sent her tumbling headlong into an end-
less mist. Startled, she nearly withdrew; then, curious,
she continued falling, seeing nothing, hearing noth-
ing, moving toward nothing until she realized she

70 Patricia A McKillip

could fall forever in that tiny bottle and never reach
the bottom.

She withdrew slowly, finding stone walls beyond
the mist, books, the bird's unblinking eyes. It took
some effort; she rested a moment, wary now, but still
intrigued, before she explored farther. She chose
something black: glass or stone carved into a little
block of shadow. It was wrapped in a web of silver
filaments that wound around one another and parted
and crossed again in an endless, intricate pattern.
Concentrating on a single filament, she found herself
on a silver road.

She did not need to move; it moved beneath her,
swift as wind. Darkness dropped away from the road
on both sides, as if the small block enmeshed in the
silver had no reality itself. The silver turned and
coiled, looked back, crossed itself, moving so fast she
felt she had left her thoughts at some forgotten cross-
road. The road went everywhere and nowhere, it
seemed. On impulse, she dropped off the rushing sil-
ver into the darkness within it.

She found herself in a cube of night, with the silver
mnning in front of her, behind her, underfoot and
overhead, like a net. She tried to withdraw, but she
could not reach past the silver. It was too intricate, it
moved too quickly; catching hold of it was like trying
to hold water pouring down a cliff.

So I am caught, she thought, like a fish in Chry-
som 's net. But what is the net made of?

The way out of the trap was to become the trap....

She could not hold a single, wild thread; she might,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    71

leaping out of the dark, out of herself, hold the entire
moving, glowing web. Unthinking, forgetting even
her own name, she expanded into the darkness, and
then, at all points and loops and crossroads, into the
rushing current of silver.

The flowing pattern froze. Suspended, her mind the
intricate net of filament, she saw what the dark had
hidden: cubes within cubes of patterned silver, each
a completely different weave, growing smaller and
smaller but never vanishing. If she could move be-
tween them from one cube to the next, if she could
walk each pattern ... But what were they?

And then she remembered the filaments, blackened
with age and fire, on the wrists of the stranger. His
hands opened wide, as if to loose some lost power
within the patterns. He spoke ...

She whispered, "Time."

She was suspended within tantalizing spells for
time. But what spell opened the paths to use? How
could she get here, there, or anywhere on those fan-
tastic silver roads that led nowhere outside the box?
How, she wondered more practically, could she get
herself outside the box?

/ got in, she reminded herself. / can get out.

But if she had flung herself down a deep, dry well,
that would be easy to say and not so easy to do. She
swallowed, for the second time in her life, the little,
cold, pebble-hard fact that all her will and all the
knowledge she possessed might not be enough to find
her way back to the world.

/ am looking into Chrysom's eye, she thought- Into

72 Patricia A.. McKillip

his mind, which until now I thought I knew. This 'is
one of the puzzles in the missing book. which is why
I cannot solve it. Yet.

Later, after she had contemplated the frozen, glow-
ing paths without inspiration, she felt again the feath-
ery touch of fear.

They will find me. she thought, in the library, silent,
blind, motionless, holding the box in my hand. Will
they have the sense to leave me with it? Rush
wouldn 't. He would smash it, to set me free. I could
be trapped in its broken shards forever... I should
have taught Rush more sorcery. But I never had the
patience. And he would never stop to think.

She quieted her unruly thoughts, focused them
again. Nothing to do, it seemed, but pick a path again,
see if her thoughts might lead somewhere, if the path
wouldn't. She narrowed her vision, dropped onto the
nearest pattern. Instantly she felt it move, dividing,
looping, flowing everywhere and nowhere, as it had
before, and she was powerless to control it.

Time, she thought. What is it? A word. To endow
a word with power, you must understand it.

Settling into that one place to begin to understand
Chrysom's spell, she saw a man in the distance ahead
of her.

His head was bent slightly; he did not turn or
speak. He simply walked, his eyes on the flow and
weave of silver as if, out of the endless twists and
turns, he fashioned a solid path and followed it.

She found the path he left, a stillness in the wild
flow, a single strand of silver frozen among the rush-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    73

ing patterns. Amazed, she followed it, wondering if
Chrysom had set a shadow of himself within the paths
to guide the unwary mage. The road beyond the guide
began to blur into darkness. Nyx quickened her pace;

as if he felt her sudden fear, he slowed. Closing the
distance between them, she recognized him.

She caught her breath, stunned at the sight of the
long black hair, the warrior's straight line of shoulder.
Turning, he met her eyes, held them. She blinked, and
the tower stones formed around them, the moon hang-
ing in the black sky beyond a window. Gazing at her,
still caught, perhaps, in some twist of past, for an
instant he recognized himself.

"My name is Brand."

- Five-

With the name came memory. He flinched away from
it as from fire; for an instant his human face became
the firebird's cry. Then his eyes emptied of expres-
sion: the dreamer waking, the dream forgotten. She
whispered,

"You were with me in Chrysom's box. You led
me out."

He only gazed at her blankly. "I don't remember."

"Brand." She added, at his silence, "That is your
name. You just told me."

"I don't remember."

The door opened. Preoccupied, she did not loose
his eyes, just held up a hand for silence. She received
it, so completely she wondered if she had thrown a
spell across the room. "You remember," she said.
"Your eyes remember. The bird remembers."

"The bird—" He paused, bewildered. "The bird
is sorcery."

"It cries your sorrow."

"It cries jewels as well as sorrow- Are those mine
also?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    75

"Perhaps. If you arc a mage."

He was silent again, throwing a net into the still
black waters of memory. The net came up empty.
"Why would I be that?"

"Only another mage could have rescued me from
Chrysom's spell." She heard something from the
door then, not sound so much as a rearrangement of
disturbed air. She asked, because it had to be asked,
not because she had much hope of answer, "Do you
know the mage who wears a white dragon on his
brcast?"

His head lifted slightly; he gazed beyond her, as if
dragons were gathering soundlessly in the shadows
just beyond the candlelight. For an instant he seemed
to see what lay beyond the light: the country where
he had been named. The memory faded; he shook his
head. "I cannot see that dragon."

"The mage?"

"What?"

"Do you know the mage?"

He started to speak, stopped. All color left his face
then; his hands clenched. Nyx saw the firebird cry in
his eyes, of grief and rage and danger.

Red shimmered in the comer of her eye. She turned
her head, saw Meguet, dressed for supper, slide a
blade noiselessly off the wall. Whether she wanted it
to fight mages or dragons, Nyx wasn't sure; either, it
seemed suddenly, might blow in unexpectedly on the
night wind. She turned back to Brand, touched the
metal patterns on his wrists lightly. When he made
no protest, she lifted his hands in hers.

76 Patricia A.. McKillip

"Is this the path of time you followed here?" He
looked at them, mute. "All Chrysom's paths are sil-
ver. How did these get so black?"

He shook his head, seeing nothing of mage or time
or color in the blackened metal. "I don't understand.
The bird brought me here. Not these."

"You are the bird," she reminded him patiently,
and as patiently he replied,

"The bird is sorcery."

Meguet tugged at Nyx's attention. She still stood
silently at the door, but her face was pale and her
eyes nicked at every breeze-strewn shadow. She met
Nyx's glance, asked softly, "Is the mage looking for
him?"

"Probably."

"Nyx—"

"It's an interesting problem," Nyx admitted. "It's
hard enough to hide the key, let alone the bird."

"Where did you put the key?"

"In my pocket." She added, at Meguet's expres-
sion, "It refused to change its shape, and I couldn't
think what else to do with it."

"So you took it to the council hall?"

"Well, I could hardly slide it under a carpet. If the
mage returned, I wanted to be there."

"I didn't," Meguet said succinctly- She made a
move toward a chair, then drew back to the door,
looking, Nyx thought, with the gold threading through
her loose hair, and the ancient sword, almost as tar-
nished as the metal on Brand's wrists, half-hidden in
the silken folds of her skirt, unlikely enough to startle

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    77

even the mage again. Nyx said,

"You might as well sit. I doubt that either dragon
or mage will use the door."

Meguet did so, but reluctantly, still holding the
sword. "Dragon," she said, "being the little winged
animal made of thread."

"According to Chrysom, who must have roamed
farther than I ever realized, dragons are made of flesh
and blood and fire, and most are not small."

"How big," Meguet asked after a moment, "is not
small?"

"Huge. So Chrysom said."

Meguet shifted uneasily, hearing dragon wings in
me rustling wind. "Well," she sighed, "at least they
can't come through the windows. Did Chrysom hap-
pen to say where there might be dragons?"

Nyx shook her head. "Like the firebird, he consid-
ered them fable. Or he wrote as if he did. Now, after
coming out of that black box, I'm not sure what he
knew, where he travelled, or when. He—"

"What black box?" Meguet's eyes fell to what
Nyx still held in her hand, and widened. ' "That? You
were in there?"

"My mind was."

"Moro'sname. Why?"

"It seemed a good idea at the time. Not," she ad-
mitted, "one of my better ones. I wanted to see if any
of those odd things were the missing book. This is
full of paths, twisting, turning, looping strands of sil-
ver. I think they lead to different times, moments
within moments, perhaps the sorcery the mage used

78 Patricia A. McKHUp

to slow time. But I don't know how to use them, and
I think the knowledge is in the missing book, as well
as in the firebird's memory,"

"That was the spell he rescued you from?"

"Brand. Coming out, he remembered his name.
But nothing more, not even that he had walked a path
of time with me in that box, and led me out."

Meguet closed her eyes, dropped a cold hand over
them. "I don't know why your mother bothered to
send me up here."

"I don't know, either. Why did she?"

"I'm supposed to guard you. At best a futile no-
tion, at worst laughable."

Nyx turned, set the box carefully back on the man-
tel. "My mother worries too much."

"How can you say that? The mage is not only
looking for the key you are carrying around in your
pocket, but for the firebird, both of which are in the
place he will obviously return to, unless you spun him
into thread so thoroughly he is still trying to untangle
himself." There was a tap at the door; she nearly
jumped, then rose with more dignity, "That will be
Brand's supper. The Holder requested your presence
in the hall."

"I can't go now," Nyx said absently. "I'm think-
ing." She sat down, slipped her shoes off and propped
her feet up. Arms folded, she frowned at midair. A
wide-eyed page set the supper tray on a table, seemed
inclined to linger to watch the firebird eat, and en-
countered Nyx's eye. Meguet, left between the pen-
sive sorceress and the ravenous man, sat tensely,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    79

watching for a thread of white dragon-wing, a dusu
gold face in the shadows, and wondering what raw
deed the firebird's jewelled enchantments hid. She
murmured,

"There are too many mages."

Nyx's eyes rose, fixed on Brand. She nodded, still
frowning. "He could have ensorcelled himself."

"And the other mage is following to free him?"

"It's possible. There is a way to find out."

"How?" Then she leaned forward, gripping the
sword hilt. "No,"

Nyx shrugged. "I don't see how we are to get
closer to the truth this way. The man retreats con-
stantly into the firebird. If we let the mage find him,
Brand might remember himself along with the
mage."

"Not here. Not in this tower, in the middle of the
Holding Council. They may be bitter enemies. The
entire house would be in danger. I think you should
hide the firebird—"

"Where?" Nyx asked. "In the maze beneath the
tower?*'

"Of course not."

"Then where?"

"In the thousand-year-old wood. Not even the
mage would find him among the shifting trees."

"I could find him easily there. What I can do, I
must assume the mage can do."

"Then somewhere in the city, or in the swamp—"

Nyx's mouth crooked. "I can't disappear into the

80 Patricia A. McK.illip

swamp with a bird. My mother would spit light.uiig.
I would prefer to face the mage."

"I'll leave," Brand said abruptly. They both
looked at him, startled, as if they had forgotten he
could speak. Disturbed, he pushed away his food. He
came to stand before Nyx. "I didn't know the bird
would endanger you."

Nyx checked her immediate response, said pa-
tiently, "You might walk out of here, but the bird
would return. It's you who must learn to cry jewels.
To cry sorrow. Or the bird will never set you free."

He shook his head at her obtuseness. "All I
know," he said, "is that the bird came to you, sorcery
to sorceress. First you must deal with the sorcery.
Then I will be able to remember."

She drew breath. His eyes held some of the bird's
fierceness, but it was the fierceness of desire, of de-
termination. "All right,'* she said at last, wondering
that he had guided her so skillfully out of one maze,
only to be so blind in another. "I will work with the
spell awhile, instead of your human memory. One
can't be more difficult than the other. But I have al-
ready tried to find my way into the spell, and gotten
nowhere."

"Try again," he pleaded and sat down on the win-
dow ledge where the bird had waited for the rising
moon.

She found the bird's face within his thoughts; its
spellbound mind yielded nothing to her of memory or
enchantment. When the bird itself reappeared, Nyx
slipped within its mind, as easily as she had dropped

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    81

into Chrysom's tiny box. For a time, she wandered
among the bird's enchantments that bloomed cease-
lessly behind its eyes, and faded again without the
fire that fashioned them. They formed like dreams
around her, thoughtless, intangible, with nothing of
either mage or Brand in them. She found her way out
again, and said, studying the bird with some perplex-
ity,

"This is exasperating. The bird won't give me a
path into the man; the man won't give me a path into
the bird. It's as if they exist in separate worlds. I
might as well be back in Chrysom's black box for all
the sense I can make of this."

"There is always a way," Meguet said sleepily.
"You told me that." She received no answer; Nyx
had disappeared again. To Meguet's eye, she looked
pensive, very still, as if she were chasing the tag-end
of some sudden, imperative notion in her head. She
did not move; she scarcely seemed to breathe. Meguet
sighed noiselessly, and settled back in her chair. Just
before her eyes closed, she saw the white dragon's
golden eye in the shadows beside the hearth.

She was on her feet almost before she had opened
her eyes. The dragon was gone; Nyx had not moved.

"Nyx," she whispered, shifting toward her, the
blade poised in her hands. "Nyx."

Nyx did not answer. Meguet, glancing at her, saw
her frowning at the bird, her arms folded. She did not
move, she did not blink. Meguet raised her voice.
"Nyx!"

"She won't hear you," the mage said. He was still

82 Patricia A. McKHUp

invisible, though she caught the flick of a drain's
wing, the shift of a claw here and there, as he moved
noiselessly, restively, in front of the mantel. Listen-
ing, she heard faint music, soft laughter on the parapet
wall. He read her mind- "I didn't meddle with your
time. I didn't come for trouble. I came only for the
key."

Meguet screamed Nyx's name. Nyx remained
oblivious, but through a south window Meguet saw
one of the turret-torches raised aloft, as if the Gate-
keeper had felt her desperate need. She heard voices
within the tower, guards and pages tossing alarms
down the stairwell, a flurry of running in the outer
yard.

"I sealed the door," the mage said. "They won't
get through. Where is the key? Just tell me that. I'll
find it and go." He spoke softly, as if not to disturb
Nyx, but Meguet heard the strain in his voice. She
wondered if he hid himself from Nyx or from the
firebird.

"She put it somewhere."

"Where?"

*'I think in a book. One of the household records
over there, I don't remember which—"

"You're lying." He sounded amazed. "I didn't
think you could lie. Where is it really?"

"Among the roses on the vines."

The dragon eye came closer; she shifted a step or
two toward Nyx. "A good place to hide it. One rose
among a thousand roses. But even if I picked them
all, I'd never find it there. Where is it really hidden?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    83

"The firebird changed it with its cry," she said
desperately, and he was silent, as if at last he believed
her. Fists battered at the door; voices, impatient and
furious, made improbable suggestions about make-
shift battering rams, and Rush's makeshift sorcery.

"Meguet," said the air, startling her with her name.
"I can't wait for tomorrow's moonrise. Where is the
key? If you don't tell me, I will turn this household,
one by one, into screaming firebirds. Beginning with
the Gatekeeper."

"So," she whispered, her mouth dry, "this is your
spell."

"So it seems."

Nyx turned abruptly, pulling amber from her ear
lobe. She held it up. The bird, freed from her mind,
cried soundlessly. Its enchanted fire leaped from the
amber, illumined the mage for a breath. He vanished
before the fire struck him, but not before the firebird
had seen his face.

The bird cried. Its noiseless cry became the man's
cry, of such fury and agony that it froze both Nyx
and Meguet and silenced the crowd outside the door.
Brand moved under their amazed eyes, tore swords
off the wall. The white dragon leaped to fly. The
blades in Brand's hands spun and flashed in a whirl-
ing, singing dance of death too quick to follow. Me-
guet, mesmerized by its glittering intricacy, moved a
fraction too late to intercept the dragon in its deadly
flight. The blades soared upward, turned again, came
down so fast at the dragon that when the mage halted
them in midair. Brand lost his balance, stumbled

84 Patricia A. McKiflip

against them- He was instantly surrounded by a ring
of swords, shear-edged, gleaming like ice. The white
dragon slipped under his blades and flew headlong
into the amber fire. A swirl of leaves the color of bone
and pearl scattered to the floor.

Brand, his face white, set with fury, was thwarted
only for a moment by the blades. He changed himself;

the firebird cried within the ring. It caught air, flew
above them. Nyx's searching amber found the mage
again: a flickering just visible beside the windows. He
shifted. The fire continued out a window; Meguet
heard an outraged shout from the yard. The firebird
circled, its wings brushing wall and torch fire, silver
talons outstretched to tear the mage out of the air and
hold his shape. The fire swept over him again. He
moved, fading, but not quickly enough; the bird's
claws raked his outstretched arm before he vanished.
Nyx, sweeping the amber fire across the dark, follow-
ing his movements with a mage's eye, nearly trans-
formed Meguet as he reappeared beside her.

"Give me the key," he said to Nyx. "Or I'll take
her with me." His voice shook; Meguet saw the blood
under his tattered sleeve.

"Take the spell off Brand," Nyx said with discon-
certing control, "and we'll discuss the key."

"He is fighting his own way out of il," the mage
answered. "If I take your cousin, you'll never find
her."

"Brand is fighting you," Nyx said evenly. "He is
still spellbound. Remove the spell."

Meguet, disinclined to being haggled over, slid

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    85

smoothly out of the mage's grip, whirled away from
him. He vanished again; this time he threw up a mist
to scatter Nyx's fire. Meguet, swinging her blade, at-
tacked a sudden shower of rose petals as the fire hit
the mist. The bird snatched at them as futilely; she
ducked as one of its claws tangled in her hair.

"Moro's eyes," she breathed. The bird became
man, desperate, furious, bewildered, and then bird
again, taking wing. Gold fire flared, limned the mage,
and encased half the household records in amber. The
bird swooped at random, swooped again, then cried
noiselessly as its talons snagged the mage and
dragged most of him into light. The mage spun away;

the bird's claws scored his shoulders just before he
vanished-

Someone cried: Brand or the mage. Brand appeared
again, blurred, half-bird, half-man; blood dripped
from his fingers. The bird wrenched him out of shape,
took wing, and Meguet saw its broken, bloody talon.
She cried, a sudden, helpless pity snagging at her
voice,

"Nyx, stop this! Can you stop this?"

Nyx cast her a glance, frowning slightly. The color
had come into her eyes. "This makes no sense," she
murmured, and the amber flared again. Something
flew through the window, shadow-dark, as graceful as
the dragon. Meguet, expecting dragons, saw it in the
comer of her eye and turned her head. The fire trans-
formed it instantly: A black swan circled in golden
flame became a white rose falling through the fire into
shadow.

86 Patricia A McKiUip

Tears pricked her eyes, for no reason, she insisted
to herself: Everything was enchanted, even the air.
The mage was at her side again, and then th&^firebird
overhead, swooping, talons open, descending toward
him.

He seemed to slow the bird; Meguet saw its move-
ments overlapping, image fanning out from image in
the air. But he could not stop it entirely. In that
charmed moment gold turned and turned through the
air, clinked finally at the mage's feet. Bending, he
eluded the bird's grasp; its talons flashed, scarred
empty air just above him. He could not seem to bal-
ance himself; he gripped Meguet, dragged at her until
she stumbled. The stones rose like water around her;

a key floated on them into her hand. Then whispering
air and fire slashed down again at the mage. He
gasped, reaching for the key as for a spar in the shift-
ing world. His hand locked around Meguet1 s wrist.
She gave one terrified cry and then he pulled her into
stone.

Nyx, staring at the stones where Meguet had van-
ished, found her nowhere. The firebird, searching as
futilely for its prey, gave a soundless cry and glided
to the window, with Brand as lost inside it as Meguet
was inside the mage's time. She whispered, "Me-
guet."

A deep, rhythmic thumping began at the door; they
had brought up something for a battering ram. Nyx
lifted her head, her face mist-white in the candlelight.
The floor was littered with the fire's enchantments.
She checked her first, absent impulse to open the door

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    87

to the battering ram, which would have proceeded
across the room and out a window, taking the bird
with it. She raised her voice instead.

"Stop—" Her voice caught; she cleared her throat.
"Stop pounding! I'll open the door."

"Quiet!" the Holder said sharply, and the din out-
side the door ceased- Nyx broke the mage's spell; the
door opened, spilling guards into the room. They
stared at the glittering debris from the fire: pearl
leaves, rose petals, books sealed in amber. Then they
saw the blood on the firebird, and a whispering began.

The Holder tugged at the pearls at her breast, her
eyes, wide and dark, reflecting something of Nyx's
expression. "What happened?"

"The mage came back," Nyx said. "The firebird
attacked him. They seem to know one another." She
stopped, pulling at a strand of sapphires in her hair.
She frowned, searching for words, her eyes going
back to the stones. The Holder read her mind.

"Where is Meguet?"

"The mage took her."

"Took her! Moro's bones, took her where?"

"Somewhere. Some time. Some place."

"Why?"

"She was attached to the key I threw him." The
strand of sapphires came loose, dropped to the floor.
She touched her eyes and added, "He'll be back.
Probably to exchange Meguet for the key."

"Moro's bones," the Holder breathed again.
* 'How many keys does he want?''

"Just one. I gave him a false key to make him

88 Patricia A McKillip

leave." She paused, feeling the weight of the Hold-
er's still, black gaze. "There are things thal'are not
making sense—"

"You," the Holder said succinctly.

"I mean, other than that."

"What in Moro's name possessed you to put either
of your lives in danger for the sake of some moldy
sorcery no one has paid attention to in a thousand
years?''

"It's not—"

"Why didn't you give the mage the key the mo-
ment he came back for it?"

"Because—"

"Instead of jeopardizing the house and losing Me-
guet in some time beyond memory arid some place
without a name? And why is that bird still a bird?
You've been immersed in sorcery since you learned
to read—what's so difficult about turning a bird back
into a man? Surely you've done more complex things
with birds. How do I know this one won't attack you
next?"

"Because, I don't think—"

"And where in Moro's name is my Gatekeeper?"

Nyx glanced around the room. "I saw him come
in. I think it was him."

"If that mage stole him as well as Meguet—"

"No, it was my fault-1 was fighting with the bird's
fire. I must have changed him into something."

The Holder closed her eyes, pushed her hands
through her hair. Pins flew. "You're a sorceress. Do
some sorcery. Disenchant that bird. And my Gate-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    89

keeper. Find Meguet. And if that mage returns, give
him whatever he wants, including the bird, if he wants
that. I want no more bloodshed, mage's battles,
stopped time or misplaced people. I want to end this
council in even less excitement than it began. I want
it to be a dull reference in the history of Ro Holding,
not an entire flamboyant chapter,"

"Yes." Nyx's voice came with effort. "I am
sorry."

"And do it by dawn."

She did not quite slam the door. Nyx sat down,
blinking, her face stiff. She stirred a couple of garnet
rose petals with her foot, trying to think; her mind
only filled, like the tower room, with enchantments.
The door opened softly. She lifted her head. Calyx
entered, side-stepping spells.

"I'm sorry about the books," Nyx said wearily.
"They'll change back at moonrise tomorrow."

"Never mind the books." She touched Nyx's hair
gently, removed a dangling pin. "I only wanted to
tell you that the Gatekeeper is at the gate."

She straightened a little, blinking. "Is he?"

"He could never have gotten through the door.
You only thought you saw him."

"Most likely."

"Should someone tell him about Meguet?"

"He knows." She added, at Calyx's puzzled ex-
pression, "Rumor is faster than thought in this
house."

"Besides," Calyx said comfortingly, "you'll find
her by dawn."

90 Patricia A McKillip

"Only if the mage brings her back from wherever
he went. I don't even know the names of places be-
yond Ro Holding. Do you?''

"Just what Cado the Peculiar mentions."

"Who?"

"He was the fourth son of Irial Ro. He was called
Cado the Restless when he was young. He signed on
a merchant ship, disappeared for eleven years and
then came back to astonish his family with tales of
one-legged giants, women made of gold, flowers with
eyes, sorcerers with tails. According to the historian
Blaconnes, it is most likely that Cado went ashore at
Hunter Hold, lived an obscure and happy life digging
for gold in the Junil Mountains, until the woman he
lived with ran away with a rich miner. Then he
shipped himself back home, whereupon, meeting his
wife again, he thought it prudent to invent a few mar-
vellous lands."

"Oh." Nyx's eyes strayed to the firebird, its eyes
hooded in the torchlight. "The firebird would know
where the mage went."

"The bird can't speak."

"And the man can't remember." Nyx sat silently,
contemplating the pair, then touched Calyx, who was
working the pins back into her hair. "You'd better
go. If I lose you as well as Meguet to the mage, I'd
be better off living an obscure and happy life as a
swamp toad."

"Our mother ordered supper sent up to you."

"She's still feeding me. That's a good sign."

"You're too much alike, that's all." Calyx bent,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    91

kissed Nyx's cheek. "Be careful."

Alone, Nyx studied the sleeping firebird. Her sup-
per came; she ate a few bites, pacing, her eyes, col-
orless and heavy, focused on the bird, while her mind
drew constant, fraying patterns between the firebird,
the man, the mage, the blackened weavings of metal
on Brand's wrists, the silver paths within Chrysom's
box.

"You know," she whispered to the bird, who had
tucked its head under its wing. "You know where
they have gone."

But all its memories were enchanted.

She sat down finally in a chair beside the firebird,
waiting for me mage to return. He would know the
difference between a key made by Chrysom's hand,
and one by hers; he might have felt it, her mind in-
stead of Chrysom's as he fell back through time, if
Meguet hadn't been holding the key. He hadn't been
too hurt to work a spell; most likely he could heal a
scratch or two- And his white dragon lay in a pile of
pearl leaves; if it were more than thread, he might
return for that. And where was the book he so des-
perately wanted? He must have it already, she rea-
soned, since he wasn't contorting time to look for
that, too. A book without a key was far more valuable
than a key without a book....

Her eyes closed. The key floated behind her eyes:

gold, with an ivory-and-gold haft, a C or a crescent
moon holding an M in its arms. Mage Chrysom.
Chrysom's Magic ... the key ...

She woke at the sound of the council bells. The sun

92 Patricia A McKillip

was up; it flung the bird's shadow over her and glit-
tered in amber, gamet, as if its own fire might wake
the things frozen in time, waiting for the moon. She
felt the key in her pocket, heard the bird pecking wa-
ter from a bowl. There was no sign of the mage or
Meguet.

She slumped in the chair, feeling the tear in the
tidy fabric of household life where Meguet should
have been. The mage must return for the key. If he
did not bring Meguet with him, there would be a ma-
ges' war in the dark tower, despite the Holder's
wishes. It was inconceivable that he would not bring
Meguet. But why had he not relumed? Was he afraid
of the firebird? Would he return at moonrise, when
the bird changed? Would Brand remember him?
Would the Holder wait patiently through another
moonrise?

"She has no choice," Nyx murmured. "All she has
is me."

She pulled the key out of her pocket, baiting the
air with it, in case the mage lurked in some moment
where a flash of magic from Chrysom's tower would
snag his attention. She turned it over in her palm; the
gold caught a fiery tear of light. The crescent moon
arched over the upside-down Mage.

Her lips parted. She felt a stirring deep in her, as
if small birds had suddenly scattered through her into
light.

Chrysom's Work.

She whispered, "The key is the book."

-Six-

Meguet watched the sun rise over a nameless land.

She had been sitting for hours on bare ground,
thoughtless and stunned, under a sky full of unfamil-
iar constellations. There was some protection in the
night. Unless she looked up, her eye did not have to
acknowledge that she had travelled beyond Ro Hold-
ing: the dark might have belonged anywhere. She sat
quite still where she had fallen, waiting for Nyx to
rescue her, while the night stirred constantly around
her, winds roaring and subsiding, hissing sometimes,
me warm, malodorous breath of something she re-
fused to imagine. Now and then the mage murmured,
moving restlessly, but he never woke. She did not try
to rouse him. Nyx would find her, take the key, and
they would vanish before she caught a glimpse of this
strange place somewhere beyond the Cygnet's wing.

But the morning light seared the land's image into
her mind. It unfolded desert, vast, barren, gold as a
hawk's eye, with juttings of bare stone like fantastic
towers and crazed palaces. It was noisy; the winds
blew unexpected notes through those stones. It

94 Patricia A. McKiUip

smelled of sulphur and something charred; it hissed
and steamed, in the distance, from boiling under-
ground waters.

She drew against herself, feeling dangerously ex-
posed, as if the stones had eyes. They might, in that
weird place: the ground itself had mouths. Mages
might be riding the air above her head. And there she
sat, dressed for last night's supper in a gown as red
as fire that flowed like fire on every passing breeze.
Her thin velvet slippers would have sailed away in
the wind; her sword had vanished somewhere be-
tween here and there- And even shod and armed and
fitted for a journey, she could not have chosen here
instead of there: Ro Holding might lie beyond the
distant, shimmering peaks or, as easily, within the
winds.

Light sparked everywhere in this hard, bright place,
finding flecks of gold in the sandstone, turning silvery
in the steam. It snagged under the mage's shoulder,
and from there, leaped painfully into Meguefs eyes.
She blinked, saw the gold key half-hidden under him.
He had that, she told herself; he had no use for her.
But would he bother to send her back? She could take
the key, hide it from him. bargain with him... But
he had seen the key across time itself; it seemed un-
likely that his mage's eye would miss it under a rock.
Both eyes were still closed; not even the sun had wak-
ened him. She reached for the key quickly, slid it into
her pocket. He did not move. She shifted closer after
a moment, touched him.

She heard his breathing then, shallow and erratic,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    95

saw the chalky whiteness beneath the sweat and dust
on his face. Pain clawed furrows between his brows.
He stirred a little, as if he felt her gaze; he murmured
something, wincing, and lay still again, while the dust
drifted over him.

Horror, fine and dry as the dust, prickled over Me-
guet: that he might die and leave her alone in a
strange land which might as well have been on some
distant star. She stood up, panicked, searching the
plain for a blue thread of water, a dark thread of wood
smoke, symmetrical shapes of houses or a village
among the broken tumbled towers of stone. They
might have been the only living things in the world,
she and the mage, and he was only half-alive. What
water there was bubbled and stank; shadows on bare
ground provided the only shelter she could see. She
knelt again, trying to calm herself. The mage might
have broken a bone, falling. But, running her hands
over him, she felt nothing out of place. He didn't
seem to notice her, not even when, with some effort,
she rolled him on his side to study the marks the
firebird had scored across his shoulders.

The weals were long but shallow; they looked ir-
ritating but hardly deadly, unless the bird carried
some unexpected venom in its talons. The thought
panicked her again; she closed her eyes, felt the desert
sand in her throat, the hot sun melting into her skin.
She must find shelter, water to clean his wounds. The
nearest shadow, flung by a jagged and oddly folded
stone, she could reach in a dozen steps. But the dis-
tance between shadow and mage seemed insurmount-

96 Patricia A. McKillip

able. She rolled him gently on his back again, and
slid her hands under his arms. It was only when she
tried to lift him that he came alive, jerking out of her
hold, crying odd words, names out of dreams or
nightmares.

She let him lie and knelt beside him, wondering
what he might have inadvertently summoned. She
stroked his hair, murmuring. She had missed some-
thing; the bird had hurt him in some deep, subtle way.
She contemplated the problem, her eyes wide, gritty,
her thoughts stark as light, while she drew her fingers
across his cheek, his hair, until he quieted again.
Then, slowly, carefully, she coaxed his boots off.

They were fine leather, scuffed and scratched, big
enough to fit over her feet and her shoes. He lay still,
in the safe, private place where he sheltered against
his pain. He did not stir even when she checked his
robe for pockets. She found one in a side seam, and
rifled it. She drew out a worn, jagged triangle of crys-
tal or glass larger than her palm, the broken leaves of
some dried herb, a tiny cube of gold etched on all
sides with a delicate pattern not even the heavy crys-
tal battering it had scarred. She sniffed the leaves:

something pungent, unfamiliar. She could start a fire
with the crystal and the dried leaves, though there was
nothing to feed it. The sun had already burned every-
thing. As she returned his odd possessions, the mage
murmured again, frowning at the light; already it had
become fierce, heavy, burning brass. She had to move
him, find water, or she would die there beside a
stranger under a strange sky. She stood up, blocked

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    97

the sun on his face with her own shadow, scanning
the land for one place more likely than another.

Above her, a shadow blocked the sun.

She looked up. The sun had vanished; an odd mass
of air had swallowed a piece of sky overhead. She
could not see what hovered; it was nothing, of no
substance, but it cast a shadow all around her. She
forced her eyes down finally, not wanting to look, but
seeing it, black and clean-lined in the light: the shape
of the little white-winged dragon of thread, but huge
enough to swallow the sun,

Winds flew across the plain; blowing between
cracks and towers of stone, they sounded deep, wild
notes. Other voices bellowed among them from be-
yond the edge of the world. Meguet heard her own
voice making an unfamiliar sound. She dropped, hud-
dled against the mage, hiding her face from all the
hidden eyes around her.

"Don't die," she pleaded numbly, scarcely hearing
herself. "Don't die. I can spin hope for us out of a
stone's shadow, but I cannot deal with dragons.
Please wake. Please."

The mage did not answer. Shadow peeled away
from the ground, left her to the sun. The winds blew
dust and great stone flutes, but the otherworldly
voices had sunk to a distant murmur. Steam shot a
feathery plume out of the ground. The earth shook a
little, as if something enormous, invisible, had walked
across it. The steam dwindled; earth settled itself. Me-
guet straightened cautiously, wondering what other
sorcery to expect from that exuberant, deadly place.

98 Patncia A McKillip

It seemed for the moment quiet. She rose, went in
search of water.

She found, not far from the boiling pools, great thin
crescents of something as darkly iridescent as beetles'
wings. Upright, they were nearly as tall as she, but
they were light enough to drag. She took four of them,
made her way slowly, doggedly, through the heat
back to the mage. She looked back once; the crescents
trailing from under her arms grooved the earth behind
her like some great claw. She closed her eyes against
the sight, trudged on, awkwardly, her footsteps ech-
oing hollowly in the mage's boots.

She dug shallow holes with the sharp end of one
claw, balanced the claws on either side of the mage's
body like four bedposts. Then she tore her skirt loose
from the bodice, and picked apart a side seam. She
dragged the length of silk across the claws, forced it
down the sharp ends so that it stretched like a rippling
canopy above the mage. He stirred, his face easing.
She tore the sleeves from her bodice and wiped the
sweat from his face. She rose again, as oddly dressed
as she had ever been in her life, in tattered red silk
bodice, long white linen shift and oversized boots, to
look for water.

There was water everywhere, it seemed, but it
boiled and stank and grew crusts of oddly colored
crystals where it splashed. She wandered in a waste-
land of heat and steam and bubbling mud-holes, her
hair plastered down her back, her mouth so dry she
would have drunk what steamed in the rifts and crev-
ices of rock if it had not been too hot to touch. She

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    99

sat wearily on a sandstone ledge, searching for green
in a parched land, while her eyes teared at the smell,
and behind her, she heard the sudden hiss of jetting
water and steam. She leaned back, resting in the
shadow, and felt a drift of cold on one cheek.

She found a cave of ice.

It was small, dark, and it steamed like the water
holes. Its mouth was rimmed with icy teeth; the
threshold was solid ice. Beyond the threshold lay
shadow so black she guessed the earth had fallen
away there into some deep chasm of time. From the
chasm, icy air blew constantly. There were noises,
too, shifts like stone against stone, a kind of subdued,
rhythmic bellowing, as if a mountain were snoring.
She broke off a piece of ice, sucked it. It tasted of
earth rather than rotten eggs. She stepped out of one
boot and used it to knock down a fat icicle. Limping,
the ground burning through her slipper, she made her
way back to the mage, carrying a boot full of ice.

She bathed his face with ice, forced it between his
lips. Then she turned him over, washed the dirt and
dried blood and torn cloth out of his wounds. He
scarcely stirred until she touched a corner of one rag-
ged cut above his shoulder blade. Then he stiffened,
crying sorcery and dreams carelessly into the wind.
She looked more closely, saw something the color of
silver trapped there.

She drew it out: a broken piece of the firebird's
talon.

She was trembling and nearly in tears when she
finished; the mage, having wakened every snoring

100 Patricia A McKildp

dragon in the world, finally subsided when she put
ice against his back. On impulse, she felt in his pocket
again, drew out the broken leaves. She lay one on the
ground, caught the sun in the crystal, and focused it
until the dry leaf smoldered. She held it under the
mage's nose-

His eyes openedi He stared at her expressionlessly,
then at the silken canopy, the dark curved spikes that
held it up, the icicle melting in his boot. He tested
his back, wincing a little. He gazed at her again, this
time with amazement.

"Did you do all this?"

She sat back on her heels, answered wearily, "No,
of course not- I summoned my attendants."

"You did this without sorcery?"

She closed her eyes briefly, looked at him again.
His face was pale as old ivory; he carried his voice
from word to word with an effort. She asked, "What
else was I to do? You dragged me into this wasteland
dressed for supper. You refused to help me. I could
have sat here and wept, I suppose. But you only
would have died, and I need you to take me home.
Why in Moro's name did you pick the middle of a
desert to fall into?"

"It's my home," he said simply. He drifted a mo-
ment, asked, when she thought he had fallen asleep
again, "Where is the key?"

"I have it."

He held up a hand, his eyes still closed, and mur-
mured. "Let me see it."

She did not move. "Swear to take me back to Ro

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   SO!

Holding. What I've done for you, I can undo. This
time I have a weapon." His eyes opened; she held up
the little shard of silver. "I will use it."

She heard his breath stop. Then he drew air deeply,
blinking. "Of course I will take you home."

"How can I trust you?"

"I don't know. Maybe you can't. But it's^ard for
me to believe you would put that sorcery back where
you found it. It would be a bloody and noisy piece of
work. And you would still be forced to keep me alive.
Unless you want to wait here alone, hoping that some-
one will rescue you. If you choose to do that, remem-
ber that the only thing you'll want to eat are the rock
lizards. The smaller black ones, not the yellow. You
can boil them in the steam pools. They're less tough
that way, than if you roast them. There's not much to
bum, anyway. But if you do want a fire—" He
stopped, shifting ground a little. Meguet, still clinging
to the shard, her only argument, said tautly,

"What do I bum?"

"I'll make you something, before you kill me."

"I don't want—"

"You will, with that. It is a dark magic that goes
straight to the marrow." He added, at her silence,
"I'm trying to persuade you to trust me."

She ran one hand over her face, felt the fine dust
clinging to her everywhere, even beneath her eyelids.
"How can I?" she demanded. "You attacked my
cousin and stole from her. You cast a spell over the
Holder's house. You did such terrible things to Brand
that he can't speak of them, he can't even remember

102 Patricia A McKUlip

them. He can only cry the firebird's rage. I don't trust
you. The only reason I did all this for you is so that
you will stay alive to take me back to Ro Holding."

He stirred again, wincing, his eyes straying to the
bare, distant crags. He said tiredly, * 'I doubt that your
cousin tossed the real key to me. She just wanted me
out of the tower. So, you see, I may be forced to
return to Ro Holding for the true key."

"You dragged me into this crazed, dragon-haunted
place because of a fake key?*'

He lifted one hand, touched her arm, speechless a
moment "You've seen dragons?" he asked huskily.

* 'I saw a shadow. You cried out such strange things
when I tried to move you. I thought you summoned
it. It hovered above us, hiding the sun. It was invisible
and yet it cast a shadow."

"A shadow."

"It looked like a shadow your white dragon might
have cast. Only a hundred times bigger. I was
afraid—I was afraid it might attack.'*

"Oh, no. They never do."

"Your white dragon did."

"That's sorcery. I made it from a petrified dragon's
heart. I'm not sure how real it is. But I've grown fond
of it. I left it there, didn't I," he added, remembering.
"In the tower, with the firebird."

"It is, I think, a pile of white leaves."

"Until moonrise. And then it will change and
Brand will see it."

"Who is he?"

* 'Brand Saphier. His father, Draken, rules Saphier.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    fU3

This is the Luxour Desert in south Saphier. The edge
of the world, some call it. I was born here,"

That explained his coloring, she thought. "And
why," she asked steadily, "did you turn Brand Sa-
phier into a firebird?"

He moved abruptly, as if the tiny blade of talon in
her hand had touched his back again. He answered,
his eyes shadowed, heavy, "If I had made the firebird,
the magic would be part of me. It could do no more
harm to me than my reflection could. The spell that
enchanted the firebird is deadly to me."

She was silent, weighing his words against every
inflection in his voice, every change of expression in
his face. "Assuming it's not yours," she said tautly,
"then who cast the spell?"

His brows drew together hard; his eyes shifted
away from her, toward some memory. "It's not a
thing," he whispered, "I want even the wind to
know."

"Then why did the firebird attack you?"

"I think it was made to kill me."

Meguet stood up. Standing brought her into the sti-
fling light, but movement helped her think. In this
case, thinking proved futile. She dropped her face in
her hands, saw the fierce light behind her eyes. "I
don't know how to believe you." She lifted her head,
blinking the mage's face clear again. "I don't know
what's truth and what's lie, between you and the fire-
bird."

"You don't have to trust me," he said simply.
"You're entirely at my mercy. No one knows where

104 Patricia A McKi/fi/?

you are. Brand would guess his father's court. If he
remembers Saphier at all. You can threaten me with
that sorcery, but if you hurt me you will only be
forced to care for me so that I won't die, so that I
can take you home...."

"And if the key is the real one?" she demanded,
torn. "You'll vanish with it, leave me stranded here
among the dragons. Why should you take the trouble
to return me, and face my cousin and the firebird
again?''

"It can't be the true key." He turned his face rest-
lessly away from her. "Your cousin is too shrewd."

She knelt, chipped a piece of ice with the crystal,
and put it to his lips. There was color in his face now,
a feverish glitter in his eyes. "Why," she asked
abruptly, frowning down at him, "did you pick that
rose for me?"

"Because," he said softly, "you made me remem-
ber what words like honor and courage mean. Why
did you pick up the rose instead of the sword?"

She sighed, defeated. "I wish I knew." She turned,
lifted the dripping icicle out of his boot. She held the
boot upside-down; me key dropped out onto the
ground.

He picked it up, studied it curiously. He traced the
crescent moon of ivory with his forefinger, and then
the letter that clung in gold to the dark of the moon.
She watched his face.

"Which is it?"

He shook his head. "Every spell carries somewhere
in it the mage's signature. It may be the order in

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    105

which things are done. Or the favorite spellbook used.
Or some familiar element. Chrysom liked riddles. Un-
expected images. Your cousin had no time for that.
This has no centuries clinging to it. No riddles except
for its shape. Nothing of Chrysom's; something of a
mage I wouldn't have recognized."

"How do you know so much about Chrysom? Is
Saphier in another time? Or are you a thousand years
old?"

1 'I like to wander ... sometimes I wander in and
out of time. I learned things, watching Chrysom. I
would go and build his fires, fetch things—"

"You spoke to him?"

"He never asked where I was from. But we spoke
of time, how it turns and loops.... He knew I didn't
belong mere. He spoke of a spellbook of time he had
written. He had hidden it, but he gave me hints, from
time to time, when I came. From time to time." He
smiled a little, holding the key one way, and then
another. His smile faded; he saw the shadow behind
the key. "So you see I must return to Ro Holding."

"Why?" she asked wearily. "What more do you
need to know of time? You and Nyx will only fight
each other."

' 'I must have the key. I need it. Your cousin only
wants it out of curiosity. I need it for my life."

"Tell her that," she said, startled. "She'll help
you."

"Mages don't help one another."

"In Ro Holding—"

"Not in Saphier. And I can't tell her why. I can't

106 Patricia A McKillip

even whisper it to air. Not in Saphier. And most cer-
tainly not in that tower in front of the firebird."

"Why? What are you to the firebird?"

He kindled a tiny flame out of nothing, set the cres-
cent moon on fire. "Once," he said, "we were
friends." He let the flame devour moon and letter and
shaft, like a candle, until the flame danced on a tear
of gold on his palm. He blew it out, let the tear melt
into the ground, and buried it. "Now," he explained,
"there is only that much of your cousin to be found
in Saphier. What is her name?"

"Nyx Ro."

His brows went up. "She is—"

"The Holder's heir."

"And you, Meguet Vervaine?"

"Her cousin,"

"And?" He smiled a little at her silence. "The
woman who sees into time- You saw the dragon's
shadow. It takes a great, complex power to find the
dragon." His eyes wandered to the jagged, barren
thrusts of rock, the varying hues of gold and dust, the
plumes of steam. "That's why I love these deserts.
From the time I was young, I could catch glimpses
of the dragons. A shadow. A wing folded into a rock.
A roar that is not wind. Light that is not sun. If you
saw an entire shadow, it is more than most see in a
lifetime. I dream of seeing them emerge from stone
and air and light...."

"Are they ghosts?" she asked, entranced.

"No. I think they shift in and out of time. Which
is why," he added obscurely, "I need that key."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   107

"Can't you open the book without it? If you know
Chrysom's ways?"

"I do know Chrysom's ways," he said, but no
more. He slid his hand into his pocket, brought out
the little cube of gold. "You used a dragon's tooth
to start that fire," he commented- Her eyes widened,
going to the crystal. "And claws for the canopy. They
leave pieces of themselves around."

"I heard one snoring, I think, in the ice cave."

"I tried to see that one. No light will shine in that
dark, not even fire. It lives in some black plane so
cold its breath freezes even in this heat. It must look
like its own shadow, to the human eye," He set the
cube down on the ground.

"What is that?"

"Supplies. For when I travel." He murmured
something. One side of the cube opened; he shook a
water skin out of it. "Size," he said, as Meguet's eye
tried to fit the full skin back into the tiny cube, "is
illusion. I didn't want to frighten you before, with my
sorcery." He shifted to hand her the skin, then sagged
back wearily, settling himself into the ground as if he
drew some deep, healing comfort from it. "I have a
house in a village on the edge of the desert. I can take
us both that far. I need to rest before I return to Ro
Holding. You saved my life, but there wasn't much
of it left. If I hadn't taken you with me, I would be
lying here dreaming while the sun and the sand and
the carrion snakes worked their magic on me."

She brought the skin down incredulously, splashing

108 Patricia A McKillip

herself. "You deliberately brought me with you? To
help you?"

"I hoped you would. I was desperate. But I didn't
expect—" He shifted again, his eyes on the dark
spikes holding up her billowing skin above his head.
"I didn't expect you to find ice in the desert. I didn't
expect you to see the dragon's shadow."

She looked at him, frowning again, but feeling the
strange desert working its magic of light and illusion
into her bones. She said abruptly, "Do you have a
name?"

"Yes," he sighed. "I thought you'd never ask. My
name in Draken Saphier's court is something he gave
me, and that only mages use. In this place I love,
where I was born, my name is Rad Ilex."

Seven

In the black tower, Nyx waited for the mage and the
moon.

The Gatekeeper came before either one of them, at
evening when the household had gathered for supper
and the yard was calm. Nyx, deep in contemplation
of Chrysom's key, which opened nothing in itself that
she could find, scarcely heard him knock. She lifted
her eyes to find him in front of her, an occurrence so
rare that for a moment she wondered if the tower were
the gate and the Gatekeeper watched them both. Then
she remembered why he had come.

"Hew." She pulled her bare feet off the nearest
chair. "Sit down."

He shook his head. "I came to ask you."

"About Meguet." She was silent a moment, stud-
ying him, her eyes luminous with sleeplessness. Gate-
keepers of Ro House were rooted like stone and vine
to the house. When they grew old, they wandered
away looking for an heir to some peculiar power
which Nyx had never explored. The Gatekeeper, his
own face set and shadowed with weariness, did not

110 PatnciaA McKilhp

look accessible to exploration.-But a part of him had
gotten tangled in the fire's enchantments, the night
before; she was aware he had been there, though in
what form she was not quite certain. Instead of wait-
ing, like the mage's dragon, for moonlight to free
him, he was on his feet in front of her, looking per-
plexed- If, as she suspected, he saw everything that
came and went in and out of Ro House, including
ghosts and portents and the Cygnet itself, he would
have known Meguet had gone. But not where.

"I thought," he said, "the bird might have told
you something by now about where it came from."

"It's a good guess that's where the mage took Me-
guet," Nyx said. "But where is still a mystery. He
left something here; he may stilt return."

"With Meguet?"

"If not," she said grimly, "I'll search for her."

He sat down then, his head bowed, his eyes on the
floor where it had opened like a mist to Meguet's
falling. Would it, Nyx wondered suddenly, open also
to the Gatekeeper who opened and closed every door?
But he did not seem inclined to dive headlong into
solid stone. He asked, "Where would you look? Or
would you just fling yourself blind into time beyond
Ro Holding? Did the bird or mage give you a word
to guide you?"

"Not yet. Why? Do you know of places beyond
Ro Holding?"

"Me? No. I know the gate and the house and the
back swamps of the Delta. The winds don't blow me
names of other places. And even so, what name

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   111

would mean more than another? Unless you could tell

me.

"And what would it be worth then? Would you
leave the gate for Meguet?"

He lifted his head, met her eyes, his own colored
like the silvery bog-mosses and about as transparent.
"You would leave the house for her."

"My mother told me to find Meguet. I have no
intention of finding out what life is like with my
mother and without Meguet." He said nothing, still
waiting for an answer; she added, "1*1] find her. If
the mage brings her back, I'll do what I must. If I
have to search for her, I do have the means and I'll
discover how and where any way I can. It's only a
question of time."

"I have more than enough of that, during the night
at the gate."

She was silent again. Something vital hovered be-
yond her memory: He had been in the tower, seen the
mage and Meguet, but in what shape? Had she seen
his face? Or only something she recognized as Gate-
keeper that had entered a mage-locked room, and had
been transformed by the bird's fire just long enough
to have known what became of Meguet? She eased
back in her chair. Meguet would remember. She said
softly, "What time you have is counted by the move-
ment of the Cygnet's stars. I'll find Meguet. If you
leave the gate, my mother will only have me search-
ing for you as well."

He stirred a little. "And if you leave? Who will
search for you? How far beyond the Cygnet's eye can

I! 2 Patricia A. McKillip

you go, before you come to a gate without a Gate-
keeper to open it?" She stared at him; he met her
eyes again and said more plainly, "There is only one
gate in this house and everything enters and leaves
by it. Including the odd mage. It's bad enough losing
Meguet to a place with no name. But you are more
than mage, and if you vanish from this house without
the Holder's knowledge, if you leave the named
world, then you must either find yourself another
Gatekeeper, or pay the one you've got with a time
and a place to find you in. Gatekeepers grow old at
the gate; they don't get thrown out of it before their
time. Which is what will likely happen to me if I let
you out under strange stars."

"You let Meguet go. And the mage." He said
nothing; she straightened, frowning. "Hew, what are
you seeing that I missed?''

"1 only want to know where you go when you go.
That's all I'm asking."

"You're not asking. You're making demands.
You're only asking what little you're asking so that
you can search for Meguet if I fail."
"Both," he said softly. "Both of you."
"How? If you cannot leave the gate?"
"It's not a question anyone will bother asking if
the Holder loses you. Least of all me.'' His face eased
a little, at her expression. "It's only what you didn't
notice, following Chrysom's path into sorcery. A little
household magic. It's an ancient house, and it has its
ways and means. I'm one of them. That's all."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   113

"Is it?" she breathed. "Is that all you are? A little
household magic?"

"You know that. It's why you've been talking to
me, instead of telling me politely to mind my business
and let you mind yours."

"You could stop me from using all the power of
Chrysom's sorcery to go where I want?"

He shook his head. "It's a power with a singular
purpose. To protect the Cygnet. Only that. Tell me
where you are going, beyond the Cygnet's eye, and
you are free to go."

"But why you?" she asked, fascinated. "Why
must it be you who will come searching for us? You
are bound by household magic to the gate."

"And by other magics to Meguet," he said softly.
"That's why it must be me. How is what I'll figure
out later." He rose; she watched him, wordless. His
eyes flicked at the firebird, then back to her. "You
must make him remember. Or time, for you, will be-
gin and end at the gate to Ro House. It's the way of
the house, to protect."

* 'Will I know these things when I am Holder? All
the household magics? Or should I begin to ferret
them out now?"

He smiled his tight, wry smile. "I don't know. It's
my guess that whatever you want the house will give
you. There's never been a mage-Holder of Ro Hold-
ing. Once you start looking, who knows what you'll
find?" He bent his head and left her staring at the
door he closed behind him.

After a time, she transferred her gaze to the firebird.

114 Patricia A McKiIUp

It was nearing moonrise; the sky at the bird's back
had grown milky. "You," she said, "must find a way
to remember.*'

The bird cried its silent cry, then was still again,
waiting for the moon. Moonlight touched it. The bird
spread its white wings, dropped down from the ledge.
As it reached stone, it changed: Brand stood in a min-
gling of moonlight and candlelight. Other enchant-
ments changed: The amber-sealed books were free;

garnet and opal petals swirled together to form a glit-
tering mist that slowly dispersed. Beside the hearth,
leaves of pearl and bone drew together, formed the
mage's dragon- Hovering in the shadow of the wrong
world, it seemed both real and unreal. Fire picked out
a scallop of thread along one unfurled wing, turned it
into a delicate layering of flesh and bone.

Nyx, marvelling at it, froze it with a word before
it could fly. She heard Brand move and turned
quickly, but he had only stepped closer to see the
dragon. Memories struggled into his face. He whis-
pered,

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Rad Ilex. The mage I fought last night."

"He hasn't come back yet. Why do you want to
kill him?"

"Because—" He stopped, linked his fingers over
his eyes. His voice came harsh with pain. "He be-
trayed my father. He betrayed me- He trapped me in
the firebird's shape. His face is the last thing I re-
member, the first thing the firebird saw."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   ! 15

"Why?" She stood as motionless as the dragon,
scarcely daring to ask questions, lest the sound of her
voice disturb the fragile cob-weave of his remember-
ing. "Why did he put you under that spell?"

He was silent a long time; his shoulders dragged.
"I don't remember," he said bitterly.

"Do you remember who you are?"

"I am Brand Saphier." His hands slid away from
his eyes; he turned. His face looked ashen, haunted,
but his past had etched expression back into it. "My
father is Draken, Lord of Saphier."

Nyx's eyes flicked, at the name, to the dragon at
his feet. "Draken?"

"His father was a dragon."

Wordless, Nyx found herself staring at him, search-
ing for the dragon. She found the firebird instead, its
beautiful, proud, ruthless face within Brand's face, as
if some boundary between enchantment and truth had
grown strangely fluid. She said finally, softly, "Sit
down." She sat at the table, still studying him, won-
dering if the spellbound man would prove even more
exotic than the spell.

She said, "In Ro Holding, there are no tales of
dragons. You could walk the four Holds and find
maybe four people who even know the word. Setting
aside physical complications, is that customary be-
havior in Saphier, humans mating with dragons?"

He shook his head. * 'Some say there are no dragons
in Saphier, only the memories of dragons. But my
father's mother went to the desert in south Saphier
and came back with child. She ruled Saphier, and if

116 Patricia A McKilli/7

she said her child was dragon-seed, no one would
argue. The dragon was a great mage, she said, capable
of changing shape. My father—" His voice caught.
He gripped the arms of his chair, his eyes widening,
as other memories shifted into place. "My father."
He rose, paced, the tower room no longer a haven but
a cage. "I wonder how long I have been gone. If he
knows what happened to me."
"He must be searching for you."
"He may be mourning me, for all I know." He
added savagely, "With Rad Ilex beside him."
"Is Rad Ilex your father's mage?"
He looked perplexed by the question. "My father's
court is full of mages. My father is very powerful; he
trains mages, those with special gifts, like Rad. It's
not like this house. You seem to be the only mage.
And you have little sense of order." She drew a
breath, but found no argument- "Or manners."
"What?"

"No mage would speak to my father the way you
speak to the Holder."

"She's my mother," Nyx protested.
"Perhaps it is because you have all the power in
this house." He turned, pacing again; she stared at
his back. "The mage would be stripped of power."

Nyx's brows lifted. She picked up a wine cup, blew
the dust out of it and filled it. She took a sip, watched
him turn, pace back. "Is that where Rad Ilex took
Meguet? To your father's court?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, if my father still trusts
him."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   117

She took another swallow, set the cup down. "For-
tunately, Meguet* s manners are better than mine.
Who is this Rad Ilex? Do you remember?"

"Yes." He stopped, turned his face away. Nyx saw
him tremble, in rage or grief, she couldn't tell. "He
was bom in the Luxour Desert, and he came to my
father when he was a boy and said there were dragons
everywhere in south Saphier. There have always been
rumors of dragons. Crystals that look like dragon's
teeth. Spiky plants that die and turn black and look
like claws. My father always wanted to see dragons.
He wanted to become one, like his father. He wanted
to find his father, be taught by him. He says that a
mage-fire like no other power runs through the blood
of dragons and he wants that power. So when Rad
said he saw dragons, my father took him into the
house to train."

The door opened. Servants summoned by moon-
light entered, bearing supper. Brand roamed again;

Nyx watched him, wondering if he had come to the
end of his memories, or the heart of them. He came
back to the table, stood gazing down at the trays.
"That's what I can't remember," he said at last,
tightly. "That's where the wall is. I can remember
loving Rad. And now I hate him. I would kill him as
quickly as I tried to destroy his dragon. But I don't
remember why."

"The firebird remembers."

He looked at her, his eyes dark, bruised, but he did
not answer. Nyx pushed a tray toward him. "Eat
something. If Rad Ilex wants the key and his dragon,

Patricia A. McKiUip

118

he'll return here. But I want no blood shed in this -
tower. My mother forbade it."

He made no response to that, either. Nyx broke into
an elaborate crust, found duckling flavored with or-
ange and rosemary. She ate hungrily a few minutes,
then asked, "Did your father find his father among

the dragons?"

"No. He went with Rad to south Saphier- Rad was
able to show him something—I don't know what.
Enough to give my father some hope, whether it was
truth or lie. In the Luxour, some villagers collect big,
iridescent lumps of stone they say are dragon's hearts,
and sell them. Those who buy them call them one
thing, those who don't, another. Rad said he knew a
way to draw the dragons into time, but that he had to
find something. A key."

Nyx made a sound. "Not a book."

"He said key."

' 'How could he have known to find it in Ro Hold-
ing?" she breathed. "He knows too much, this Rad

Hex."

Brand stirred edgily. "And where is he, if he wants

this key so badly?"

"Being cautious, I suppose. Coming here, he must
face you or the firebird. Perhaps—''

"I have remembered," he interrupted. "He will
face me, not the bird."

"You have not remembered everything. We'll
know at midnight."

His knife hit the edge of his plate; he pushed away
from the table and rose, his shoulders bowed as if the

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   119

firebird clung to his back. ' 'What kind of a mage are
you that you can't break a simple spell?"

She picked a bone out of a bite, watching him- "I
suppose, by the standards of Saphier, not very apt.
But I am considered adequate in Ro Holding."

He came back to her, head bowed, "Forgive me.
You took me in, tried to help. It's not your fault you
are pitted against the most devious mage in my fath-
er's court."

She frowned, thinking again of Meguet. ' 'Where is
Saphier? Do you cross a sea to get to it? Mountains?
Maybe, if you could get home, your father could help
you."

"Saphier is the world," he said absently. "I never
looked beyond it." Then his eyes widened, and she
saw the sudden flare of hope in them. She pushed
back her chair, rose.

"What do you remember?"

"These." He turned his wrists up, spread his fin-
gers, as if the tarnished metal wove through blood
and bone into his fingertips. "They are all the paths
to Saphier."

"Paths of time." She drew her finger down a
weave lightly. "I thought so. But are they always so
tarnished?"

"No," he said, puzzled. "They should be silver,
like the paths inside your tiny box. You need to know
the path before you travel it; that's why you couldn't
find your own way out."

"You led me out," she said abruptly. "You are
also a mage."

120 Patricia A McMp

He shook his head. "I am a warrior. I don't have
mage's gifts.'*

"But you wear these- You can use them."

"Yes." He hesitated, still perplexed by them. "It
is something my father taught me."

"Do you always wear them?"

"I don't think so."

"Then why are you wearing them now? As if you
know you might need them? Or you were working a
time-spell, or travelling a path when you were trans-
formed?" She saw his face change, as he veered dan-
gerously close to memory. He said quickly,

"I don't remember."

"Do you remember," she asked after a moment,
"how to use these?"

"Yes." He rubbed at one, trying to polish it with
his thumb. "They arc so dark. As if some enormous
power ran through them." He looked at her; she saw
Saphier in his eyes, future instead of past. "I can go
home."

"Yes."

"Tonight. Now. Before I change."

"Yes," she said, breathless at the thought. "But if
you leave, and Rad Ilex does not return with Meguet,
how will I ever know where to look for her? Can you
wait a little longer for them?"

He gave her a distant, masked glance: the firebird's
eyes. "I forgot he must come here."

"I will give him the key and his dragon for Me-
guet," she said. "I will not give you to him, or him
to you. If you fight him, it must be in Saphier, or my

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   121

mother will never forgive me for that as well as for
a few other things she won't forgive me for by now.
Please," she added, at his weary, desolate expression.
"Only a little longer."

"And then what? If he does not come?"

"Then," she said steadily, "you will teach me the
path to Saphier and I will look for her myself."

He was silent, studying her, as if she had flung
some peculiar spell over herself- "You would walk
into a strange land to search for her?"

"She searched for me once in a strange place. She
is part of Ro Holding, part of this house. It's incon-
ceivable that she is wandering around lost in some
other country."

"You are eccentric."

"Even," she said drily, "in Ro Holding."

"My father's court is structured according to pre-
cise law. Within that law, nothing disorderly exists
for long. Either it shapes itself to law or it is de-
stroyed."

Her brows rose. "Does that include guests?"

"It is my father's working philosophy," he an-
swered simply. ' 'Out of order comes art. The art of
government, the mage's art, the art of poetry, the art
of war. We do not give ourselves the luxury of ec-
centricity."

"Perhaps freedom is a luxury," she said. "But that
aside, there must be someone you would wander
through a stranger's land to find."

She saw it again in his face: the sudden, desperate
aching shadow of memory, the firebird's cry. He

122 Patricia A. McKillip

whispered, "No one has come searching for me."

She blinked, shaken by a glimpse into something
more complex than she could unweave, or even imag-
ine. She touched him; he looked at her, mute again,
unable to give her either dragon heart or stone.

"We'll go to Saphier now," she said abruptly, and
felt her own heartbeat. "It's cruel to keep you." And
safer, she thought, remembering the spinning swords,
than another battle in the tower. "Take me to your
father's house. If Meguet is not there, then teach me
the paths so that I can return to look for her if I have
to. Will you do that?"

"My father can, easily. And he will, in gratitude.
The Holder will not even know you have been gone.
Thank you." He took her hands, dropped his face
against them. "You took me in when no one in the
world recognized me as human. Whatever else the
bird knows, it knew enough to come to you."

And not, she observed with a certain grimness, to
Saphier.

The word, spoken aloud in the tower, would find
its way to the Gatekeeper, following its own peculiar
path within the house's time. Brand held out his
hands, spread his fingers as if to channel the flow of
light from the silver. The bands remained black. He
closed his eyes, walking the path in his mind- After
a while, he put the bands against his eyes. Nyx felt
pity well up from some deep place within her, as if
hidden water had broken through layers of earth and
hoary stone and old leaves. She put her hand gently
on his shoulder.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   123

He whispered, * 'I am half man, half bird, and I am
lost, with no way home."

"There is always a way," she said. "Always."
He looked at her, read the promise in her eyes.
After a while he moved to his place at the window,
and waited silently for oblivion and the firebird.

Eight-

Meguet sat rapt beneath the risen moon.

In its light silver feathers of steam or dragon-fire
glittered and faded. The high, jagged towers of stone
transformed themselves. Here a great wing unfolded
against the stars almost as slowly as the stars behind
it moved. There an eye shone, moon-white or darker
than the night. A craggy head lifted, or had just lifted
before she saw it. A moon shadow, massive and
curved, lay across the ground, cast by nothing visible.
Crystal flashed. Vague, dark, iridescent colors swam
against the stars and vanished.

Beside her, the mage lay watching with her. Some-
times he watched her; she felt his eyes. "You see,"
he murmured now and then. "Did you see that?" His
voice, worn, fading, sounded tranquil; he was lost in
some fever-dream of dragons that he had pulled her
into. She saw through his eyes, she thought, most
likely. But still she watched, as he dreamed dragons
and set them free into the night.

"We should go," she said now and then, for he
shivered, though warm wind or dragon-breath sighed

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   !25

over them. She had taken down her canopy to see the
sky. Things that had come out of his cube—wine,
salted fish, bread, dried apples and figs—littered her
skirt.

"Yes," he said, but made no effort to move. "I
wanted you to see this, if you could."

"I see," she said softly. "But I don't know what
I see."

"Time shifting. Dragon-paths. Chrysom saw this.
He made the key to unlock their paths into time."

"Can they see us?"

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Far better than we see them.
We glimpse them indirectly, and with the heart more
than the eye."

She looked at him. An odd, heavy, nameless feel-
ing pushed through her; she scarcely knew what to
call it. Hunger? Sorrow? Desire? "I wish," she whis-
pered. "I wish."

"What?"

"I don't know... I wish I could watch you free
them with that key."

"You can. Stay here until you have seen the drag-
ons fly. Until I draw them out of stars and stone, until
bone and blood cast shadows instead of dreams. Stay
until you have seen the dragons' fire."

She dragged her eyes from the stars, still heavy
with the strange, impossible yearning. ' 'I cannot. The
white dragon waiting for you in Chrysom's tower
must be enough for me. I was not bom to see drag-
ons."

' "They get into your blood. They call you in some

126 Patricia A. McKillip

secret language spoken by stones. They show you a
shadow, they leave a bone behind. And so you spend
your life searching for them... Stay until I free
them."

"I don't dare," she whispered. "You were born
under the dragon's eye. I was bom under the Cygnet,
I have never in my life come so close to forgetting
that."

"The Luxour will make you forget."

She was silent, remembering the desert by day, hot
and golden as some vast wing stretched taut to catch
the light, the massive framework of its bones visible
just beneath the surface of the stones.

"We must go," she said, but did not move, still
riding the dragon that was the Luxour through the
stars. Finally she felt his hand, and saw her skirt at-
tach itself to her again. Everything had vanished back
into the little cube. Only the dragon claws, scattered
in the sand, told where they had been.

"We must go," he said, and the stars blurred to-
gether to form their path.

Night, where the path ended, was unexpectedly
still. Here and there a light that was not a star bumed,
illumining a circular window or a door. Even the
winds were silent. Pebbles shifting under Meguet's
feet as she turned sounded loud enough to wake the
sleepers within the small stone houses. The handful
of them, huddled together in the vast dark, seemed an
unlikely place for a mage to dwell.

The mage, rising, lost his balance; Meguet caught
him. He dropped an arm over her shoulders, and was

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   127

still a moment while the earth settled. She whispered,
"Where are we?"

"On the south edge of the Luxour." He added ob-
scurely, "Safe. Even mages have trouble crossing the
Luxour. This is my house."

She helped him toward one of the simple wooden
doors. It had no latch. He placed his hand flat against
it and it opened. Sudden light spilled over them.
Within, the little house was bare and tidy as the de-
sert. The sandstone walls were unpainted; a single
rough-woven rug lay on the stone floor. His table held
none of the disorder of magic and mundane—books,
apple cores, crystals, bones, assorted nameless
things—that Meguet had come to expect of mages.
Except for a layer of dust, it held nothing at all. An-
other door opened to a tiny chamber that held a
wooden chest and a pile of skins and neatly folded
blankets. Only the collection Of colored desert rocks
on the stone ledge above the hearth was unnecessary.
Other things, a couple of copper pots, a clay water
jar, oil lamps, sat neatly in their niches and, like the
table, gathered dust.

She said, helping him sit on one of the unpainted
benches beside the table, "You don't come here of-
ten."

"Not as often as I want." He smiled at her as she
moved through the lamplight. "There are some
clothes in that chest. People will think I conjured you
out of gold and fire and ivory, the way you are now."

She eyed him. He did not seem in much pain, but
his eyes were bright with fever and he moved and

128 Patricia A. McKiilip

spoke slowly, as if air were too heavy to shift aside,
too heavy to breathe. Worried, she asked, "What will
heal you? Are there desert plants I can find?"

"No. I need to rest."

"How long?"

"I don't know. I've never been attacked by an en-
chantment before. I'm sony," he added, at her ex-
pression. "You'll have to wait. I'll take care of
myself if you don't want to look at me."

She sat down on the opposite bench, dropped her
face in her hands, felt the desert grit behind her eyes.
"Nyx will be waiting for you to bring me back. In
exchange for the true key. She'll wonder when you
don't come."

"Most likely, she'll assume I died."

"And left me stranded. Moro's eyes. What does
that key open?"

"Stone. Sky." She looked up at the longing in his
voice. "It opens time itself to reveal the dragon's
face."

She felt again a touch of his desire to wake dreams,
to step into them. But she said only, "There are no
dragons in Ro Holding- Nyx only wants the key be-
cause she does not know what it is. When she finds
out, perhaps she won't want it anymore."

"Some say there are no dragons in Saphier, ei-
ther."

' 'There are no tales of dragons in Ro Holding. Why
would she want a key to unbind dragons in Saphier?''

"Because it exists?" he guessed. She was silent at
that, knowing Nyx.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   129

"But if you told her what danger you are in—"

"I can't speak of it," he said. He didn't; she was
left listening to the silence. It took on an eerie quality
then, as if the sandstone walls were paper-thin and
something crouched beyond them, listening to her lis-
ten. She stirred finally.

"Tell me what to do for you."

"Mages," he said, with a faint grimace as a mem-
ory clawed his back, "are easy to care for." He
glanced into the other room: Skins and blankets had
sorted themselves into a bed on the floor. Another
formed beside the hearth. A thought struck her; he
looked at her, reading her expression, or her thoughts.
"Water. There is a river behind the house. It's slow
and warm even at night. If you want to bathe in that,
I'll set something on the bank to guard you."

"I'll guard myself," she said, uneasy at what
guardian he might conjure up. But he sent one any-
way, she noticed later, as she stood in dark water that
mirrored a silvery stream of stars. An upright bar of
light, elusive as color in moonlight, stood near her
clothes. Exactly what it might do, she never knew;

nothing disturbed the night. She emerged finally,
dried herself with a blanket, and dressed in long, thin,
flowing garments the colors of the desert. She sat on
the blanket, combing her hair with her fingers and
letting it dry, thinking helplessly of Nyx and the
Holder, and the Gatekeeper, who had opened the gate
for her into a stranger's country. She lay back on the
blanket, wanting the river to speak with his voice, the
night to curve itself in his shape against her- Hew, she

130 Patricia A. McK.illip

said without sound, wanting to protect even his name
from the vast, dangerous, magic-riddled land.

After a while, she went in, found Rad Ilex asleep
at the table- She touched him; he vanished so abruptly
that horror flashed through her: He had not been real
at all, only some sending of himself. Then he reap-
peared, looking dazed.

"Meguet. I forgot you. You frightened me. I was
dreaming of the firebird. Only it had a human face."

"Whose face?" she asked, wondering what face-
less mage he feared. But he said nothing more. She
helped him rise; the bed, it seemed, was too far for
his strength. He walked two steps and sagged into the
pile beside the hearth, so deeply asleep he did not feel
her undress him and wash his wounds with something
besides the ice of dragon's breath.

At dawn she stood at the open door, watching the
village wake. A patch of stone houses beside a river's
bend, it seemed little more than a scattering of peb-
bles between two planes of earth and sky. The south
Luxour was flat as water, but she could see far in the
distance the tiny, fantastic shapes of stonework
among which dragons, or tales of dragons, dwelled.
Along the river, in patches of green, sheep and goats
grazed. People bringing buckets to the village foun-
tain looked at her curiously. They did not speak, but
their eyes said: The mage is back. Their faces looked
brown and tranquil, like the desert stones. One old
woman driving a cart stopped in front of Meguet,
handed her a stone that had been rolling among some
sacks in the cart.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   f3l

"For Rad," she said. She had a broken tooth, and
a face as wrinkled as a root. "For healing my donkey,
last year."

"But what is it?"

The woman's sparse brows and the reins flicked up
at the same time. "A dragon's heart." The reins came
down, the cart lurched forward. "I'm going out again
for stones. Tell him to stay home, this time. There's
nothing good beyond the Luxour."

"How do you know?" Meguet asked curiously.
"How does news find its way here?"

"People come and go- And they come back again,
for they leave their hearts in the Luxour and they
wander back all hollow looking for them. Some-
times," she added with a half-smile, "I find them
first. I keep them safe on my shelves until they're
claimed." She ticked to the donkey; Meguet stared
after her. The dragon's heart, big as a cabbage, crystal
under a thin, worn layer of stone, weighed heavily in
her hands. She wondered if the ghosts of dragons
came back through time, searching for the hearts that
the strange old woman harvested in her cart. Most
likely, she thought, taking another look, it was just a
rock.

She turned to go in, and coax breakfast out of the
sleeping mage. Something blocked her way.

It was as if the shadow in the doorway had become
a sheet of night with a constellation flying across it,
and once she stepped into that night there was no way
out of it, no book of time, no gate, just the icy outline
of a great dragon with eyes and teeth and talons of

132 Patricia A. McKillip

stars, breathing a pale, glittering cloud of stars into
the dark. She stood transfixed, staring into the dra-
gon's fierce and empty eye, until, with terror and
astonishment, she recognized the challenge.

She made some noise. She was aware that, beyond
the dark, something fought towards her. A hand
reached through the stars where the dragon's heart
blazed, a furious, white-hot jewel pulsing with the
fires it breathed. The hand caught her, pulled her into
the dragon, and then into light.

"Meguet?"

She dropped the dragon's heart. It shattered on the
stone floor, shards of crystal flying everywhere. She
stared down at it, sorrow for the old woman's simple
gift knotting the back of her throat.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "She left it for you.'*

"Meguet."

She looked up finally, to meet the mage's eyes.
They were lucent as the morning sky, vast as the de-
sert. She blinked, and was suddenly no longer in his
hold, but on the other side of the room, watching
expression break into his face. He seemed to hold
himself upright with an effort, as if, caught in the
wake of her movement, he had lost his balance. He
looked less feverish, but the weariness dragged at his
shoulders. He said finally, "You are a mage."

"No."

"There's a power stirring in you. I can feel it- You
hid your thoughts from me. You folded time as you
moved." He waited, then pleaded tiredly, "Trust me.
Please."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   133

She was silent, feeling the warnings of her heritage
wash over her like a slow, endless tide. The Dragon
hunts, the tide said. The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.
Then the warnirfgs passed and she could speak again.
She said with rare bitterness, "All you care about is
power. All of you."

He made a soft sound, shaking his head, the shad-
ows deepening on his face as if she had somehow
hurt him. "That's not true. But I can sense it in you—
something unusual, unnamed. The power that per-
mitted you to see me when I cast the spell over Ro
House. The power that forced you to guard the tower,
to see through sorcery. But you aren't a mage. What
is the power?" She was silent, backed against the
wall, splinters of the dragon's heart glistening, sunlit,
at her feet. He sat down finally, listening to her si-
lence. He said to the table top, "It's my fault. I have
a mage's habits. I wander where I have no business
going. I won't trouble you with my curiosity. You
don't have to be afraid of me. But you're afraid of
something, in a land that never even existed for you
before yesterday."

It was a long time before she answered, and then
because she had no other hope of understanding what
she feared except for the mage she was afraid to trust.
She whispered, "A dragon made of stars, hunting
through the stars. A threat to Ro Holding. To the Cyg-
net."

His head went back; his face, stone-still, was white
as bone. "How could you—" he breathed. "How
could you know that?"

134 Patricia A. McWtp

She moved then in sudden fury, leaning over the
table, her hands coming down flat, hard on the wood.
"You knew."

"Listen to me." He gripped her wrist. "Listen."

"You talk too much, Rad Ilex. You make me see
dragons among the stars, but you don't show me what
they hunt. You say you want a key, only a key, just
a small key to unlock the gate to an unarmed land
that doesn't eveta know the word dragon. You drag
me here and I can't even warn—" She lifted her
hands again, let them fall helplessly, beating at her
own futility. "I can't even warn. But I can fight. This
is where the danger begins. Where there are drag-
ons."

"Meguet—the dragon—"

"How far is Draken Saphier's court? Is it close? If
you won't tell me, the villagers will. I'll walk across
the Luxour if I must. I'll ride in that old woman's
cart."

"Gara. Her name is Gara." He stopped to catch
his breath. "Walk out of the door. I won't stop you.
The Luxour may stop you, or it may not; I won't. But
when you get to Draken Saphier's court, the dragon
there will stop you. He will sense the power in you,
and he will test you and test you until you can't call
your own bones private. The Dragon of Saphier is
dragon-born, a mage who trains mages. He trained
me. What he wants more than anything is to find the
path to me power within the dragon's heart. His fath-
er's power. For that he needs a certain key."

Meguet gazed at him. She began to tremble sud-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   135

denly. She sat, her face hidden behind her unbound
hair, behind her hands. "Nyx," she whispered, so
softly that not even the dragon's heart broken at her
feet could hear. The mage heard; his own voice was
feather-soft.

"Yes."

"You must get the key from Nyx. Then, with the
key in Saphier, the danger to Ro Holding will no
longer exist."

"The danger will still exist. And it may well be
insurmountable."

She lifted her head, stared at him again, her own
face pale, stunned with shock. "Then I will go to
Draken Saphier's court. If the danger must be fought
there."

"You cannot fight Draken Saphier," he said flatly.
"Your power comes and goes apparently, and from
what I've seen, when it goes you can't even fight a
dragon made of thread."

"If I must go there, I will be there."

"How—"

"I will be there." She linked her hands tightly,
dropped her face against them, avoiding his curious,
questioning eyes. "You must go back to Ro Holding
and get that key."

"She won't give it to me without you."

"And the Holder will never let me return if I go
back now. The danger showed its face to me here,
not there. If I leave Saphier, how will I recognize
danger when it reaches Ro Holding?" She paused,
trying to think- "I'll give you a message for Nyx."

136 Patricia A Me Ki If 1/7

"You'll trust me with a message?"

She shook her head a little, wearily. "I trust you
to get that key you want. Little more. Tell Nyx—"

"She'll never believe you chose to stay. She'll
think I coerced you. I did once before."

She frowned at the dust on the table, brushing at
it, as if to find some message hidden in the wood-
She felt drained, hollow, as if she had left her heart
somewhere in Saphier and could not return home until
she found it. Her finger shaped a swan's wing in the
dust; she saw the black swan flying through the tower
window, just before she vanished into Saphier. She
said abruptly, "Tell her to tell the Gatekeeper of Ro
House that he is about to find a dragon at his gate
and only the key she has will lock the gate."

He looked dubious. "You want me to give her a
message for the Gatekeeper?"

"He is no ordinary Gatekeeper."

"Is that so." He leaned forward a little, caught her
eyes, curious again. "A Gatekeeper," he mused, and
she felt her face warm. "And this will persuade Nyx
not to fight me."

"I don't know. I do know you'll get the key any
way you can. Tell her I had a vision of what the
dragon is hunting."

"Come with me," he said insistently. "Home to
Ro Holding. It's Saphier's dragon. I'll fight it."

"If that were true," she said sharply, "I would not
be seeing visions in your doorway. You love Sa-
phier's dragons too much to fight them."

He swallowed, said heavily, "Then promise me

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   137

you will wait here for me. You will not cross the
Luxour without me."

"I will go where I must," she said. "I cannot
promise anything,"

He opened his mouth, closed it. He stood up, hold-
ing her eyes, as if me path to Ro Holding lay there,
not within his memories. He closed his eyes at last,
his face white as tallow, his shoulders straining
against some enormous burden. She saw him vanish
finally. And then he was back, no longer standing but
fallen among the glittering fragments of the dragon's
heart.

She made a sound, staring at him, for he seemed,
amid the light and stone and scattered crystals, an-
other vision, a foretelling. But, touching him, she felt
his weight, and heard his ragged breathing. He lifted
one hand weakly, dropped it over his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Meguet- It was too far..." He fell
asleep there within the broken heart. She closed her
eyes, felt the long, dark tide of dread and warning
well through her. Its ancient voices finally ebbed and
she could move again. She picked shards of crystal
from beneath the mage, and saw the Cygnet's eye in
every shattered piece.

- Nine-

In Chrysom's tower, Nyx stood spellbound, exploring
the gold key she held. The sunlight had faded some
time ago; the long summer dusk had filled the tower
room and darkened. She scarcely noticed light or lack
of it; her mind had become the size and shape of the
key. The key was the book; the book, she suspected,
was the key to the paths of time in the little black-
and-silver box. It would teach her how to pick one
path, control its speed, follow its turns, focus its end.
She could find a path to match the twists of time on
Brand's wrists, if she could find the spell, if she could
open the book ... The book remained stubbornly a
key.

Her thoughts turned around themselves, like the
graceful lines of gold. The key is the book, the book
is the key. The key is the key to itself, it unlocks itself.

It might unlock a path to Saphier, she knew, for
Chrysom had seen dragons. Had they been the elusive
dreams of Saphier, becoming real as he looked at
them?

The key is the key. The key opens itself. Her mind

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   139

roamed within its gold and ivory. Chrysom, it said at
every touch. Power was implicit in it, like the power
in a tuned, silent siring. There was a way to touch it,
make it sound....

Chrysom. she said within it, but the name did not
change it. She tried other words from his ancient
spells; none revealed the book. She tried her own
name, and then Moro Ro's name; the key ignored
both of them. Time, she guessed. Book. Open. Mage.
Unlock. Finally, she told it what it was. and what it
must become- Key, she said within it, and the key
blossomed like a flower in her mind.

It remained a key in her hand; she was aware, in
some distant place, of its shape and weight. But the
spells, written in Chrysom's clear, precise writing,
turned slowly, page after page, in her mind. Some
were labelled incomprehensibly; others dealt directly
with the oddments that still survived after a thousand
years to be recognized. The pages slowed under her
scrutiny, stopped when she studied them, turned eas-
ily when she wished to go on. She found the box
finally: the drawing of a dark cube scrolled on all
sides with silver ink.

Time-Paths, the spell said. Pages of miniscule ex-
planation followed. Nyx, engrossed, wandered down
path after path of spells, and found at last the one she
wanted.

Saphier, it said. Here Be Dragons. She followed it,
memorizing its patterns. Other spells and paths, la-
belled strangely, wandered through Saphier; Chry-
som, evidently, had found something there to

140 Patricia A McKillip

fascinate him. But she concentrated on the path that
ended at the ruler's court, hoping that, after so long,
it was still there, or that Chrysom's journeys had led
him into a time more recent in Saphier's history than
his own.

She became aware, dimly, that stars had been bum-
ing in the dark around her for some time, a curiosity
which coaxed her out of the key finally to investigate.
She found candles lit throughout the room- Brand, his
supper finished, sat in a window waiting for her.

A moon-paring hung over his shoulder, high above
the swamp. She slipped the key back into her pocket,
rubbed her eyes tiredly. Movement felt strange; she
tried to remember how long she had been standing
there, bewitched with Chrysom's knowledge. His
taut, uneasy face told her: long enough.

"What were you doing?" he asked. "You didn't
move, you wouldn't speak- I thought some spell had
been cast over you by that key."

"No." She drifted to the table, her thoughts inlaid
with winding paths of silver. She ate bits of cold pep-
pered meat, and bread and a stew of mushrooms and
leeks, until she felt she had climbed out of the little
black cube into her own time again. She poured wine,
drank a mouthful, then turned. In the candlelight her
eyes held a trace of lavender. "I found Chrysom's
path to Saphier."

She heard his breath catch. He moved away from
the window, relinquishing the bird's familiar place.
"I can go home?"

"I'll take you."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   141

"How?" His fingers twisted the blackened path on
one wrist. "How?"

* 'The black cube. You came into it once, to rescue
me. Do you remember?"

"No." Then he shook his head a little. "Perhaps.
It's like a dream—"

"It was real," she said soberly. "I was lost and
you led me out. That's when you remembered your
name."

"I don't remember," he said, but for once with
regret. He added, "I would like to remember that I
did something for you."

"You will." She nibbled pieces of slivered carrots
and almonds with her fingers, thinking. "Where
would Rad Ilex most likely have taken Meguet?"

His face tightened at the name, but he did not re-
treat from it. "My father's court," he said after a
moment. "It's where he lives."

"He'd go there even after casting a spell over
you?"

"He wouldn't expect to see me. He is still free to
come and go from Saphier; my father must not sus-
pect him."

"Well," she said, "it's a place to start."

' 'My father will help you. He can send his mages
searching across Saphier, even across the Luxour if
need be. Not every mage can cross the Luxour. So
I've heard- They say ancient magics, old as the be-
ginning of the world, blow across it like wind. But
some mages leam to anticipate the winds."

"Rad Ilex?"

142 Patricia A. McKiUip

He was silent, struggled again; he nodded briefly.
"Yes. And my father. And some others."

"It sounds fascinating."

"Perhaps- I never understood his love of the LUX-
OUT."

"Your father's?"

"Rad." Blood streaked his face suddenly; he
turned away from her, but she saw him tremble. She
wondered uneasily what jagged edge of truth waited
for him in Saphier. She dipped her fingers in orange-
scented water, wiped them on a napkin, then pinned
up a stray coil of hair. She said slowly,

"I should tell my mother that I'm going."

"Will she let you go to a strange land?"

"Most likely she'll be so amazed I told her that
she won't ask where. But I don't know how long it
will take me to find Meguet, and I don't want her
thinking I'm in danger."

"My father will protect you," he said swiftly.
"Nothing will harm you in Saphier."

Absently she looked for her shoes, found them on
her feet. She brushed a crumb off her skirt. "I'd better
change. I can't wear silk shoes across a desert, if it
forces me to walk."

"There will be no need for you to go. The mages
will search the Luxour."

She stared at him- "A desert full of magic, and you
expect me to sit in your father's house trying to watch
my manners?"

He blinked. "I forget," he said, "how much free-
dom you have- You choose to come and go; my fath-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    143

er's mages do his bidding. You also do things for
love." His face closed abruptly, before she could
question him. She said to his set profile,

"I'll be back as soon as I speak to my mother."

His brow crooked anxiously. "It's late," he re-
minded her.

"I'll hurry. If Rad Uex comes—"

"Do you expect—"

"No," she said quickly. "Though it would be
worth this key and more to find Meguet here instead
of there. If he comes, tell him to wait for me. Don't
touch him. Don't let the firebird break out of you."

"How can I stop the bird?" he demanded.

"Find a way. Do anything to keep Rad Ilex here.
The heart of sorcery is the clear and patient mind. So
Chrysom says. I am trying to be patient and clear-
headed, for once in my life. But if the mage vanishes
again with Meguet, I am liable to lose my temper and
do something impulsive."

* 'My father says the heart of sorcery is the fire that
forges the dragon's heart."

"He does."

"So he teaches."

"Moro's eyes. Just don't fight."

She summoned one of the tower pages, sent him
running to the Holder's chambers to request a few
moments' privacy. Then she vanished, reappeared in
front of her startled attendants, picking jewels out of
her hair. She changed quickly, packed a few odd-
ments of her own. She felt for the amber at her ear
lobe, and tossed everything—earring and key and

144 Patricia A. McKillip

cloak, comb and little jewelled mirror, a few dried
herbs—into an ivory ball so tiny it seemed invisible
in her pocket. The key, now that she understood it,
had consented, to her relief, to fit itself inside the ball,

She didn't bother with stairs and towers; she simply
appeared in front of her mother. The Holder had dis-
missed her attendants and was pacing; seeing Nyx she
barely changed expression, as if what she frowned at
were only an extension of her thoughts. She said,

"Where is Meguet?"

"I believe, in a land called Saphier."

"Where is that?"

"I have no idea. It's not on any map I can find."

The Holder was silent. Her arms were folded
tightly; she seemed too disturbed even to throw hair-
pins. "You said the mage would return for the key."

"So I thought," Nyx said.

"Then where is he?"

"I don't know."

"I have told the Holding Council that Meguet is
guarding you, and that you are guarding Ro House
against the return of the mage. Rumors are already—' *
She stopped, touched her eyes. "Rumors."

"They follow me, don't they?" Nyx said softly.
"The bog-witch alone in the tower with a bird..."
Her own arms were folded; she was frowning, reflect-
ing her mother, but pensively, at the problem itself.
"The mage slowed time and fought me for that key.
It seemed most reasonable to think he would return
for it."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   145

"Then where is he? Surely he didn't find Meguet
an adequate substitute!"

"I think—" Nyx hesitated, received the full brunt
of the Holder's troubled, angry gaze. Her brows lifted
a little; she said patiently, ' 'If you are going to shout
at me, shout. I'll listen.*'

"What I think," the Holder said tersely, "is that
my youngest daughter and heir stays alone in that
ancient, magic-riddled tower with a dangerous bird,
waiting for the return of a very dangerous mage, and
that my niece is lost in a country that exists on no
map, and at the mercy of that mage. Shouting would
hardly satisfy. Reducing the hearthstones to rubble
with a poker might. Now. Tell me what you think."

"I mink I can find my way to Saphier."

The Holder shouted, "What?"

"And I think I know why the mage has not re-
turned."

"You are not going to Saphier,"

"I might have to search for Meguet."

"No- Absolutely not."

"Mother, I may have no choice. From what Brand
has said, Saphier is not the most hospitable place in
the world. It sounds fierce, violent, power-ridden. The
mage may be the least of Meguet's problems."

The Holder's tight grip of herself loosened sud-
denly; she pulled a net of gold thread and emeralds
from her hair, flung it to the floor. She stared at
Nyx, hair tumbling around her shoulders, her eyes
night-dark, lined with pain. She said harshly, "I for-
bid you to leave this house. You said the mage will

146 Patricia A. McKillip

return. Wait for him. I will not lose both you and
Meguet to some barbaric land beyond Ro Holding.
Meguet is resourceful; she may be able to find her
way back—"

"No." She gazed at her mother, her throat tight.
Her face had lost color. "I won't let you sacrifice
Meguet for me."

"You sacrificed her for a key."

* 'I—* * She swallowed, unable to speak, then stead-
ied her voice. "I make mistakes. Yes."

The Holder closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"1 was careless." Nyx spoke carefully, her eyes
wide, colorless as cloud. "But I'm not entirely with-
out resources myself. Meguet fought for me. I owe
her. I think I can find a way into Saphier."

"But why?" The Holder's voice rose again, dan-
gerously. "Why must you go there if you expect the
mage to come here?"

"I think he can't."

"Can't what?"

"Return. I think he was injured by the firebird."

"Moro's eyes," the Holder breathed. "Badly?"

"It's not a question of degree—"

"Do you think he's dead?"

"I have no idea."

"You saw him before he disappeared. What had
the bird done to him?"

"It was enough," Nyx said slowly, "that the bird
had done anything at all to him. If he had made the
firebird, with all his formidable power he should have
been able to control it. He never tried to harm it; it

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   !47

was trying to kill him- It drew blood; it lost a talon.
That may have been enough to kill the mage."

"A bird claw? I don't understand."

"The spell itself. The sorcery that transformed the
firebird. It might have been deadly to the mage."

The Holder stared at her. "I thought it was his
spell."

"So did I, until I saw him wounded. I think Meguet
may be somewhere in Saphier with an injured mage
on her hands,"

The Holder was silent. She turned abruptly, found
the nearest chair and sat. "Then whose spell is it?
Are we to expect yet another mage who won't bother
to use the gate?"

"I don't—" Nyx's voice shook suddenly with
worry. "I don't know what to expect next." She
leaned against the massive fireplace, gazing down at
her mother, and finding some comfort from the solid
stones. "I've never asked your permission to leave
the house before."

"I know."

"I've rarely even told you where I was going. I'm
your heir, yes, but I'm also all you've got for a mage,
and I must be free to work. Though I realize I've
hardly given you much, these past months, to have
faith in." The Holder shifted, gestured wordlessly,
her ringed hands flashing, falling. "All you've seen
me do here is turn the Hold Signs back into embroi-
dery and silence a bird, which rumor already told you
I could do."

"Nyx—"

148 Patricia A McKillip

"All I seem to do with the firebird in the tower is
to fail- It does seem a simple thing to do: change a
bird back into a man, something any mage could do."

"It must," the Holder said, "be a very subtle sor-
cery."

"Oh, it is. Very subtle. And so stubborn, it seems
to me at times that Brand himself cast the spell,
masked himself behind the firebird, and refuses to re-
linquish it."

The Holder made a noise, staring at her daughter.
"He enchanted himself?"

"I don't think so. But I am beginning to think he
has some very powerful reasons to avoid becoming
himself again. And I think the truth of the matter lies
in Saphier. He cannot return on his own; the time-
paths on his wrists have been damaged. I must take
him."

"I don't like this," the Holder said. "A ruler's son,
ensorcelled and exiled—it sounds dangerous. It's not
your business to solve Saphier's problems."

"No. But Brand has given me no reason to believe
his father won't want him back. If I were missing in
a strange land, you would be grateful if someone
brought me home,"

"Yes, but—"

"Also, there is Meguet. I can't leave her there."

"No. But—"

"But, why me? Because you have no one else who
can do these things."

"You are my heir."

"I am your mage. This is what mages do."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   149

"I don't like it." The Holder rose abruptly to pace
again, down a woven path of flowers and ivy to its
edge and then back again. "You are too much like
me," she said abruptly. "Strong-willed and prone to
wander. What if I lose you to Saphier? Where will I
go to look for you? You can't even tell me where this
land is, assuming it exists now, at this moment and
not some other, which occurs to me to wonder about
since it doesn't exist on any map."

"The problem," Nyx said carefully, wondering
herself, "may not exist either. It's not something to
worry about until we must,"

"That," the Holder said explosively, "is the kind
of muddy thinking that has led you into trouble be-
fore."

"Perhaps. But I've always found my way home.
Somehow," She put her hand on her mother's arm.
"Please," she said softly. "I didn't run away nine
years for nothing. I am a sorceress. Let me do some
sorcery."

The Holder came with her to the tower. The mid-
night bells had not yet rung; Brand, whirling mid-
pace as the door opened, was still human. Nyx cast a
glance around the room; he answered her unspoken
question.

"No one came. No one that I could see."

"All right," she said tautly. "We'll go there." She
turned, looked at the Holder a moment, wordlessly.
She said with wonder, "I've never said goodbye to
you before."

"Don't say it now," the Holder said fiercely. She

!50 Patricia A. McKillip

touched an errant strand of Nyx's hair, then dropped
her hand, stepped back- "Just go. Return Brand to his
father, find Meguet, and come home. Nothing more
complicated than that. Promise me."

"I'll come back as soon as I can." She drew the
ivory ball out of her pocket, gazed into it. She could
see the key floating in the dark; she touched it with
her mind. Pages turned, time-paths wandered through
them, through her thoughts, into me room itself- She
was vaguely aware that Brand had knelt at the Hold-
er's feet He said something, rose again through a
misty net of silver. Something else happened as he
stepped to Nyx*s side and the room itself wavered,
dreamlike, beyond the widening silver filigree: There
were unexpected sounds, sudden movements. A door
opened; faces appeared, then faded into a soft dark-
ness that grew so deep it swallowed even me bright
stars of candlelight Nyx, paths rushing everywhere
around her, struggled a moment to remember the
faces. Not Meguet, though one had her hair. Not the
mage. She was aware of Brand with her, a presence
and a name, though he had moved behind her. Sa-
phier, she said, and all the glowing paths around them
froze and vanished. All but one ... She stepped onto
it; it began to move. As she shifted the path to form
the pattern that led to Saphier, elusive sounds, faces,
drew urgently at her attention, demanding to be
named. She pushed them away, concentrating, intent
on accurately shaping the whorls and crooks of time
and distance so that the path would end in Saphier
and not in the middle of some sea. It was not until

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   151

she had formed the final turn and something vast be-
gan to shape itself beyond the dark, that she relin-
quished her attention to memory, and the sounds, the
faces, came suddenly clear.

A knock -.. The Holder turned, and the bells began
to ring. The door opened... The Gatekeeper, his face
hard, white, as it was when he swallowed fear whole
and tried to hide it in some private place ... The face
beside him was so unexpected that for a moment she
felt only amazement: dark-skinned, pale-haired, eyes
as dark as the first night of the world- It was Meguet's
kin, her unlikely shadow, as powerful and as power-
less, standing under a roof that was not stars or light.
And then she saw the warning in his eyes.

She felt the blood startle out of her face. The dark-
ness ebbed, revealing a quiet, shadowy hall, a house
at night, some time after, she guessed, the midnight
bells had rung.

The firebird flew ahead of her toward a moving
circle of light.

-Ten-

Meguet picked her way across a dragon's spine. It
pushed itself in a sharp, uneven ridge of red stone out
of dry, weathered earth; it was not high, but too long
to walk around and almost too steep to climb. Nothing
grew on it. On the other side of it lay more of what
she had already crossed: the Luxour with no percep-
tible horizon, shimmering with heat or with air dis-
turbed by the flicker of dragon wings.

She had left Rad*s village at dawn, sitting beside a
young, straw-haired man on his cart. He was going
to cut salt blocks, he had told her when she stopped
him. There was a place he knew in the desert, a white
pool of salt She needed to get to Draken Saphier's
court, she said. He looked surprised, but offered her
a ride as far as the first wall of stone.

*'I go due north," he said, "to the dragon's back-
bone. Then I go west along that to the end, and there's
the salt pond. You'll want to keep going north." He
eyed her askance as she climbed onto the cart seat;

an answer presented itself. "You*ll be a mage, too,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   f53

then. We were all wondering. Only mages cross the
Luxour on foot,"

"How do others get across?" she asked. He urged
his donkeys forward.

"They ride. Mostly they go around to the east, then
follow the river. Others come in caravans, on carts,
well-supplied. Those who hunger after dragons. Most
buy a heart and go home again." He ticked at the
donkeys; his voice was good-humored, unhurried.
"Some stay along the river, spend their lives looking
for crystal bones. A handful stay on the Luxour it-
self."

"In the desert?" she said, startled.

"A half-dozen, maybe, I've seen; there must be
others. They find their places in the rocks, their un-
derground streams. They see their private dreams of
dragons to live near—a shape of stone, a hot spring,
an odd configuration of shadows at.sunset—and there
they stay. They find me or they find the gait, even-
tually. That's how I know them."

She looked at him, at the crook of his mouth, his
eyes that expected no surprises. "You don't believe
in the dragons."

He shook his head-, surprised-again. "But I love the
desert. It's enough for me, just the way it is, without
suppositions. Most born around here never leave. Or
like Rad, they come back. He never stays long,
though. He believes in dragons, Rad. He's seen them
since we were small, running barefoot into the desert
after lizards. 'Look,' he'd say, 'look.' But I'd never

154 Patricia A McKillip

see- So I wasn't smprised when he left for Draken
Saphier's coun. All mages go there. Is that where you
were bom?"

"No."

He waited, then flicked the reins idly. "I thought
maybe so, because you came with him and you're
going back there. But they say the mages come from
all over Saphier, to Draken Saphier's court."

She opened her mouth to ask a question, closed it
again. Mages, she thought, and wondered if they were
all as powerful as Nyx. She felt a familiar, terrible
impatience, wanting to be there instead of here with
a desert to find her way across, at least until urgency
loosed her powers, pleated time and desert to take her
where she was needed. Whether or not Rad Hex
would search for her after he took the key from Nyx,
she had no idea. She could do nothing for Ro Hold-
ing, staying in that village at the edge of nowhere.
Nyx, she had reasoned starkly, would not sit still in
Chrysom's tower wondering where Meguet was. if
she could find her way to Saphier. And if she came,
she would not bother with a desert; she would go
straight to Draken Saphier....

"There," the young man beside her said. "The
dragon's backbone."

The sun had risen above the distant blue mountains,
begun its arc across the sky. It peeled shadow away
from the dragon bone, left a low, jagged ridge cutting
across the landscape, beginning and ending nowhere.
He pointed.

"Salt's there, at that end." He looked at her a mo-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   155

ment, silently; perhaps, Meguet thought, he did not
believe in mages either, and saw only a woman, un-
protected and ignorant, about to wander into a place
abandoned by everything but light. He said only,
"Rad's doings taught me never to question mages;

not even their answers make much sense. If you need
me again for something, I'll be at the west end for
two days."

At the top of the ridge, she could still see his cart,
lumbering and patient as a beetle, crawling along the
bone. She rested a moment. Ahead lay the odd, crazed
towers and palaces and dragons' wings of stone.
Wind roused suddenly, pushed at her hard; she
smelled sulphur, and a darker, sweeter scent, as if in
some deep, moldering cave something huge had
shifted, disturbing earth. She started down the slope.

Sometime later, she walked along shallow furrows,
straight lines raked long ago across the ground as if
by some giant claw. The scars had weathered, but
never closed. She glanced up uneasily, wondering at
the size of such a thing. A fierce, golden eye left an
imprint of fire in hers. She looked down, blinking,
and continued doggedly, wondering if she would be-
come like the desert dwellers, seeing dragons every-
where. Her shadow fluttered like black fire in the
wind: the loose, flowing garments she had taken from
Rad. He had worked some magic into her velvet
shoes, during one of his waking moments, so she
could walk, he said, if she got restless while he
mended himself. Wearing them, she would feel nei-
ther heat nor cold nor water nor stone; she would

156 Patricia A. McKi'ffy

walk on air. Dust did not cling to them either, she
noticed, though dust clung to her swearing face and
wove itself into her hair. She carried a water skin and
a pouch with some bread and fruit and goat cheese.
She would find lizards when she ran out of food. She
would find the water that the desert dwellers drank.
She would cross the desert somehow; even the LUX-
OUT came to an end eventually.

Her shadow shrank; the eye overhead blazed at her.
She felt even her bones shrink under its cruel gaze,
as if the weight of light pouring down over her pushed
her closer to the earth. She reached one of the strange
ruins, steep upthrusts of stone that had weathered and
sheared pieces of itself away. From a distance it had
doors, broken towers, and fallen walls, empty win-
dows framing sky. Close, it was simply a pUe of rock.
within which she found shade, a resting place. She
ate and drank sparingly, then leaned against a slab of
warm stone and closed her eyes.

She woke with a start at a sound, and found a
woman watching her.

"Are you mage?" the woman asked. "Or
dragon?" Her eyes were blue desert sky, split with
streaks of silver lightning; she peered at Meguet,
blinking. Her long hair was white, her hands slender
and delicate. She wore a black robe and magic shoes;

there was no dust on them. "I hear you breathing. I
cannot see so cleariy now; everything breathes now.
everything has wings. Which are you?"

"Neither," Meguet said. She straightened slowly.
stiff. The woman, perched on stone like a butterfly

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   157

sunning, smiled, her smooth brown face breaking sud-
denly into a spider web of wrinkles.

"A riddle!"

"No. Only a woman crossing a desert."

"You are not a mage."

"No."

"Then," the woman said, "you have a chance of
getting out."

Meguet was silent, puzzled. She found her water
skin, drank a mouthful, and held it out. "Arc you
thirsty?"

"No. But thank you. I have learned to smell clean
water, after so many years here. I never go thirsty."

"Years." Meguet swallowed, staring at the ancient,
beautiful, half-blind face. "How many years?"

"I can't remember. I only remember how old I was
when I got lost here; after I decided to stay I started
counting dragons instead of years.'' She smiled again.
' 'In dragon years, I might be five. Or a thousand. Or
I may not even be bom. They arc that elusive...."

"Are you a mage?"

"I was. Maybe I still am. I never think about it."

"I thought that's all mages thought about."

"Being mages?" She nodded, her hair drifting in
the wind, a long cobweb cloak. "You've been around
them, to know that."

"A couple of them. But how did you get lost? All
you have to do is follow the sun or cross it, to find
your directions."

"Mages," the woman said, "tend to get distracted
in the Luxour. There's such a tangled magic here. It

158 Patricia A. McKillip

lures you this way, that. It tantalizes, it whispers."
She put her hand on a jagged tower of rock- "It lies.
It says: Once I was this, search me, find who built
me. So you search, and once you begin to see one
fine, lost palace, you begin to see entire kingdoms
lost; you wander from min to ruin. trying to find a
memory."

'*A memory of what?"

"Of those who might have lived here among the
dragons. Or, dragon-born, built them." She patted the
stone fondly. "Oh, they're like the dragons, these old
stones. They never say yes or no, but always maybe.
Maybe I'm stone. Maybe more than stone."

"Then why did you never turn your back on them
and leave?"

"Because by then you yourself live within the ru-
ined palaces; you have inherited the forgotten king-
doms." She stood up on the rock, let her hair flow
on the wild currents. She held out her hand. There
was a blood-red jewel on her forefinger: a dragon's
eye. "Come with me. I'll show you where I live,
among the lizards and the sand beetles and the blue-
eyed snakes. There's a well of water beneath the
rocks, so deep I never touch the bottom when I bathe
in it. A dragon sleeps at the bottom of the well. Some-
times at noon when sunlight pours between the rocks,
I glimpse it, coiled, golden as the light. Come. I'll
show you."

"I cannot," Meguet said gently. "I must cross the
Luxour. I dare not be distracted by it."

"So I felt. when I was much younger. That a hun-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   159

died reasons compelled me across the desert. But after
a time, I realized there was no reason for me not to
stay. No reason at all. What compels you?"
"I must get to Draken Saphier's court."
"Draken Saphier." The woman's face smoothed,
as if she barely remembered the name. Then she gave
a sudden laugh. It held memory, ambiguity, a touch
of rue. "The Dragon of Saphier. I was in Saphier
when his mother ruled." She was silent a little, her
silver-blue eyes looking inward. "Perhaps that's why
I lost myself in the Luxour so long ago. I, too, wanted
the dragon's child. But—" She tossed her hands
lightly, freeing memory. "I could never find the
dragon. If you stay long enough, Draken Saphier will
come here. The Luxour will call him home." She
waited; when Meguet did not answer, she turned,
slipped away among the ruins, as swiftly and easily
as a desert animal. Her voice (Irifted back. "The
world beyond the Luxour is the dream. Stay here."

Meguet rose. As she stepped out of shadow, light
pressed down at her again, trying to melt her, reshape
her into something shrunken and flat that huddled
close against the earth. She drew long scarves around
her face, her head, and marked a path from stone to
stone, shadow to shadow. Water, the desert-mage had
said- A well. Deep water. But perhaps that was also
a dream, for nothing grew out of the ground but rocks.
Still, she remembered the ice cave, the dragon's cold
breath. The memory itself cooled her until she
reached another shadow. Stay, the desert said- Sit.
Wait. There is no end to me, I am everywhere, and

160 Patricia A. McKillip

you will never find your way beyond me. There is no
path out of me. Stop here. Stay. Rest. But she refused
to listen, even when the light pressed her head down,
her eyelids closed as she walked. The light was dra-
gon's breath; the Dragon hunted the Cygnet... She
walked across the face of the sun itself, and she told
the desert; / have fought the sun and lived. She stum-
bled into shadow and back into endless fire, and again
into shadow until both sun and shadow weighed her
down, and time and the sun seemed to have stopped.

Finally the hot black cooled; the sun loosed its grip
of the desert. A lavender sky began to darken, reveal
the first faint stars. She heard water bubbling around
her, smelled sulphur. Her mouth felt stuffed with
sand, her body worn like old stone. She sat, felt for
the water skin, took a few sips of warm water. Her
eyes burned suddenly, though she had nothing left for
tears; her body shook in a sudden, noiseless sob of
fear and despair. She calmed herself, watching the
night deepen, the stars grow huge, impossibly close.
She saw no shimmering wings, no shadows unfolding
to block the stars. Perhaps all she had ever seen were
Rad Ilex's dreams. The vast, warm dark, the star-shot
silence comforted her. Others have been lost here and
lived, she thought. And I'm not lost yet. She ate fruit
that had fermented in the heat, cheese that would not
last another day. She lay back again, above the
ground along a ledge of stone, feeling the stone pull
at her bones as if to draw her into itself. Tomorrow,
she thought, I'll walk before dawn. Just before she
fell asleep, she saw the stars flow together against the

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   16f

dark, shape themselves into the dragon's face.
The next day she walked into the dragon's heart.
It was vast, golden, seething with hidden fires that
blazed within stone, sand, shadow. Plumes of steam
blurred the landscape, were snatched up and shredded
by winds that blasted from the dragon's mouth. Mud
bubbled and belched; the ground hissed. Even the air
she breathed burned, rank and fiery with steam.
Sometimes she could barely see to cross the sun's
path; other times sun was everywhere, glowing in wa-
ter, leaping out of raw crystals or dragon's eyes.
Steam or dragon's breath trailed through the ruins,
shaped ghostly faces where windows might have
been. The ruins gave some shelter from the light, and
the hot, stinging winds, but even their shadows
burned. She made some attempt to capture lizards,
shards of sun or shadow that scattered at her footfall
and darted among the rocks. But they were too quick,
and she couldn't remember which Rad had told her
not to eat. She ate dried, crumbled bread, a withering
apple. Her eyes closed. She forced herself to rise, find
her direction. She could barely see the dragon's back-
bone pointing east and west behind her; the great tow-
ers, the roiling steam, half-hid it. At least it was still
behind her; she hadn't begun drifting in circles. The
broken fragments of the lost kingdom rose every-
where in front of her. She could only sketch a path
from one shadow to the next, and hope they did not
shift themselves from place to place, stones and mem-
ories of stone, like some moving labyrinth, to trap her
there. She walked until she turned gold with dust, and

162 Patricia A. McKiHip

her thoughts under the violent heat were distilled to
vapor, blown away before she could grasp them. Fi-
nally, a dragon-claw of light raked through her eyes,
into her mind, and, between one step and another, she
fell into her shadow.

She tasted water, impossibly sweet and cold. She
tried to speak, and choked- A hand cradled her head,
raised it- She opened her eyes, trying again to speak,
and saw a stranger turned away from her as he set
the water skin down. Behind him stood a great dragon
the color of twilight. Its eyes were stars, its wings,
opening, spread purple-grey across the sky. She tried
to rise, managed to lift one hand. The stranger turned
to her. The dragon breathed; night swirled around her,
a blinding dark without a star.

When she woke again, a vast, silvery tide had
swept across the sky. The dragon, looming against the
night, was a shadow limned by stars. One star had
fallen near her, giving out a soft, unwavering glow in
spite of the restless winds. The stranger sat outside
the circle of its light; she saw his loose, pale desert
garb straying in the wind. He might have been dream-
ing or watching dragons, but he sensed her waking.
She saw a flash of silver beneath his sleeve as he
reached out to touch the fallen star. It burned brighter,
sent its soft light washing over her face; his was still
in shadow.

She asked, "Is the dragon yours?" Her voice
sounded thin, far-away, as if she were dreaming it.
But he heard her, he had risen suddenly, noiselessly,
to scan the dark.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   163

"What dragon?"

"The one there against the stars."

He saw it; she heard his breath. Then he settled
himself again. "It's stone." His voice was low, dis-
passionate. "Sometimes I think these great stones
change shape at night, wander where they will...."
He passed her the water skin. "Hungry?"

"No."

"You will be." He passed her another skin, of
honey wine. She drank a little, and closed her eyes.
She saw dragon wings, sheer and delicate as moth
wings, dusted with stars. She remembered then where
she was going and why, and dragged her eyes open.

"I must go." But she could barely lift her head.
He took something out of a pouch, began peeling it;

the wind brought her the impossible scent of oranges-
He passed her a section, ate one himself. "It's easy
to get lost at night, even for a mage."

The desert, it seemed, abounded with mages.
"How many dragon years have you been here?"

He was silent; she felt him study her. "Not long
enough," he said at last, "to be unsurprised by every-
thing. Have you taken to dwelling in the desert?' *

"No."

"Then you came to see dragons."

"No."

He handed her another piece of orange. ' "Then why
are you walking through the heart of the Luxour?"

"I'm travelling north."

"From where?"

164 Patricia A. McKillip

She did not, she realized, even know the name of
Rad's village. "South."

"Most people,'* he commented after a moment,
"would have followed the river around the desert."

"I'm in a hurry."

"The Luxour slows time for those who hurry; it
elongates itself. It hides itself from the curious; it
shows itself to the innocent, and the unwary. It works
its own magic." His voice sounded detached, as if his
attention were roaming the desert around them, peer-
ing into moon-shadows, listening to the winds. "It is
a place of enormous power, and when you reach for
that power, it slips away to return when you have
stopped looking for it."

Scanning the night for intimations of such power,
she saw only a great, sinuous spiral of stars following
the moon's path, that reminded her of Rad's white
dragon. She thought of him, drugged by some deep,
healing sleep, and of the white dragon in Chrysom's
tower, and then of Nyx, finding the key in Ro Holding
that would unleash the dragons of Saphier, and she
moved abruptly, murmuring in frustration, blinking
dust out of her eyes.

"Do these winds never stop?"

"Never," he answered. "They are dragons' breath,
fire and ice."

"I saw the ice-dragon."

He leaned forward slightly, his voice less distant.
"Did you."

"Not the dragon itself—"

"No."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   165

"But the cave where it sleeps. Like a hole in the
night."

"Yes."

"I heard it breathe."

"And what else have you seen?"

"A shadow. But nothing that cast the shadow."

He said, "Ah," very softly. "And what else?"

"Nothing more. A heart, maybe. A bone- The mage
I saw yesterday said there was a golden dragon at the
bottom of a well. A dragon of light."

"Mage." His voice went flat on the single word;

she sensed all his attention then, pulled back out of
the night to focus on her.

"The one who lives among the rocks."

"Does this mage have a name?"

"I didn't ask. She is quite old and somewhat
blind."

He made a soft sound; his attention strayed again.
"She may see better, then, on the Luxour, where
nothing is quite as it seems."

"She had lost, she said, all interest in magic long
ago. How is that possible? To stop being a mage?"

"To stop being compelled," he answered; his face
was turned away from her again, to the dark, singing
distances- He added after a moment, "I don't know
if that in itself is possible."

"She seemed compelled by dragons."

"On the Luxour everyone is compelled by drag-
ons."

She was silent: A dragon had compelled her into

166 Patricia A. McKUlip

the hot, unbearable eye of the sun. She said, "It was
kind of you to help me."

"You're not the first I've found overwhelmed by
the Luxour," he said. "It happens. People come look-
ing for wonders, for the dragon's claw, the dragon's
fire. They never stop to think that they might find
what they are looking for. They see crystal bones, a
piece of petrified fire, fragments of some long for-
gotten age. They never see the living fire that breathes
over them out of a passing moment. I find them and
they wake and tell me they were struck by sun. Then
they stumble to the nearest village and buy a dragon
heart and go home, never knowing they have worn
dragon's fire, they have stood within the dragon's
eye."

She was silent, compelled, by something in his
voice, to search the winds and stars for their reflec-
tions. "I thought it was the sun myself," she admit-
ted.

"I thought you must be a mage when I saw you,"
he said a little drily- "With enchanted shoes and no
food. No one has less common sense than a mage on
the Luxour. But I didn't recognize you, and I know
all the mages of Saphier,"

"I'm not a mage," she said. "A mage I met put
the spell into my shoes."

"Yes." His voice went soft, very thin; he might
have been listening to the sound of a shadow shifting
across sand. "I recognized his spell. Mages leave fin-
gerprints that the skilled can read. How well do you
know him?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   167

She was silent, thinking of Rad with a dragon
across his doorway, telling her what to fear. "Not
well," she said finally.

"Is he in his village now?"

"I don't know," she said truthfully. "He comes
and goes." He moved. The mage-light flashed sud-
denly in her eyes. She winced, catching dust again,
her vision blurring.

"I know those river villages," he said. "Everyone
knows everyone and everything."

"It's true." She wiped tears from her eyes, shield-
ing her face from the light. "I've lost track of time,
here. It seems so long ago, now, that I walked out of
the village. I don't even know where I am; how can
I know where a mage might be? Mages—except
you—don't pay attention to you unless they need
you,*'

"And did he?"

"Did he what?"

"Need you?"

She looked at him, her eyes finally clear, wonder-
ing at this stranger pushing her gently, question by
question, into lies, and why she felt compelled to hide
the sleeping mage within her thoughts. In the wider
cast of light she finally saw his face.

She remembered to breathe after a time. It was the
firebird's face, older, passionate, controlled. She rec-
ognized the black brows slashing over cobalt eyes,
the hard, clean-lined warrior's face, weathered by ex-
perience. His long hair was varying shades of black
and smoke and ash, tied back with braided ribbons of

168 Patricia A McKillip

leather. The flash of silver at his wrists were the wo-
ven strands of time.

She swallowed drily. He said curiously, "You
know me. I don't know you."

"You wouldn't," she said. She felt her body trying
to grow small, push into the ground away from his
eyes. "You wouldn't," she said again, desperately.
"I'm just another face in those river villages you
know."

He held her eyes for a long time until it seemed
she began to hear the secret voices of his dragons,
and to see their wings moving in his eyes. Then his
expression changed, lines deepening between his
brows, beside his mouth. He said, "Rad Ilex sent you
into the Luxour leaving the track of his sorcery in
every step you take. Are you running away from him?
You won't elude him wearing those. He put some
thought into your shoes, but into little else." She did
not answer. He touched the light again; it dimmed,
throwing a welcome shadow over her eyes. "You are
protecting him." His voice was suddenly husky,
edged with pain, his face so like Brand's it startled
her. "It doesn't matter. I will find him."

"Why?" she whispered. He set the pouch near her,
along with skins of water and wine. He sat still again,
as she had first seen him, but his hands were tightly
closed, his face taut.

"He injured my son." His hands opened, closed
again; he stared into the mage-light. "Brand," he
whispered. "My only child. He is lost somewhere in
time, crying fire like a dragon, unable to speak any-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   169

thing but strange, jewelled spells. Rad forced him out
of Saphier, and destroyed his only path back."

"Why?" The word hurt, coming out, as if it were
a strange, hard jewel.

"I don't know. They had been friends. Rad Ilex
had discovered something, I think, something of enor-
mous power, dangerous to Saphier. Brand tried to
warn me, Rad silenced him. I have been searching for
them both. I have sent my mages searching for them.
But Rad Ilex is elusive and my son is—anywhere.
You have been with Rad in his village. Is he there,
still? You do not know. He comes and goes. So he
came and went in my son's life and twisted him out
of shape, and tore time itself apart to fling him beyond
Saphier. Beyond even my sight." He paused; she saw
him swallow. "I taught Rad to do those things."

She started to speak, couldn't- She heard Rad's
voice: The Dragon of Saphier wi}l test you and test
you until you can't call your own bones private ...
The dragon of night and stars had been on Rad's own
threshold, had filled his own doorway. It was Rad
who searched for the key, Rad whom the firebird at-
tacked, Rad who had tested her himself... Rad who
lay helpless against Draken Saphier, alone and dream-
ing, recovering from Brand's fury.

Or was he? Had he lied to her, gone in secret to
Ro Holding to trade her warnings for a key? Was he
on the desert now, coming to find her, or had he sent
her on an impossible journey to Draken Saphier's
court, simply to lose her and her suspicions to the
Luxour?

170 Patricia A. McK.illip

"I can't help you." Her voice trembled badly, torn
as she was between truth and lie, recognizing neither.
She felt something like wind glide over her feet, and
Draken Saphier rose, holding her shoes.

"You can help me," he said simply. "You can stay
here until Rad follows the path of his sorcery to you.
Not even the whims of the Luxour can hide your steps
from him. When he finds you, I will find him." She
stared at him, stunned. "Keep the food and water,"
he said. "I'll take the light." He added, "Don't try
to walk in the dark. Things that are afraid of light,
that bury themselves against the heat by day, dig out
at night to feed. They are small, vicious, and can feel
the vibrations of a falling pebble. As long as you stay
still, you'll be safe. And I'll be here, watching."

The light went out. He was silent. He had. she re-
alized, faded into the desert: a dark streak of wind, a
thinking stone. She lay still, scarcely daring to
breathe, trying to remember why, in another time, in
another country, she had not picked up a sword in-
stead of a rose.

- Eleven-

Nyx sat in a white room, contemplating three black
leaves floating in a bowl of water. The bowl was
white; the table it stood on was white. Thin white
curtains caught light before it spilled a hint of color
across the white floor. Nyx wore a fine, flowing, com-
plex assortment of garments, all of white silk. In the
entire room, only her eyes had color, the lavender in
them so deep it seemed, when she caught her reflec-
tion, a comment on her surroundings.

She was alone in the small chamber, whatever
alone meant in a house full of mages. She had been
treated with impeccable courtesy from the moment
she appeared: a sorceress from a strange land walking
a path of time into a ruler's house, with a firebird she
claimed was his missing son. This she explained to
more mages than she had ever counted even among
the dead in the history of Ro Holding. There was not
a shadow of disbelief in their expressions, as the fire-
bird cried noiselessly, constantly overhead. Of course
this was Draken Saphier's son, this wild bird trying
impotently to turn them all into jewelled trees. Un-

172 Patricia A. McKiHtp

fortunately, Draken Saphier was not there to thank her
himself. Neither were Rad Ilex and Meguet, her eye
told her, among this grave and attentive gathering.
She must wait, of course, for Draken Saphier's return.
She had, she explained, urgent business elsewhere.
No, they persuaded her, she must wait. Draken Sa-
phier would want to question her more fully about his
son's enchantment, perhaps seek her advice- This, she
had to admit, seemed reasonable, considering the state
in which his son had returned, Draken Saphier's ar-
rival, they told her, was imminent.

It remained imminent. She had been given pristine
quarters, three leaves in a bowl to contemplate, atten-
dants of exquisite tact and skill who were all, she
realized, mages of varying degree. Draken Saphier
had not yet returned, but would soon. Soon became
three days, and in three days she had been shown
extraordinary things in the vast. white, light-filled pal-
ace. But she had seen nothing of the firebird.

She kept an eye out for him, as mages led her
through the palace. It seemed an irregular assortment
of cubes piled at varying heights, the whole house
formed around a great square which was separated
into formal gardens, and, at the center, a broad square
of red and white stone. From the highest windows in
the house she could see the pattern in the stones: the
emblem of Saphier, an intricate, stylized weave of
lines coiling, locking, parting, meeting. She won-
dered, if she walked that path, where it would end. It
held, she realized after a time, the only curved lines
in the palace. The palace had no round towers, no

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   !73

turrets, no spirals or circles, only a series of arched
windows now and then, open to air and light, over-
looking the gardens. The chambers and halls, corri-
dors, stairways, all carried continuous straight lines
from angle to angle as the palace turned at the comers
of the square. Nothing was Jumbled, labyrinthine, un-
tidy with past. Past had been relegated to memory, or
it was framed in orderly fashion within the present.
For a house full of mages of varying powers the space
and pale walls and light would be calming, and the
strict lines the eye perceived might order the mind.
So much Nyx conjectured, though, within those lines,
she was shown fascinating deviations.

"This wall is very old," a very old mage named
Magior Del, who was Brand's great-aunt, told her.
She was quite tall and thin, with hands that seemed
all bone, translucent with age, and eyes as dark and
still as the new moon. The wall, a great slab of pale
wood at one end of a white room, was so completely
and intricately carved with tiny figures that it seemed
to move. It was a battle, Nyx realized, taking a closer
look, depicted with ruthless and startling detail: Not
even the cart horses seemed exempt from slaughter.
Only birds, picking out an eye or a bloody heart,
eluded arrow, spear, fire, club, stone. The carving of
the devastation was elegant, skilled. She studied it,
curiously; such fury seemed remote in the peaceful
house.

"Where are the mages?" she asked, turning to Ma-
gior. She surprised a fleeting expression on the an-
cient, composed face.

174 Patricia A. McKillip

"A mage witnessed it," she answered. "He carved
it. as an example of power he thought beyond the
control even of sorcery. There were few mages then,
and magic seemed a force as raw and random as light-
ning."

"Then he didn't connect sorcery with savagery,"
Nyx commented. She turned away from the silent,
frozen carnage, to a more tranquil tapestry hanging
on a side wall. At first glance it seemed a tree full of
birds and flowers, bright, varied blooms growing
along the same bough, with small, vivid birds flutter-
ing among the leaves. As she gazed at it, odd dark
shapes intruded; broken pieces of shadow, faces, per-
haps, half-revealed behind the leaves, or even within
a flower, as if some other work were embroidering
itself through this one. She looked closer, intrigued,
trying to piece the darkness together, but it remained
elusive.

"It makes me want to frighten the birds out of the
tapestry, part the leaves," she said, "to see what the
tree is hiding." She looked at Magior. "What is it?
What do you see?"

"I am too old," Magior said in her slow, dry voice,
"to see anything. Flower and shadow, dark and light,
in the end they are what they are. There is no reso-
lution. You are unconvinced. What do you see?"

"A mystery," Nyx answered simply. "What I
would like to see, unless you have some objection, is
the firebird." Magior looked at her silently; she
added, "It flew to me for help. I've grown—accus-
tomed to it. To Brand. I've left work unfinished,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   175

which worries me, and will worry me until I see it
completed. Or has he remembered everything? Is the
spell broken?"

Lines moved across the aged face, undecipherable
expressions. "The firebird is resting. It has several—
roosts, I suppose we must call them. We thought it
best to surround him with familiar faces, so that he
could more easily remember his past. The past he
remembers with you is intricately bound with the
spell."

"I see."

"Please do not be offended."

"No."

"If he looks at you, he will only remember himself
as the firebird, needing help."

"And is he remembering himself?"

"It is," Magior said after a pause, "an exasperat-
ing piece of sorcery." Her face worked again. "When
we follow his memories back, there is a point at
which all we find, inevitably, is the bird's face. The
bird's silent cry."

"You go into his mind?" Nyx asked, startled.

"You didn't?"

"Only to find the bird's mind. And that was like
entering some hard, polished jewel, where every part
is like every other part. And yet Brand kept insisting
that all he lost of time and memory could be found
in that enchanted bird,"

Magior nodded. "So he still insists," she mur-
mured, "All we can do is wait for Draken Saphier."
She paused again, her eyes on Nyx's face. "We won-

176 Patricia A McKilHp

dered," she said at last, "what you did with the bird's
fire and its voice."

"I trapped them outside of the bird. I didn't want
to dodge its fire while I worked, and I couldn't bear
hearing its cry. No one in the house could. Have you
heard it?"

"Once." Magior closed her eyes briefly. "In the
middle of the night. Its first cry. Before it vanished.
A terrible, terrible sound."

"The spell was cast here, then."

"Yes. By a mage who also vanished."

"Brand remembered something of that... He was
afraid the mage had deceived his father, and was still
here."

"No," Magior said a trifle harshly. "He has not
been seen here since. He would not dare return."

"I see." Nyx kept her face and her voice calm, but
still the dark eyes lifted, at some disturbance her im-
patience caused in the air between them. She asked
quickly, "Something I wondered about: the time
paths on Brand's wrists. How did they get so black?"

"We assume the mage destroyed them, when
Brand tried to escape him."

"Would that be simple to do?"

"No. It would take enormous power. The paths are
nearly indestructible. They must be so, or people
might be left stranded in odd places, in strange
times."

"Who made them?"

"Draken. He fashioned all the paths of time."

Nyx watched, the next day, the household guard

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   177

gather in the stone square and perform a complex
series of movements. They were very old, the young
mage with her explained. Developed by the first
mage-mler of Saphier, for far different purposes.
Now, despite the blades, it was more an exercise, a
dance. The movements were slow, but Nyx recog-
nized the whirling blades, the deadly rhythms of
Brand's attack on Rad Ilex. There seemed guards
enough for every window and every mouse hole in
the house, all wearing the path of time that lay under
their feet, emblazoned in red across their breasts.
They also wore the familiar silver on their wrists. The
thought of such an army marching the spiralling paths
of time disturbed Nyx profoundly. Yet all she saw of
martial art was relegated to a dance, and all she saw
of magic was the complete disappearance of the fire-
bird.

The mage with her, Pamet, a sturdy young woman
from north Saphier, with a fat braid of red hair and a
milky, freckled face, said when the guard dispersed,
"Perhaps you would like to see the lemon garden.
The fruit is ripe now and the trees are beautiful."

"I would rather see Brand Saphier," Nyx said. She
added, infected by the constant courtesy, "Please."

"The firebird is resting," Pamet said slowly. "I
don't know where in the house it might be."

"I thought you were trained to read minds."

"Oh, no," Pamet said, her complacency shaken.
"I mean, yes, we are, but not without careful regu-
lations, and not ordinarily without permission. It's
punishable, though experiments are always made,

178 Patricia A. McKillip

among the younger mages. You can see such rules
prevent a good deal of confusion, as well as animos-
ity. Some mages are inclined to temperament."

"I see," Nyx said temperately. "Perhaps, then, at
moonrise?"

"I'll ask Magior for you."

Nyx was silent, swallowing frustration. They had
drifted to a stop beside an immense bowl of black
marble, containing water. Above the water hung a
huge tapestry of a man in a plain black robe, sitting
on a floor of brilliant tiles, in front of a great black
bowl of water. He studied it with interest, though it
held, as far as Nyx could see, only a couple of thread-
bare patches.

"Who is that?" she asked. Parnet answered with-
out a hint of judgment,

"No one. It is a question."

"The man?"

"No. What you see: the real bowl, the tapestry
bowl, the water, the man. It is all a question about
you."

"Me."

"Few pass here without speaking. What you say
about this tells something about you. Even those who
say nothing tell something. It is one of the ways of
grouping beginning mages, according to their percep-
tions of what is most important. You chose the man.
Some ask what he sees in the water; others what re-
lationship the real bowl has to the bowl of thread- I
suppose that, in a land full of strangers' faces, you
would see the unknown face first."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   179

Nyx opened her mouth, hesitated. The house came
alive around her suddenly, puzzle-pieces everywhere,
springing out of what she had considered background.
"The bowl in my room," she said suddenly. "The
color. Or rather the lack of it... This entire house is
full of questions."

"Yes."

"How fascinating." She gazed into the water, saw
the color deepen in her eyes. "And there are no an-
swers- Only responses. Some must find all that white
in my chamber peaceful."

"Yes."

"And the walls of battle-scenes?"

"Some find them absorbing," Pamet answered
simply. "Most of them become the warrior-mages."

"Is Brand a warrior-mage?"

"Brand is a warrior. He has no gifts for sorcery."

"Yet he can walk the path of time on his wrists."

"That is common here, for warriors," Pamet an-
swered, with a touch of surprise in her voice. Nyx
frowned down at the water. She let one hand fall to
her side, touch the tiny ivory ball that held Chrysom's
key. She saw Pamet's reflection, her expression open,
waiting, calm. She asked abruptly,

"And is the firebird itself a question? Or do you
have a few answers for that here?"

Water rippled for no reason, obscuring both their
reflections. Nyx turned her head, found Pamet still
looking into the water. Her brows were raised
slightly, worriedly; her face hid nothing. She said
very softly,

180 Patricia A. McKillip

"They have been trying, as you tried. All we can
do is wait for Draken Saphier."

"Who will return soon."

"Soon."

Nyx sat that evening after supper, gazing into the
white bowl of water in her chamber, watching the
black leaves turn and turn, fashioning, out of water
and air, some mysterious path of their own. Thoughts
as dark were beginning to shape their own patterns in
her mind. She barely gave them form, or language,
for in that house apparently not even memory was
private. One black leaf had Draken Saphier's name,
one Rad Ilex's, and the third the name of an unknown
mage who had entered Draken Saphier1 s house, en-
sorcelled his son, cast the blame on Rad Ilex, and
vanished—or who had been taught by Draken
Saphier, had learned far too well, and who, having
fashioned the firebird and driven Rad Ilex away, still
lived in the house, free and unsuspected. That mage
would be among those working with the firebird now,
to guard the spell. Someone close to Brand, who had
flung him out of his worid, destroyed the path back
to it, and never expected to see him again.

Until I brought him back, she thought. Along my
private path. The mage could destroy that, too, if
Chrysom's key were found.

But who? And why? And what had Brand wit-
nessed that he had been so ruthlessly reshaped, and
even human, had only the firebird's cry to speak of
it?

She reached out, turned a leaf over between

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   181

thoughts, as if it were the page of a book. Its under-
side was gold. She watched it awhile, thinking of the
silver paths, and Draken Saphier, who had a power
like Chrysom's. to fashion bridges across time. How
expansive was that power? she wondered. And why
did one of those patterns lead to Ro Holding? Or had
the bird simply gotten lost in the strands of time, flee-
ing down a path that was being consumed by sorcery?

She turned another leaf idly; it was deep blue. Blue,
gold, black... What would the third color be? Did
the colors have significance, or was it another of the
house's questions? If she did not turn it, it would be
any color she imagined ... She could find the firebird
in the house, open Chrysom's book and walk the path
to the Luxour. The bird would follow. They would
escape this house of puzzles, its bewildering courte-
sies and maddening equivocations. At least the desert
would not equivocate: earth, stone, light, did not lie.
Or did they? There were ancient magics in the Lux-
our. Brand had said, complexities even there. But
Draken Saphier could be found, to free Brand from
the firebird. Only for that, it would be worth some
subterfuge to find Brand and leave. But if she fled
with the firebird down one path, just as Draken Sa-
phier returned by another, he would be mystified and
justifiably outraged. She might put herself in danger;

no one knew her here but Brand, no one could speak
for her but a man whose memories of her might in
their eyes be hidden within the firebird's cry. She had
already taken its defense, its voice; they might won-
der what else she had done to it.

182 Patricia A McKiUip

She shifted restlessly, touched the third leaf gently
to still herself. Meguet... where in Saphier was she,
if not in Draken Saphier's court? With a mage hiding
from Draken? Where would he hide?

The Luxour. Where the magic was unpredictable,
and not even a mage could find a mage. And he knew
the desert. He had been born there. Brand said, among
the rumors of dragons....

She turned the third leaf. The door opened behind
her; she turned her head, saw Magior Ilel and a
strange mage in the doorway.
Magior said, "Brand will see you now."
She rose, then turned back silently, looked into the
bowl. Red as blood, as dragon's fire, the third leaf...
"Is it a question?" she asked.
"You chose the colors," Magior said without a
flicker of expression. "It is an answer."

They led Nyx through endless airy corridors, to-
ward chambers in an unfamiliar wing. Opening her
mind a little, she sensed an enormous power, like a
silent cataract. She barely touched it, a hand-brush
against thundering, pounding water.

"Is this where the mages are trained?" she asked,
and Magior cast a startled glance at her.
"Still your mind," she instructed.
"It has been suggested before," Nyx said tran-
quilly after a moment. "To no one's satisfaction."

"I do not mean to offend," Magior said stiffly.
"You are a stranger in Draken Saphier's house. Your
own powers are unknown to us."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   183

Nyx glanced at the shadow beside her, flung for-
ward by the angle of light, of the nameless mage who
walked noiselessly behind her. He wore the emblem
of Saphier across his chest; he would know, she
guessed, the deadly movements of the dance. She
swallowed a sharp comment, concentrating on her
surroundings. They had moved into a corridor of rich
dark wood, carved with ancient scenes, she guessed,
of Saphier*s history. A great bronze dragon clung to
double doors at the end of the corridor. Warrior-
mages guarded the doors. At a sign from Magior, they
split the dragon in two, and through the open doors
Nyx saw Brand.

The room was full of dragons, carved in wood, in
red stone, in amber, painted, embroidered on tapestry,
limned in ink on the margins and frontispieces of old
books on stands and shelves. The chair Brand sat in
had dragons* faces lifting out of (he arms, and drag-
ons* claws for feet.

"You wished to see me," he said to Nyx. The po-
liteness in his voice chilled her until she saw that his
face was as rigid as his courtesy. The firebird's cry
of ftiry and despair, she guessed, was so close to the
surface of his thoughts that it took all his patience to
keep it from cutting to the heart of language. He
glanced at the warrior-mage, and then at Magior, be-
fore Nyx could answer. "Why is Han here?"

"Only a precaution—" Magior began. Brand rose
abruptly, his mouth tightening.

"No one set such guards on me in Ro Holding."

184 Patricia A. McKfllip

"My lord, you were a bird. Nyx Ro is an unknown
quantity."

"I know her. Dismiss him."

Expression rippled across Magior1 s face, a min-
gling of worry and doubt. The warrior-mage inclined
his head, disappeared into thin air.

Nyx said carefully, "I haven't seen you since we
came here. I wondered how you were, if returning
home had altered the spell at all."

"No," Brand said tersely. He paced among the
dragons, touching an eye here, a claw there.

"It is a spell," Magior said fulsomely, "of unusual
complexity and power."

"My father will help me," Brand said. "There's
no more powerful mage in Saphier."

"Where is he?" Nyx asked baldly, expecting a
straight answer at least from him; his reply overrode
Magior1 s equivocation.

"He is expected back very soon."

"Dragon-hunting," Brand said, "in the Luxour."
He stopped pacing, to gaze at a jet-black dragon
painted on what looked like some kind of leather
shield. The dragon's eyes were tiny, malevolent, red
as garnet. "So I was told. He is drawn there some-
times, to search, he says, for his heart. Or he may be
looking for Rad Ilex."

"You expected Rad Ilex to be here."

"I thought he might be."

"Rad Hex has not been seen in this court since you
vanished," Magior said. "He would have been killed,
that night, had he lingered a moment longer. So your

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   185

father said. Only one moment."

Nyx opened her mouth, closed it, swallowing a
smoldering cinder of impatience. Brand said abruptly
to her, "Then why are you still here? I thought you
would have gone."

"I was asked to stay," Nyx said calmly, "to speak
to Draken Saphier. It seemed a reasonable request.
Everyone, it seems, expects him soon."

Brand's brows pulled together hard. He was silent
a moment, his eyes on her, as if he had heard, even
beneath the turmoil and frustration of the firebird's
cry, the equivocation in her voice. He said finally,
"The Luxour is full of voices. So the mages say. The
desert speaks. The stones and the silence speak. So
they say. I doubt if I would hear much. But that
makes it difficult for the mages to call my father
home. And finding him, if he does not wish to be
found, would be impossible. So I .am told. It's hard
for me to wait patiently. The most I can manage at
moonrise is just to wait. It would be kind of you to
wait with me, at least while I'm human. The mages
have tried to work with me; they get no farther than
you did. I don't think anyone can help me but my
father, and I have very, very little patience left for
mage-work. So. Keep me company- Walk with me,
in the gardens."

"I think," Magior murmured, "we should keep
working. Such enchantments might be unravelled
quite unexpectedly."

"Perhaps the moonlight will unravel it," Brand
said, "since no mage in this house can." His face

186 Patricia A. McKiUip

was strained, taut; Nyx heard the noiseless cry ema-
nating from him so strongly, she wondered that the
dragons around them did not turn into spellbound
jewels. His great-aunt heard it too, apparently; she
bowed her head in acquiescence.

"Perhaps you are right," she said. "I will wait for
you here."

He did not speak for a while; he took Nyx's arm,
his grip tight, as if he expected the moon to toy with
her shape, too. They left the house, walked on wide
paths of white stone that wandered among the rose-
trees. Nyx, unused to such formal progression through
a garden, found it bewildering, for a mage and a man
about to fly away. She laid her free hand on his hand,
reminding him that she was there, and said,

"I think—"

"Not here," he breathed, and she was silent again
until they passed through the courtyard of roses into
a tiny walled garden full of lemon trees, soft paths of
moss between fountains and moon-bright streams. He
closed the gate behind them; his grip eased finally.

"It is my father's meditation garden." he said
softly. "No one else comes here."

"There is little hope of privacy in a house full of
mages," she pointed out.

"Perhaps. But I'm used to being private with you.
No one told me you were still here. I thought you
would have gone to look for Meguet."

"All they knew of me is that I brought you here.
They couldn't have assumed you cared. Did you ask
after me?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   187

'No.'

"Then why are we here, whispering?"

"Because," he said restively, "your face looks
changed. Wary. It wasn't only you studying me, in
that tower. I had nothing else to watch but you. You
do what you want, say what you think; you listen to
reason, but not without arguing. Here, you pick your
way from thought to thought as if you are afraid. No.
Not afraid. But in danger. In my father's house.
Why?"

"I'm alone in a strange land, surrounded by mages
of indeterminate power, and more warriors than I've
seen in all of Ro Holding. It seems expedient for me
to be somewhat wary. If you have one enemy, you
might have two, and one of them under this roof."

He stared at her, amazed. "Me?"

"You said yourself you can't remember why Rad
Hex turned you into a firebird. Conceivably to guard
himself against something you saw, something you
know."

"A conspiracy? In my father's house?"

She sighed noiselessly. "I can only guess. You tell
me. You brought me here. And I can't imagine even
this place being completely private. Those goldfish
are probably trained to eat whatever words fall like
crumbs on the water."

"No one speaks in here," he said absently. His
brows were drawn again; he glanced at the moon,
then down at a little fish like an orange flame rising
to the surface of the water. "The guard changes at
midnight. I listen for that." His fists clenched. "I

188 Patricia A McKillip

can't remember," he said tightly, "how it feels to
stand in sunlight. To fall asleep in a bed. To know
where I was at noon yesterday. If my father does not
come soon, I'll go to the Luxour myself and find
him."

"Would the bird fly there?" Nyx asked curiously.
He looked at her, his eyes shadowed, haunted.

"It flew to you," he said slowly. "And here it sits
in this house with you, waiting, though I assume that
if it could find you in Ro Holding, it could find my
father in the Luxour."

"Why Ro Holding? If your father made the paths
on your wrists, why would he have fashioned one to
Ro Holding?"

He shook his head, disinterested. "I don't know.
He didn't create the patterns out of time and space.
He only forged the paths, and I don't think even he
knows where they all go. I think the firebird found
Ro Holding by chance, though your power drew it,
once it came there. Why? Is it important?"

"Perhaps," she said evenly, thinking of the flash-
ing blades of the ritual dance, the silver paths blazing
on every wrist. Brand was silent, watching the occa-
sional moonlit glint of color in the dark water.

He said very softly, "You could take me to the
Luxour. The bird would follow you."

"If your father doesn't return soon?"

"Now."

She looked at him, startled. "Why not Magior, or
one of the other mages?"

"The bird follows you." He paused; his face loos-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   189

ened slightly. "I follow you. I'm here with you in my
father's garden, where no one else is permitted. I trust
you."

"You might," she said slowly, "but there's little
reason for anyone else to. trust a mage who absconds
with you into the desert. If you vanish twice, they
will be heart-struck. They are doing their best for
you."

"And their best is no better than what you did for
me in that tower." His voice sounded dangerously
thin. "If I have to spend one more day covered with
feathers and eating mice, and wake to myself again
without seeing my father, I will walk out of this house
and keep walking south, and no one will know where
I am. You yourself want to go to the Luxour, Rad
Ilex will be hiding there. It's the only place in Saphier
where he can hide from my father. And it's the place
to look for Meguet."

"Let me go," she pleaded. "By myself. That way
you'll be here, if your father is on his way back now.
If not, I can look for him, and for Meguet."

"No." His hands closed suddenly on her arms; she
felt the tension in his grip. "No. I will not wait here.
I'll walk out now. I know my father's private passage
from this garden out of the house. You can stay here
and explain to Magior where I've gone."

"Brand—"

"Now. Before midnight. I'm not a mage. If I tell
Magior, and she thinks I'm unwise, she'll keep me
here. She'll find ways. I can't stop her. 1 am unwise,
but if I don't see my father soon, if this spell stays

190 Patricia A. McKillip

on me much longer, I will find a new voice for the
firebird, and it will cry day and night without ceasing
and no one in this house, not even you, will stop it."

"All right." She touched him gently, swallowing
drily. "All right. I'll take you there. Now. And I
won't walk. I think I have a path to the Luxour."

"Where?" he asked, amazed.

"In my pocket." She drew out the ivory ball.
"Chrysom's book."

- Twelve-

Meguet waited a night and a day and a night for Rad
Ilex. After staring down the moon and then the stars,
listening for night-hunters, she finally fell asleep as
the sky lightened, showing her broken airy palaces
that would turn to stone at sunrise. She woke to light
pounding down at her, ground shimmering with heat.
She caught up the skins and pouch, and bumed her
feet running to shelter among the nearest stones.
There she sat, shifting as the shadow shifted, her
thoughts as formless and furious as the maddening
heat. When night fell, she found a slab of rock to
crawl onto, away, she hoped, from whatever small
ferocious things might consider her supper. The first
tiny lizard that slipped out of a crevice and ran over
her nearly sent her tumbling to the ground. After that,
she shared the stone with them, shaking them away
with little more attention than she would give a fly.
The inactivity was as maddening as the heat. If Rad
Ilex did not bother coming for her, she assumed
Draken Saphier would let the desert have her, a ghost
to haunt the dream-castles. Dying alone in the middle

192 Patricia A. McKiUip

of a desert in a strange land seemed preposterous. But
if Draken Saphier told the truth, and she had helped
the wrong mage, he had little reason to care what
happened to her.

He might not even bother telling her if he caught
Rad; he might just leave her anyway. That thought
kept her awake the second night, listening for voices,
for mage-work. In the darkest hour before dawn,
when even the winds drifted gently, spent, she heard
a pebble on the ground below her shift.

She tensed, thinking of the small, toothed animals.
A lizard skittered across her hand. She flung it away,
gasping. The lizard said as it fell,

"Meguet."

She peered over the edge of stone, saw nothing.
She had to wait for it to work its way up the rock
again, and then, in deep shadow, it changed. Rad
whispered,

"I know Draken is here. I want you to run from
me. Now."

She was silent, trying to pick out his face in the
dark; it might as well have been the peeked and
weathered stone speaking. "Are you trying to kill
me?"

"What?"

"You want me eaten by the night-hunters."

"What night-hunters?"

"The ones who can feet your running steps."

"What are you talking about?" His voice, cobweb
thin, took on slightly more substance. "There's noth-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   193

ing but lizards in this part of the desert. And you've
been sleeping with them."

She was silent, her mouth tight, controlling a flash
of temper as black as the sky. She said between her
teeth, "Draken Saphier says they exist. You say they
don't. He told me not to move among them. You tell
me to run."

"Then believe him." There was no anger in his
voice, almost no sound but a taut urgency trembling
between them. "Yes, there are terrible night-hunters.
Yes, I want to kill you. So run from me, Meguet,
quickly, because they will show you more mercy than
I will. Run. Now. Run."

She hesitated a moment, still trying to see his face.
Then she slid off the ledge and ran across the cool,
hard ground, blind until a light exploded behind her
like the fallen star suddenly showering its pale fire
across the sleeping desert. She tripped on a stone,
came down hard, and heard, above her panting, Rad
Ilex's sudden, twisted cry. She caught her own cry
behind her hand, feeling tears sting her eyes. There
was another flash. She pushed her face against her
arms, fett the ground shake a little, as if, deep beneath
it, the dragons stirred, disturbed.

The night was still again. She heard a step. And
then Draken Saphier's voice: "You're safe, now. I
have him."

She rose, trembling; she sensed only one shadowy
presence in the dark. "Where? Did you kill him?"

"No. I need him alive to take the spell from my
son."

194 Patricia A MoKildp

She brushed hair and dirt out of her face, tried to
speak with dignity, though her voice shook. "Will
you give me back my shoes now? I'll walk home."

He was silent. A thin, white light snapped through
the air, hit the ground near her foot. She glimpsed
something small, many-legged, trying to bite the
blade of light impaling it. She froze, speechless, and
then felt the black anger again, as if she were truly
blind, and teased and teased by voices, light touches,
questions without answers, without end: Who am I,
Meguet? Who am f now? And now?

"Please." Her voice trembled badly. "Give me my
shoes and let me go."

"Come." He took her arm. "You want to go north;

I'll take you. You're barely fit to walk, and I owe you
something for helping me, though until you ran from
Rad, I was not certain you believed me." She opened
her mouth, closed it, speechless again. "Come to my
court." His grip was not tight, but she suspected he
would not let her go. "Wherever you are going, my
palace must be closer to it than the Luxour."

She answered finally, wearily, using herself again
as bait to lure truth, for her own hidden face only
called forth other shifting faces. "It's where I am go-
ing. The court of Draken Saphier."

His voice sharpened. "You were walking to my
house across the desert?"

"I'm a stranger in your land. My name is Meguet
Vervaine. Rad Ilex pulled me out of the house of the
Holders ofRo Holding, into the middle of the Luxour.
He took me to his village from there- He was hurt;

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD    !95

he hadn't the strength to take me back to Ro Holding.
I recognized you because your son is in Ro Holding,
in the care of my cousin, Nyx Ro, who is a very
capable mage." He was absolutely motionless; she
spoke to nothing, to the night. "Rad had told me cer-
tain things that made me wary of you. And you tell
me things that make me wary of Rad. Whatever is
between you is far too complicated for me to sort out.
Perhaps Brand himself, when he is no longer impris-
oned by the firebird, can make things clear."

"Ro Holding."

"Saphier is on none of our maps."

"I have heard of Ro Holding."

She was silent, aware of words scattered to a stran-
ger's winds, like birds flying out of her mouth that
could never be caught. She felt ancient, uneasy stir-
rings. not from the Luxour, but within her, a faint
flurry of voices through the ages: Meguet, what are
you. are you doing, are you doing? I am blind, she
told them fiercely, desperately. / am trying to see.

The night shifted, as if it, too, had caught an echo
of her past. She said quickly, "Then you will know
where to go to get your son. If not how."

"Yes." She saw, finally, in the slow ebb of dark,
a line or two of his face. ' 'The mage Chrysom was
bom in Ro Holding. It seemed he liked to travel. He
left his name in the air of Saphier's past." She felt
his hand again, lighter now; his voice was imperative,
impatient of distances. "Come."

Stars blossomed from the dark, shot in streaks of
silver past them and back again, winding, weaving,

196 Patricia A McKiflip

circling, until it seemed they stood in a web of silver
that was at once rushing away from them and frozen
still. Draken spoke; the paths blurred together, silver
into dark, except for one. He led her onto it.

They were met, in a great, orderly hall, by a tur-
moil. Meguet, blinking at noise made by dozens of
people, brightly dressed at that hour of the morning,
at the bronze lamps and mage-lights burning every-
where, realized she had walked barefoot into the
house of Draken Saphier. Her hair was loose, tangled,
her clothes sweat-stained and dusty, her hands
scratched. Draken, seen for once in light, was frown-
ing at the chaos. Something seemed to drag at him;

there were taut, weary lines beside his mouth, be-
tween his brows. Rad, she guessed, weighed heavily,
wherever he was.

Draken said nothing. He picked up a mage-light
from a ledge, held it aloft. Red, smoky, sinuous lines
of light whirled out of it, took shape in the air above
the crowd. A dragon floated above them, wings
spread, neck arched, glaring down at the gathering. It
hissed suddenly; the air chilled; lamps flickered.
Draken tossed the mage-light; it hung in midair, il-
lumining silent, upturned faces. The dragon reached
for the star, held it between its claws, stared into it.

"It is a question," Draken said obscurely to the
soundless crowd. "Contemplate it." Then he added,
"Magior."

A tall, graceful woman with a still, seamed face
came to him. She bowed her head. "My lord."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   197

"What is this unseemly behavior from my house-
hold, my mages?"

"My lord—" She touched her eyes wearily.
"Your son has disappeared."

"Magior—" His voice caught. Meguet wondered
blankly if the silvery path had led them backward in
time instead of forward. "What—"

"I mean, my lord, again. He has been here for three
days."

"Here!" He looked stunned, and then suddenly
harried, his attention drawn to his restive prisoner. He
asked incredulously when he was able to speak again,
"Is the spell broken?"

"No, my lord. He was brought here by a mage
from some peculiar country where mages, apparently,
are neither trained nor disciplined- We worked with
the spell, and at her insistence finally permitted Brand
to speak to her. They were last seen entering your
meditation garden. Before midnight, last night. Nei-
ther has been seen since. We have searched ruthlessly,
my lord. They are gone."

' 'Where?'' Draken whispered. Nyx, Meguet
thought. The name turned her cold as stone, as if it
were a spell. Nyx in Saphier.

"I believe she intended no harm," Magior was say-
ing. "Brand insisted that no one could help him but
you. She apparently has some knowledge of the time-
paths within Saphier, which is perplexing because she
had never even heard of Saphier before the firebird
flew into Ro Holding—"

"The Luxour," Draken said, his face taut, dark

198 Patncia A. McKillip

with care. Then he stopped breathing, stopped think-
ing, it seemed. It was something Meguet had seen
Nyx do: grow so still she might have been painted on
the air. "And that," he said very softly, evenly, as if
he were recounting the ending of a tale, "is why Rad
Ilex went to Ro Holding."

"Following the firebird, my lord?" Magior asked.
His eyes went back to her.

' *No doubt. For whatever his purposes. But
Brand—was he well? What did he say? Does he re-
member anything? How could he speak at all?"

"Before he encountered Nyx Ro, he said that he
could not even remember his name, where he was
bom, or when. The spell permits him to speak only
at moonrise, until midnight."

"Strange," he breathed. "And this mage helped
him remember?"

"Enough so that she was able to bring him here.
But he still does not remember the exact circum-
stances of the spell, and he still changes; he is a bird,
my lord, except for those scant hours." She shook
her head. "It is an impossible piece of mage-work.
We did our best with it- He was becoming extremely
impatient, waiting for you. I'm sure that's where they
have gone: to search the Luxour for you."

"Yes." The lines were deepening on his face
again: He still wore the dust of the Luxour, he had
an unruly mage in his pocket, it seemed, and now a
firebird to find among the dragons. He looked at Me-
guet. "Your cousin, Nyx Ro—is it likely she would
have been so impulsive?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   199

"Oh, yes," Meguet sighed. "But only to help
Brand. She would never harm him. I watched her
working with that spell in Chrysom's tower. She may
not be disciplined—she trained herself—but she is
fascinated by what she can't do, what she doesn't
know. If Brand told her anything at all about the Lux-
our, she would have felt compelled by more than the
firebird to go there."

"I see," he said, unsurprised, and Meguet realized
what she herself had conjured in his mind; a kindred
spirit.

She added, "Nyx must have come also to look for
me. I vanished with Rad Ilex; Brand would have told
her to look for him in Saphier."

"My lord?" Magior said abruptly, startled, staring
at Meguet. "Is this another mage from Ro Holding?"

"She says she is not a mage," Draken said, though
his eyes held Meguet's a moment before he answered,
and there was the faintest thread of curiosity in his
voice. "What we have here is the mage's cousin, Me-
guet Vervaine. I found her wandering across the Lux-
our: She had been pulled into Saphier by Rad Hex."

Magior's brows rose. "How terrible," she said
blankly. "But, my lord, why?"

"It's complex," Meguet answered, trying to keep
a straight course, in this land of tangled paths and
shifting landscapes, toward essentials. "What I need
to do above all is to find Nyx and go home. She is
heir to Ro Holding, and the Holder will not sleep until
she returns."

"And we have kept her three days," Magior

200 Patricia A McKtIlip

said worriedly. "And now she is in the Luxour. My
lord—"

"1*11 find her," Draken said. "Even in the Luxour,
I can find my own son." He paused, thinking with an
effort; he closed his eyes briefly, concentrating on a
spell, or measuring his own weariness. He had been
awake at night, listening for Rad's footfall, as well as
Meguet.

She said, "I will come."

"There's no need."

"I need to come."

He shook his head. "You'll slow me," he said in-
arguably- "You have no conception of the difficulties
of the Luxour. Even mages can rarely find one an-
other. The great stones seem to deflect power, or at-
tract it, draw it in. The land changes spells as it
changes its face."

"You found Rad Ilex." she reminded him, and felt
concentration crumbling all over the silent hall. He
said, lifting a hand to catch the mage-light as it fell
from the dragon's claws,

"I fought the Luxour for him and won. With your
help."

"My lord—" Magior whispered.

"Yes," he said tautly. "I have brought Rad Ilex
with me. And now I must go back and find Brand.
Magior, see that Meguet Vervaine is treated with ut-
most courtesy."

"But what will you do with Rad Ilex?" she
breathed. "What will contain him while you are
gone?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   201

"Where is he?" Meguet asked, expecting no an-
swer, but the entire halt waited, without a sound, for
his response.

"I trapped him," Draken said, "in a time-path I
made. I tricked him into running down it, and then
closed the path upon itself. It has no beginning and
no end. I can hold him there, while I am away," he
added to Magior. "It will be draining, but not im-
possible."

"My lord, take the mages to help you—at least a
few!"

"No. We'll only confuse one another. I need to
find Brand and Nyx Ro quickly." He handed Magior
the mage-light; she stood gazing at him, an old
woman with a star between her hands. "Keep the
house orderly, and do not trouble Meguet Vervaine
with details. Show her the gardens. Let her rest. Ask
her no questions beyond what is customary to reveal
the status of a stranger in the house. Do you under-
stand me?"

"Yes, my lord."

"I will answer everything else when I return."

He vanished; so did the dragon above their heads.
Meguet, sagging suddenly on her feet, was grateful
for Magior's firm hold, as well as her silence, as she
led Meguet through a thicket of curious gazes. Ex-
hausted as she was, she saw the silver enclosing every
wrist; everyone, it seemed, was imprisoned in the del-
icate weaves of time, on its never-ending paths. She
made nothing more of it then, barely aware of wash-
ing, eating, in a chamber so full of light it seemed

202 Patricia A. McKtHip

made entirely of gold- The light hardened into the
golden face of the Luxour just before she fell asleep.

She woke hours later at dusk, to a vision of silver.
She almost cried out, but she had no strength even
for that. The tangle of silver floated, glowing, in mid-
air, its lines blurred in the soft shadows. Rad Ilex,
standing in the midst of endless layers of paths, put
his finger to his lips. Half his face was masked in
blood, the other half gilded with the dust of the Lux-
our.

He whispered, "Meguet." His voice seemed to
come from unexpected, ghostly places. She swal-
lowed, felt the blood beating through her. "Where is
he? Where did he go?"

"To find Brand," she answered finally. "And Nyx.
They went looking for him."

"Nyx."

"She came here."

"To Saphier?" He moved slowly, as if caught in
hard, rushing currents. He changed, she saw with hor-
rified fascination, in unpredictable ways: He grew
smaller, he lost perspective, a limb would disappear
around an invisible comer, reappear. "Where is he?"
he repeated.

"In the desert."

He said, "Ah," very slowly; the sound died on an
ebbing wave. "The desert distracted him."

"What?"

* 'He has lost hold of me a little. So I came looking
for you. I need help."

"I won't argue that," she whispered, still amazed.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   203

"But why me? I'm no mage. And the last I saw of
you, you tried to kill me."

"I was trying to save you. If you hadn't run,
Draken would have attacked us both—"

"You lied to me. You said there was nothing more
dangerous than lizards in the night."

"I didn't lie."

"Draken killed something. With teeth. Beside my
bare foot."

She heard him sigh. "Meguet. Would you rather
be in here with me? I would have said anything to
make you run. Besides, I didn't lie. Draken lied. He
made that thing, then killed it. I know how his mind
works. Can you get your own mind off small details
for the moment?"

She put her hands to her eyes, still saw him floating
in the dark behind her eyelids. * 'I was awake for two
nights, terrified of those small details. Of such details
are great lies formed. What do you want from me?
Draken will bring Nyx back with him, and she and I
will leave. If there is a threat to Ro Holding, we will
face it there."

"Of course there's a threat. You've been in this
house. Armed mages wear the paths of time on their
wrists, and one of those paths, as the firebird has
shown, leads to Ro Holding."

Her hands slid down slowly to her mouth. The
blood drained out of her face; the room darkened a
little, a shadow forming against the dusk: the dragon,
hunting. "But why?" she whispered.

"Saphier breeds warriors. War is our history, our

204 Patricia A McKiUip

heritage. You saw Brand fight me. The movements of
his attack are as old as Saphier. Draken is a double-
edged sword: the warrior-mage. His eye turned to Ro
Holding when he found Chrysom's writings here. I
showed—" He stopped abruptly; she heard his voice
shake. "I showed him the path to Ro Holding."

"You what?"

"Inadvertently. He discovered from Brand that I
used to visit Chrysom. That I was searching for that
key. That the key held in it paths of time beyond
Draken's knowledge. He wants conquest, even
through time, and he wants the dragons' power to
make himself invincible."

"He wouldn't need much," she said numbly, "in
Ro Holding."

"He wants that key. Does Nyx have it here in Sa-
phier?"

"I have no idea."

"If she does, and Draken realizes that, she is in
terrible danger."

"That key." She felt again the sudden, blind anger
at the confusion, tangled as the winds on the Luxour
blowing from every direction, into which he inevita-
bly led her. "Always that key. Draken never men-
tioned it. You want it. You told me that I would be
in terrible danger from Draken. That he would sense
my odd powers and take my bones apart to analyze
them. All he did in the desert was take away my
shoes. All he's done to me here is give me a bed to
sleep on instead of a stone."

"He's like that. He'll bide his time. And then he'll

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   205

attack. Meguet," he said urgently, at her silence.
"You must help me. You can help me escape this.
There's not a mage in this house who would dare
raise a finger against Draken Saphier. But you would
never attract his attention. You must help me, set me
free to help Nyx."

"Help her!" Her voice nearly rose above a whis-
per, "All you and Nyx do is fight. I won't free you
to go and steal that key and leave her wandering alone
in a desert—"

"She knows the path to Ro Holding. She got her-
self here."

"I don't know how she got here. You tell me this,
you tell me that—and then you tell me that I know
what you have told me!"

' 'You know the firebird. *' He was breathing
quickly, the time-paths blurring around him. "Its face
is the true face of Saphier, and its. cry the only truth.
Meguet." His face darkened; he seemed to flatten, an
upright shadow. "Think. Help me. I'll come back
when I can. If I can." The paths vanished, swallowed
in Saphier's night. Only his voice lingered, urgent,
imperative, to become her own voice as his faded.
"Choose."

- Thirteen-

Nyx stood with the firebird in the Luxour.

The firebird had perched above Nyx's shoulder on
a ledge of rock. It watched a splash of milky silver
spilling into the sky above the distant mountains. Its
beak opened; a sapphire dropped. It cried jewels now
and then instead of fire: a single blood-red gamet, an
emerald. It left, to Nyx's bemused eye. a gleaming
trail across the desert, as if it marked a path for
Draken Saphier to follow.

She sensed power everywhere, as if the entire de-
sert were under a spell, and its winds and piles of
stone and vast stretches of nothing might change, at
moonrise, into something completely different. It
seemed always on the verge of changing. Stones
shifted beyond eyesight; shadows tumbled across the
ground, wind-blown, attached to nothing. Not even
the ground felt solid; it seemed pocketed with echoing
chambers, where things stirred, breathed, dreamed.
Odd smells streaked the winds: sulphur, damp earth,
even water, or some ancient memory of water. In the
light of the rising moon the great piles of stone here

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   207

and there took shape: They were dragon-bones and
palaces; they reared, spread their wings; doors
opened, windows filled with light.

The firebird cried a blue topaz. The moon slid free
of the dark, jagged line of mountains. Nyx, watching,
saw the bird seized, pulled almost into something else
at the moment of transformation. Its eye narrowed,
became slitted; its feathers froze into hard, smooth
scales. And then Brand slid down off the rocks to her
side, unsurprised, by now, at where he found himself
under any risen moon.

"Did you feel that?" Nyx asked, amazed at the
random, mindless power that had stopped for a mo-
ment to toy with a spell no one else could even grasp.

"Feel what?" Brand asked. He scanned the dark,
looking for mage-fires, for his father to step out from
behind a rock.

"Something emerged between the firebird and you.
Only for a moment."

He looked startled, torn between hope and alarm.
"What?"

' 'Almost like a—'' She paused, trying to remember
what it was almost like: the tapering head, the hard,
tight skin. The word caught. "Dragon."

He was silent, staring at her. Then he turned, im-
patient, frustrated. * 'Where is my father? I hoped the
firebird would find him, fly to him the way it flew to
you."

' 'I doubt if even the firebird—whatever powers it
has that you don't—could isolate one mage in this
windstorm of power."

205 Patricia A McKiUip

He shook his head a little, still searching. ' 'I just
see desert." he murmured. "Rocks. The wind feels
like wind. It smells like dragons' breath. That must
be the hot springs." He looked at her. "Now what?
Do we just walk?"

"I'm thinking," she said absently, wondering if the
whole of the Luxour were on the verge of turning
itself into a dragon. In the next moment, it would
become; but this moment, in terms of its own time,
had begun before Ro Holding had a name, and might
last until its name was forgotten. "No wonder Chry-
som came here.... He must have loved this place."
She drew the ivory ball out of her pocket, opened
Chrysom's book. Many of its paths, she found, began
and ended in the Luxour; it seemed riddled with se-
crets. "Yes," she said finally, choosing one- "We
just walk."

The path brought them to the springs. The water
churned and steamed in the dark; mud bubbled and
snorted. Wind dragged steam over them, blew it away
as quickly when they began to cough. Beneath the
noise of water and the exuberant wind, Nyx was
aware of something deep and constant, a heartbeat
within the earth, so low she felt rather than heard it.
She touched Brand.

"Do you feel that?"

"What?" he asked, wary again. "Am I chang-
ing?"

"No. It's like a heartbeat."

He listened. "No." He roamed, peering into moon-
lit crevices, studying pale crystals that crusted the

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   209

edges of the pools. He came back to her. "Nyx," he
pleaded, and she heard the urgency in his voice. Time,
for him, would not slow even in the Luxour.

"Yes," she said, but the wind brought her a breath
of winter out of nowhere, and, wondering, she fol-
lowed the chill.

Brand heard the heartbeat then; it came out of a
hole in the night, a place so cold it was rimed with
ice. For a moment, he forgot the firebird. "Is it a
dragon?" he whispered, as if in his excitement he
might wake it.

"I don't know."

"What else could turn desert into ice?"

"1 thought they breathed fire.... I wonder ifChry-
som mentions it." She opened the book again; pages
riffled quickly, stopping to show her what was on her
mind: The Ice-Dragon... It exists, Chrysom had
written, in a time accessible but not recommended. It
is very cold, and the dragon, roused, is fearsome, a
monster with night-black scales and white eyes. It will
follow the time-path if you do not close it behind you.

"What does he say?" Brand asked.

"He saw the dragon." The book misted away in
her mind. "He made a time-path to it. I wonder if all
his paths through the Luxour lead to dragons...."

"If you free a dragon, that would get my father's
attention."

"And what will I do with the dragon?"

"My father could deal with it. He always wanted
to see a dragon."

"Your father might well be annoyed if I set a

210 Patricia A McKiUip

dragon loose into Sapnier. Chrysom left them alone."

"It's not like you to be so cautious," Brand com-
mented.

"It's not like you to be so impulsive."

She saw him smile unexpectedly in the moonlight;

the Luxour was working its odd magic on him. ' 'My
grandfather was a dragon," he reminded her. "So
they say. My father says the heart of power—"

"—is a dragon's heart."

"So perhaps we should look for my grandfather.
See if he's in the mage's book. A dragon who could
take the shape of a man. My grandmother didn't find
him fearsome. If you find that dragon, my father
would be in your debt. He always wanted to know
his father."

She was silent, thinking of the smell of winter and
the timeless dark of the ice-dragon's cave. Could it
do such things beyond its own world? she wondered.
Breathe a perpetual winter over a land, imprison it in
ice? A monster, Chrysom had written. What might the
other dragons do if they were loosed? She drew an
uneasy breath, beginning to understand what she had
dropped into her pocket, and carried so carelessly into
a land ruled by a dragon's son who could forge the
time-paths but not the patterns. To find dragons, he
would need the patterns she had found-...

But it was Rad Ilex searching for the key, not
Draken Saphier.

"Nyx?" Brand's voice pleaded again, this time for
dragons.

"All right," she said slowly. "I'll see if Chrysom

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   211

wrote of a dragon he didn't find fearsome."

She found several, after perusing the book for so
long that Brand had vanished by the time she finished.
She looked around, startled, for the firebird, and found
Brand finally, standing inside the ice-cave, shivering,
listening to the heart of power.

The path she chose ended in one of the massive
tumbles of stone. The winds smelled hot and dry
there, as if they were about to burst into flame. She
felt no heartbeat, but an odd shifting underfoot as if
the earth were falling away like sand in an hourglass.
The stones trembled a little. Nyx looked up, gripping
Brand, in case she had to open a door into thin air
and leave before a boulder flattened them. The bulky
jumble resolved, as her eye travelled upward, into
high, airy walls, half-broken turrets, moonlit win-
dows.

"It's a palace," she breathed.

"It's just stones," Brand said. His voice was tense
again; the moon was continuing its inexorable climb
toward midnight. "What does Chrysom say about this
dragon?"

"It is red as flame and breathes flame. However,
when it understood him to be harmless, it ceased its
baleful attack and permitted him to come close. Its
eye, Chrysom said, seemed a portal through which he
might walk."

"What does that mean?"

"It's enormous."

"What else? Did it speak?"

"It lies within a ring of fire."

212 Patricia A McKillip

"Did it speak?"

"The point is: You can't survive attack by fire."

"Chrysom did."

"Chrysom was a mage."

"Did it speak?" he asked again, patiently, and-she
sighed,

' 'It made, Chrysom said, overtures of interest in a
language he found fascinating but obscure."

"Meaning what?"

"I'm not sure."

"It could be my grandfather,*' Brand said hope-
fully. "If it saw one human, it would have known
what my grandmother was, when it saw her centuries
later."

"How did she find it?" Nyx asked, puzzled. "Or
did it find her? Did it walk its own path of time into
Saphier out of some peculiar longing for a human heir
to its powers?"

"No one knows," Brand said. "She was a warrior-
mage, like my father, very powerful, though she did
not train mages. She must have come looking for
dragons; the dragon may have let her find it. But I
wonder why."

"Perhaps, like Chrysom, it was very powerful and
very curious. Perhaps it liked to travel. It had seen
humans before, and it approached your grandmother
in that shape so not to frighten her." She shook her
head. "It doesn't sound like this dragon. This one
likes sleeping in the hearth fire; it doesn't travel."

"More dragons than my grandmother's must have
travelled," Brand pointed out. "Legends of dragons

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   213

have come out of the Luxour for centuries. You saw
my father's dragon-room. Some of the things are very
old."

"How many dragons would it take to produce a
legend?''

He hesitated. "None," he admitted. "Some say the
only dragon ever seen was by a mage having a bad
dream on the Luxour. But they're here," he said
softly, fiercely. "Even I can feel them. Chrysom saw
them."

"Yes."

"Then find another. One I can see with you. It may
recognize my grandmother in me. She had long black
hair and blue eyes." His hand closed lightly on her
arm. "Please. I'm in no shape to worry about risks."

She opened the book again.

The next path ended under the earth. They stood in
a starless black, surrounded by thunder. Nyx, casting
a mage-light so Brand could see, found water every-
where, dark rivers and cataracts tearing at the reflec-
tion of her light. The mage-light hollowed a vast
cavern around them; its walls and ceiling receded into
shadows. Brand, his face teared with water from a
misty, roaring waterfall, asked incredulously,

"Are we still in the desert?"

"Chrysom says so." She looked around, her hair
shining with jewels of water. "How strange ... It's
as if the dragons create their own small worlds within
the Luxour."

Drawn to the plunging water, he missed a step in

214 Patricia A McKillip

the shadows; she heard him splash. "What does he
say about this one?''

She consulted the book again. "This dragon is
white as bone, with eyes like blue water. It recognized
the human form. It is a shape-changer, an imitator,
capable of taking any form—" Brand opened his
mouth; she held up her hand. "It is quite old and
transforms slowly, with much effort now. It breathes
a kind of incandescence that shrouds it as it sleeps.
The mist itself is a form of power. It seems to be a
subtle labyrinth, a time-trap in which the unwary
might easily become lost, if the dragon does not wish
to be disturbed. Apparently Chrysom chanced on it at
the right time."

"Does it speak?"

"It has, Chrysom says, the power of communica-
tion."

"Then let's communicate with it," Brand said
tersely. Nyx looked past the book in her hand, at his
set, tense face. "It may know my grandfather, at
least."

"Well," she said after a moment, "I suppose it's
pointless to be cautious now."

"It also takes up time."

"At least, if we're both trapped, I won't have to
explain to your father what happened to you."

"Chrysom wasn't cautious," he reminded her.
"And he lived to write the book."

"True," she said, but did nothing.

"Are you afraid of dragons?" he asked. "I didn't
think you were afraid of anything."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   215

"I seem to have grown cautious," she admitted.
"There was a time when, like Chrysom, I would have
taken every path to every dragon, for no reason but
to see them in all their power. Then, I supposed I had
no one but myself to think of, and the acquisition of
knowledge of any kind seemed more important than
returning home in one piece."

"I'm not in one piece," Brand said starkly. But he
was listening; his eyes were on her face. He stood
with his arms folded, motionless, while the dark water
poured endlessly behind him.

"This is not my land," she said. "You belong to
Saphier. I've brought you this far, and I am respon-
sible for you on the Luxour. If I lose you to time,
Saphier will moum you and curse me, and if I lose
us both—"

"Ro Holding will lose its heir."

"I'm not accustomed," she said apologetically,
"to being this reasonable. But I have already lost Me-
guet somewhere in Saphier through my own willful-
ness, and I don't dare lose you. I can't go through my
life scattering people into various bog-pools of time
from which they might never return. I'm not afraid
of much. But I am a little afraid of myself. And I am
terrified of harming you."

He stood silently, still motionless, his brows drawn,
a peculiar expression in his eyes. Then he blinked,
and the expression faded. "That's odd," he said.

"What is?"

"That's all I thought I was to you: a puzzle to be
solved. And so that's all I thought you were: a mage

2/6 Patricia A. McKiUip

with a puzzle to solve. Now—" He hesitated.

"Now?"

"Now I wonder who you would be if I were not a
man lost within a spell. Instead of dreading midnight,
feeling time pass like this black water rushing away
from me, I might ask you questions. For a change."

She was silent, seeing him differently now, as if
for a moment, in that place beyond the world, his face
was no longer haunted by the firebird within. It be-
longed only to him, and she knew him and didn't
know him. She said tentatively, "What questions?"

"Anything. Why you're always walking out of
your shoes."

"I find shoes distracting when I'm trying to think."

"Or how you knew you were a mage when you
were young, and there was no one in your house to
tell you what you were."

"I had Chrysom," she said. She was motionless
herself, caught in his odd stillness, the little ivory ball
in one hand, the mage-light at her feet. Water misted
over them both, luminous in the light: the dragon's
iridescent time-trap. She watched the light move in
his eyes, the nick of cobalt beneath his dark, slanted
brows.

"Chrysom is dead."

"Chrysom brought us here."

"Did you always follow his teachings?"

"No."

"My father's mages rarely question him. But the
firebird follows you. As if you understand something
more than power." He moved; his face grew clearer,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   217

chiselled out of light and shadow, the water flecked
and gleaming along his cheekbones. "What do you
think the firebird knows?"

"That it might be safe with me."

He blinked. "Are you saying—"

"No. Just that it couldn't fly home to safety. So it
flew to me." She paused, her lips parted, remember-
ing. "An odd choice, considering."

"Why?"

"Not so long ago, I was learning sorcery in a bog.
I burned birds in my fires and read the future from
their bones."

"You did."

"I thought—a mage should know everything, no
matter what the knowledge entailed. So I tried to learn
everything."

"Did you?"

"I learned to leave the birds in the trees."

He smiled a little, his face losing its lean, feral cast,
becoming, to her entranced eye, again a stranger's
face: someone who, in his forgotten past, had learned
to laugh, who had been loved. "Except the firebird."
He moved again, step by step closing the distance
between them. Light shifted over him, caught in the
folds of cloth across his chest, traced the straight line
of his shoulders. * 'Except the firebird. Your eyes have
so much color now. What causes them to change like
that?"

"When I work a spell." She paused, scarcely hear-
ing herself, wanting to reach out, touch a star of water
at the hollow of his throat- "When I'm angry. When

218 Patricia A McKillip

I find something—something of overwhelming inter-
est."

"And which is it now?"

"Probably not anger."

He swallowed; the star moved. "Probably," he
said huskily, "you are casting a spell."

She shook her head a little. "I'm not doing it."

"You're changing shape."

"Am I?"

"You used to look like a mage."

"What does a mage look like?"

"Like a closed book full of strange and marvellous
things. Like the closed door to a room full of peculiar
noises, lights that seep out under the door. Like a
beautiful jar made of thick, colored glass that holds
something glowing inside that you can't quite see, no
matter how you turn the Jar."

"And now?" she whispered. He came close; the
light at their feet cast hollows of shadow across his
eyes, drew the precise lines of his mouth clear.

"Now." he said softly, "you aren't closed. You're
letting me see."

He slid his hand beneath her hair, around her neck.
She watched light tremble in a drop of water near the
comer of his mouth. He bent his head. The light
leaped from star to star across his face, and then van-
ished. She closed her eyes and he was gone: Her own
hand shaped air, her face lifted to a dream. She heard
his cry deep in her mind: the firebird's voice torn free.
She heard her own cry and opened her eyes. A jewel
fell at her feet.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   219

She looked at the firebird, her eyes as colorless as
bone. It spread its wings, crying noiselessly as it
swooped into the shadows, found stone rising every-
where, no way out. It circled furiously as she turned
helplessly to watch it; its wild flight slowed, spiralled
inward around her turning, and finally the light caught
it, pale and fiery, masked even to itself, trying to
change the dark, rushing water into gold. It settled at
her feet. She knelt beside it, touched its breast lightly
with her fingertips- Then she rose and opened a path
back into midnight.

Fourteen-

Meguet stood gazing at a waterfall that came out of
a solid wall and vanished into stone. The water flowed
noiselessly, ceaselessly, a thin, even wash that grad-
ually fanned so wide it broke into graceful, shining
threads before it disappeared. Mage-work, she de-
cided, trying not to yawn. She had slept poorly after
the sight of Rad Ilex in his prison; her dreams were
fleeting, but seemed full of portents, urgent warnings
that she could not quite understand. She hoped, when
Magior appeared at mid-moming, to be taken to some
peaceful place and allowed to contemplate grass. But
Magior seemed to think she needed exercise, though
she felt bruised in every bone from walking on fire,
sleeping on stone-

*'Is it real?" she asked, for Magior seemed to in-
vite comment. "May I touch it?"

"You may," Magior answered. Meguet touched
one thread of water gently. It separated instantly,
formed a double strand. She put her finger to her
mouth thoughtlessly, then flushed.

"I beg your pardon. I must have thought I was still

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   221

in the desert. I am very tired."

Magior, oblivious to suggestion, moved down the
hall. They were on some floor, in some wing of the
vast house; Meguet had no idea how far they had
gone. The long, pale corridors, the light-filled rooms,
seemed never to vary. She remembered Nyx's odd
house in the swamp, which seemed to ramble forever
in and out of memory. She asked,

"Is the house real?"

Magior looked at her, astonished. "No one has ever
asked before."

"It seems we might be walking down a single hall-
way, through a few rooms; only the things in them
change. There's a timelessness about this place. As if
it were constantly being made." She added apologet-
ically, at Magior1 s silence, "My mind is still wan-
dering in the Luxour, seeing odd things everywhere."

"Yes," Magior said vaguely- She led Meguet into
a room full of gold.

It was stunning: a priceless collection of goblets
and ums, vases, plates, sconces, baskets woven of
flattened strands of gold, tiny, ornate tables, even a
head molded out of gold, small statues of birds,
lamps, a bouquet of golden flowers. As Meguet
stared, the gold took on the hues of the Luxour: dust
and light so rich it could not possibly fall for free.
She followed Magior across the room; Magior
stopped in front of a round gold table standing on
three legs. On top of it stood a simple bowl carved
of black wood.

Meguet looked at it, aware of Magior watching her

222 Patricia A. McKillip

silently. "There must be a land," she commented fi-
nally, ' 'where wood is more important than gold. But
somehow I do not think it's Saphier. What is this?
Some kind of test?"

"In a way," Magior said calmly. "There are no
answers- Only responses. Some see the wood more
valuable than the gold. Others find its presence trou-
bling, want it removed."

"Do you always test your guests?"

"No."

' 'Then why me? Because I am a stranger from an-
other land? Is my presence troubling?"

"No," Magior said quickly. "Only the circum-
stances which brought you here."

"You mean Rad Ilex."

"I mean Brand Saphier. Rad Ilex is no longer a
question; he exists only in Draken Saphier's mind. I
know you are tired and need to rest. May I show you
one more room? And then, I promise I will take you
into the gardens." She moved without waiting for an
answer. Meguet, bewildered, followed her down an
interminable hallway, up a staircase or two, down an-
other corridor until she thought her feet would simply
stop, plant themselves in the floor, and she would
become one of the house's ambiguities, for other
guests to find troubling and wish removed.

A dragon reared in front of her; she paused mid-
step, blinking. It was attached to doors, which armed
guards opened, breaking the dragon in two. The inner
room was full of dragons. She stopped in the center,
turning slowly, for she had never imagined them in

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   223

such vivid colors, with varying expressions and
forms. They were woven on banners, tapestries,
sculpted of bronze and clay, painted on wood, on silk,
carved into chairs, screens, boxes. She tried to see
them all, tried to look everywhere at once, until her
eye was caught by one and it drew all her attention.

It was painted on a shield: a dragon black as
shadow, with wings of shadow, and blood-red eyes
of such malignity that, staring at it, she felt her heart-
beat. Behind her, Magior was so still she might have
vanished.

"Is it real?" she asked finally; her voice sounded
thin, tense.

"Why that one?" Magior asked abruptly. "Why
not others of far more beauty, far more mystery?"

"This one is terrifying. What terrifies also fasci-
nates."

' 'So does beauty fascinate. Why do you fear this?
It is only imagined: None of them is real. Why choose
this, as the one truth in the room?"

Meguet turned. She closed her eyes briefly, felt the
weariness in them, hot and dry as dust. "I don't mean
to offend," she said. But the old woman frowned.

"You are more than just a stranger. If I had to
place you, I could not be sure... But you felt the
power, as we walked down the hall?"

"What?" Meguet shook her head, perplexed. "I
don't understand."

"The mage's power. Your cousin felt it."

"I'm not a mage."

"Perhaps not. But Draken was right to ask me to

224 Patricia A McKiUip

question you. Your responses, even allowing for your
unfamiliar surroundings, are not innocent."

* 'Innocent of what?''

"Experience," Magior said. She read the expres-
sion in Meguet's eyes; the lines moved on her face.

"Draken asked you to do this?" Meguet breathed.

"He is curious about you. You are in his house-
He is always curious about those within his house."
She turned. "Come. I promised to end this. I am sorry
it has upset you. It was not Draken's intention."

"What was his intention?"

"To see if you possess power. Sometimes those
who are gifted don't know it. Come with me. I'll take
you to a more tranquil ptace. One without dragons."

Meguet walked alone among rose-trees. The vast
house met her eye whichever direction she turned: a
world enclosed, constantly looking inward toward the
path of time at its heart. She could not stop her rest-
less movements, though they led nowhere. In the dis-
tance, through the roses, she could see the movements
of the household guard, a bright army wielding spin-
ning shafts of light as they performed their ancient
ritual. "Ritual" was the word Magior had given her:

It was, she explained, little more than a meditation
exercise. The meditators outnumbered all (he inhabi-
tants of Ro House. And that number, she had been
told, did not include the warrior-mages.

She watched them as she paced, guessing that she
herself was watched by someone, somewhere. It did
not, she admitted to herself, take extraordinary sub-
tlety to weigh the dangers of one mage, however pow-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   225

erful, against an army trained to march through time.
The dragon, red-eyed and malevolent, loomed in her
mind: destroyer, death-giver. That dragon she had
recognized, of all those Magior had shown her.

The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.

But which dragon? Draken Saphier? Or the dragons
of the Luxour which Rad Hex wanted so badly to see?

Draken wanted the key, too. So Rad had said. Bet-
ter, she thought coldly, to let the mage loose the drag-
ons into Saphier against that army, than to watch its
bloody dance across Ro Holding. Rad had been in the
Luxour looking for dragons; Draken had been search-
ing for the mage who had ensorcelled his son. Draken
had saved her life, even knowing she protected his
enemy. Still, he did not trust her: He had had Magior
question her. How far, Meguet wondered uneasily,
would he permit his curiosity to go?

The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.

Draken Saphier was in the Luxour, looking for his
son. Who was with Nyx.

Rad, not Draken, had come to Ro Holding to steal
a key. Rad had named Draken Saphier as the threat
to Ro Holding, yet he himself dreamed dragons on
the Luxour, longed to set them free. Draken, he said,
wanted Chrysom's key. Yet Rad had ensorcelled an
entire court to obtain it. So he had ensorcelled Brand
Saphier, both Brand and Draken insisted, and his own
spell was not strong enough to contain Brand's rage
within the firebird. But it was the firebird's magic that
had wounded Rad: It had been made, he said, to kill.

She sank down wearily on a stone bench. Did Nyx

226 Patricia A. McKillip

have the key with her? she wondered. She might have
brought it to bargain with Rad for Meguet. Or she
might have simply dropped it into her pocket and for-
gotten it was there. Was Draken only searching for
his son? It was Rad who had talked of the key, of
dragons; Draken had spoken most passionately of his
son.

But he knew of Chrysom, of Ro Holding. He had
brought Meguet into his house, and for all Meguet
could see, every door was guarded. He would find
Nyx, bring her back with him. And then what would
he do?

The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.

She pushed her fingers against her eyes, blocking
light, and the dragon rode the dark behind her eyes.
She smelled roses. The dark became her shadow, with
a red rose lying in it. Choose, the mage had said. The
rose or the sword.

Choose, the colorful, motionless dragons around
her had said, and she had found the face she had been
warned to fear.

She stood abruptly, the images growing clear in her
mind. The red rose. The black dragon. She drew
breath, feeling her hands grow icy with terror, for she
had made her choice about Rad Ilex before she ever
learned his name. In Chiysom's tower she had
wielded his rose against a dragon of thread; he would
have the key now, if he had not paused to protect her
from his own sorcery. If she had picked up the sword,
he would not have recognized her in that brief, tense
moment; he would have loosed the dragon, distracting

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   227

Nyx, then taken the key and fled, leaving Nyx frus-
trated but safe in Ro Holding, never knowing what
Rad had stolen.

If she had picked up the sword.

The rose had cost them all. But the mage was still
asking her to choose between the sword and the rose,
for if she refused to help him, he would be at Draken
Saphier's mercy. There had been no mercy in the fire-
bird.

The red rose. The black dragon.

The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.

She had seen the dragon's face.

Rad Ilex had left a rose in her mind. Draken Sa-
phier had left a dragon, and it was not one of the
Luxour's half-dreams, entrancing in their mystery,
floating between worlds. A dark and killing thing, she
carried in her mind: It had, of all the dragons in
Draken Saphier's house, come alive within her heart
and spoken.

The Dragon hunts the Cygnet.

She was in the dragon's house.

Magior took her back to the mages' wing that eve-
ning. She recognized the long, dark hallway, the great
bronze dragon at the end of it. She asked, trying to
keep her voice calm, controlled, "Is Draken Saphier
back?"

"No," Magior said, as the dragon doors were
opened for them. "I am taking you to supper with
the warrior-mages." Meguet felt her face whiten.
Around her the dragons seemed to come alive; their

228 Patricia A. McKiUip

golden, glaring eyes, their brilliant wings, their
breaths of fire burned the air with color, Magior
glanced at her, as if she felt the sudden chill in Me-
guet's mind. "It is considered an honor."

"Then," Meguet said numbly, "I am honored."

"They will treat you with all due courtesy. There
is no need to fear them."

"I'm hardly used to the company of mages. Nyx
is the only mage I know." And Rad Ilex, she remem-
bered, growing cold again at the thought that he might
appear, bloody and helpless, floating above the mages
as they ate. Guards opened tall red doors on the other
side of the dragon-room; murmuring voices, the smell
of food spilled into the air. Meguet walked blindly
forward into a sudden silence, as faces turned curi-
ously toward her, the stranger from the land at the
end of one twisted strand of silver around their wrists.

* "This is Meguet Vervaine, of the court of Ro Hold-
ing,'* Magior said, leading Meguet to a chair. Even
the long tables were placed in a square; what seemed
a hundred mages faced the intricate spirals and coils
of Saphier's emblem patterned in the floor. They wore
the emblem, Meguet saw, on their breasts, each path
colored by a different thread. "She is," Magior con-
tinued as they sat, "quite weary from her ordeal with
Rad Ilex in the Luxour and is not to be overly trou-
bled with questions. Those of you who saw her at
Draken Saphier's brief return know already that she
is not a mage, though she is kin to the mage Nyx Ro.
She is, however, by the standards of Ro Holding, a

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   229

warrior, and has shown interest in the movements of
the warriors' ritual."

Food, borne by a hand and a sleeve, appeared on
Meguet's plate; she stared at it, wondering what she
could possibly be expected to do with it. The mage
sitting on her left, a woman with white-gold hair and
a hawk's restless, hooded eyes, said kindly, "The
movements of the warriors' dance are quite old. I take
it you have no such tradition among your warriors in
Ro Holding?"

We barely have warriors, Meguet thought starkly,
then stilled her thoughts, lest the mage forget her
manners and listen. She said, trying to find her usual
composure, as if she had not fallen out of the sky into
this elegant and dangerous land, "No. Only games
and exercises involving appropriate weapons." She
hesitated; the hawk's eyes watched her, waited for the
trembling in the grass, the revealing word. "You call
it ritual. In Ro Holding, while Brand Saphier was with
Nyx, I saw him use that ritual to try to kill."

Again there was silence, even from the far table;

me still eyes gazing at her reminded her of the drag-
ons. Magior asked, her voice dry, precise, "Whom?
No one of Ro Holding, I hope."

"Rad Ilex."

"Brand's father teaches him many things," the
strange mage answered smoothly. "He is extraordi-
narily skilled and proficient. As tired as you arc, I am
sure it would be as tedious for you to listen to an
account of a warrior's training in Saphier, as it would
be for you to disclose your own warriors' training. In

230 Patricia A. McMp

battle, as you know, everything becomes a weapon."

"You must eat," Magior murmured. "How will
you recover your strength?"

Meguet picked up her fork, ate a tasteless mouthful.
A man at a side table, with the stamp of Draken Sa-
phier in the bones of his face and his black hair, com-
mented, "The ritual originally involved ceremonial
blades carved of bone- Since they could be played, it
is assumed that the dance was performed to music."

"Perhaps a hunting ritual," someone else sug-
gested, and the ensuing argument, tossed back and
forth across the tables, brought to light an endless list
of ancient and startlingly named battles.

"Much of the music in Saphier," the mage beside
Meguet said, "originated in the battlefield, or the
training field. In the Battle of Toad Stone, whistles
made of raven bones were blown, to scare the scav-
enger birds from the dead."

"Toad Stone?"

"Two clan families fought over a great stone that
resembled a toad. They revered the toad as kin to the
dragon, a link between worlds, a messenger, perhaps.
The dragon, in Saphier, is the symbol of all power:

the power of magic, of battle, of art, of birth. I would
imagine it means the same in Ro Holding."

"There are no dragons in Ro Holding."

"Some say there are none in Saphier. I meant in
tales."

"There are no tales of dragons," Meguet said re-
luctantly, as if the mage might deduce from this no

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   231

standing army, no fleet of warships, no revered toads
and almost no mages.

The hooded eyes widened a little. "How curious.
What, in Ro Holding, symbolizes power?"

The Cygnet, Meguet thought, and wondered if she
would survive that supper to breathe under its familiar
stars again. "In ancient tales," she said, "the sun
symbolized the fury of war."

"And now?" the mage pressed, her gaze, intense
and curious, searching for what Meguet strove to
hide.

"Now it Just grows crops."

"But under what symbol do you fight now?"

"Another ancient symbol," she said desperately.
"A random grouping of stars. Is it the dragon you
carry into battle? Or is it the symbol on the floor,
there and within the square: the patterns that your
warriors dance?"

The golden eyes flickered slightly. "The symbol,"
she said vaguely, "is not at all ancient, unlike the
ritual. If you were stronger, I could show you one or
two of the exercises the warrior-mages are taught.
They are quite simple."

"I'm not—"

"So you say. Magior seems less certain. The ex-
ercises are designed to wake dormant power through
physical movement, and then to channel that power,
focus it, and release it as a weapon. The waking and
release of power occasionally surprises those who
think they have no such gifts- Magior rarely makes
mistakes about those with potential for power."

232 Patricia A McKillip

The room was silent again, as if, Meguet thought,
the mages' attention were tuned, beneath their lively
conversation, to her voice. She said more calmly than
she thought possible, *'I have no such power. And I
have no interest in it. My place in the Holder's house
is bound by ancient traditions; I have no desire to
trouble those traditions by changing my ways, even
if it were possible. You understand tradition in this
house, I know."

Magior moved her cup an inch, found no argument
beneath it. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "you should
consider the matter. In a day or two, if Draken has
not returned, and you are stronger, we will broach the
subject again. Tradition has its uses, and its limits. It
ceases to be useful when it stands in the way of
knowledge."

"I would not want," Meguet sighed, "to cease to
be useful to the Holder."

"No. But—Enough. You have scarcely eaten. We
will trouble you no more with such matters tonight."

In bed at last, exhausted with fear, she could not
sleep. She lay staring into the dark, wondering if she
could get out of the house without being seen, find
her way back to the Luxour before the mages began
to pick her apart. But if Draken returned with Nyx,
if Meguet abandoned Nyx, if Draken found Meguet
vanished ... She tossed answerless questions in her
mind for so long that the blood-stained face appearing
behind its glowing silver prison seemed another dire
portent.

"Meguet."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   233

She was sitting bolt-upright, she realized, with both
hands over her mouth. She dropped them. He could
not seem to find her; he looked here and there as
through shifting layers of time.

"Meguet. Help me."

She swung out of bed, stood in front of the floating,
luminous weave. "Rad," she breathed, and tried to
touch it; her cold fingers closed on air. His voice
sounded weak, distant; still he could not see her.
"Rad." Her voice shook. "I'm here."

He saw her finally. "You're so far away," he said.
"Down a stairwell, at the end of a long hall. I'm
getting lost, here. You must help me. Please."

"Yes."

"Please. Quickly. You must listen to me, you must
believe me."

"I do."

"If you don't, I'm dead, and you will have Draken
Saphier with his army in Ro Holding searching for
that key. You're in his house, you must have seen
something to make you doubt that his intentions are
as peaceful as Ro Holding's heartland. He will burn
across those fields of sheep and wheat until peace is
a charred memory, and there is a warrior-mage in
every Hold, and a dragon coiled around Chiysom's
tower.'*

"Rad." She tried to grip the weave again, pull him
closer. "Can you hear me?"

"Of course."

"Then why aren't you listening to me?"

"I'm trying to tell you—"

234 Patricia A. McKilltp

"Rad. I have seen that dragon. It is black as night,
and its eyes arc fire. Please. Help me."

He was silent, gazing at her, one eye out of dust,
the other out of blood. He was trembling, she saw;

the desert and the time-prison, as well as the firebird,
had drained him. He said very softly, "Did they ques-
tion you?"

"They have begun to. I don't want Nyx in this
house. Help me find her in the Luxour. I'll set you
free—tell me what to do before you disappear again."
She slid her hands over the air, groping for a single
thread of silver, as if she could pull the weave apart.

"Meguet. You need a time-path."

"Yes," she said quickly. "How do I get one?"

"There is a guard outside your door." She nodded;

there was a guard at every door. "Open the door. Let
the guard see me. I'm enough to amaze anyone for a
split second. I don't have much strength in here, but
I can disarm a guard who is not a mage. If he feels
it, Draken will only think I am testing his power,
Let's hope the guard is not a mage. Open the door,"

She opened the door with shaking hands, gasped
something unintelligible at the young man who stood
there. He whirled into the room, a movement out of
ritual, and stopped himself dead mid-step at the sight
of Rad's face. Meguet swung the door shut with one
foot, grabbed a bowl of water with three leaves float-
ing in it, since the guard had nothing obvious in the
dim, silvery light, by way of arms, and broke it over
his head. He fell to the floor in a pool of water, a leaf
clinging to his hair.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   235

Meguet tossed the pieces of the bowl on the bed,
checked the motionless body. "Not even a knife,"
she said, frustrated. "What in Moro's name do they
use for arms in Saphier?"

"That is a mage," Rad said tersely. She stared at
him, then began to move again, dressing quickly in
the light, silken garments they had given her. She bent
over the guard, touched the paths on one wrist. * 'You
can't remove the time-paths," Rad said. "Just hold
one. I'll open a path for you. Any warrior is taught
this—it takes no power. You must walk down the
path to me. Draken won't sense anything until you
reach me. The path will end inside his trap. Don't
enter; I'll be able to walk your path out. When I'm
free, he'll know it. But 1*11 open another path to the
Luxour, then; we won't return here."

' 'What about the mage?'' she asked.

' 'What about the mage?''

"He'll wake," she said, holding the silver tightly,
as if mage and time might disappear together. "He'll
tell Magior—"

"Meguet. He'll tell the entire house. It will take
them just long enough to find breath to say 'Luxour*
before they know where we have gone. They'll come
looking for us, they'll come fast, and they will be the
warrior-mages. But they'll have to search the Luxour
for us, and a hundred mages on the Luxour will con-
fuse even Draken. For a while."

He was shaping time as he spoke, weaving a pat-
tern around them, silver smoke in the dark; she could

236 Patricia A McKfUip

not tell if the path lay before her, or behind her eyes,
within her mind.

"Trust me," she heard Rad say. The guard stirred
a little under her hand. She heard Rad say something
else—in her mind or beyond it—and she rose. Come,
the path said, the frozen shining stream at her feet,
and she followed it into Draken Saphier's tangled
weave.

-Fifteen

Nyx sat outside a ruined palace, listening to the dry
shift and stir of dragon wings. Earlier, the palace had
been a pile of stones; twilight had reshaped it, given
it depth, subtle colors, ghosts. She had been reading
Chrysom's book, searching for Brand's grandfather,
since his father had either left the Luxour or been
swallowed by it. The firebird had flown somewhere
within the rocks, dropping darkly gleaming garnets
like a trail of blood through the shadows. Nyx drew
her mind out of dragon-paths long enough to make a
mage-light so that Brand could find her when he
changed. Then she wandered back with Chrysom un-
derground, within still water, up cold barren peaks,
into magical rings of mist and gold and fire. Some
part of her, listening for Brand, was aware of the gen-
tly changing hues of blue above the mountains where
the moon would rise. She refused to look, for that
might slow the moon. She refused to let her thoughts
stray, for then she would find Brand's cobalt eyes
looking back at her through every page she turned.
The moon took its time, leaving her adrift among the

238 Patricia A McKillip

dragons until a footfall brought her out of dragons'
time into her own, and she closed the book in her
mind.

The moon had not yet risen, but the man who
stepped into her mage-light was so like Brand that
she almost said his name. And then she saw the white
in his long dark hair, the lines beside his mouth. He
looked at her silently, out of Brand's eyes. She rose
slowly, making no ambiguous movements, for she
sensed an enormous power in him, as if in his dra-
gon^ blood he had inherited something of the Lux-
our. He stood motionlessly, taking in what she
revealed to the inward and the outward eye, before
he spoke.

"You are Nyx Ro."

"Yes."

"I know all the mages of great power in Saphier,
and therefore you are not of Saphier. You know my
face, therefore you know my son." He paused; she
saw his eyes follow the glittering path of garnet into
the stones. His lips moved soundlessly. He turned
abruptly, disappeared for a few moments among the
caves and crevices; Nyx waited. He returned without
me firebird. "It's sleeping," he said. "On a high
ledge, with its face toward the moon." She saw him
swallow. "I think he can get down."

"He says he's grown used to finding himself in odd
places when the bird changes."

"Where did you find him in Ro Holding?"

"He flew over the walls of Ro House, and started
turning can horses into trees with diamond leaves.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   239

Cobblestones into glass. He changed my cousin into
a rose-tree. He was very nearly shot. His cries were
terrible."

"Yes," he said huskily. "I heard him—it—cry be-
fore he vanished from Saphier. And then what? You
calmed him. You call the bird him."

She nodded a little wearily. "Brand and I have ar-
gued over this. He insists the bird is sorcery, that it
has nothing to do with him. But I think he is the man
and he is the firebird, and the bird cries of all the
things the man can't remember, in the only language
he will permit himself to use."

She heard his breath. He moved closer to her, lean-
ing against the stones between her and the firebird's
trail of jewels. He studied her silently again. Mage-
light catching in his eyes revealed fine rays, like dra-
gon's gold, across the cobalt. "You are perceptive,"
he commented, "for so young a mage."

"I've seen his face," she answered grimly, "when
as a man he hides from memory. It's like a man
flinching from fire." His own face changed, as if he
had felt the sear of memory; for an instant he wore
Brand's expression. "What is it?" she whispered,
shaken. "What is it he will not remember? Do you
know?"

He looked away from her, down at a single jewel.
"I heard Brand cry out," he said tautly. "And then
I saw the firebird, and the mage who had ensorcelled
him. I heard the firebird's cry before it disappeared.
No one else had been with them, to witness what had
happened between them. No one in my court could

240 Patricia A McKilhp

give me the shadow of an explanation why the most
gifted mage I have ever trained had cast a spell over
my son. No one. I questioned everyone, often, and in
every way I could, with and without language." He
paused; the lines along his mouth deepened. He met
her eyes again. "They had been close. That's all an-
yone could tell me."

"Yes." Her voice caught. "So he said."

His expression did not change, but she felt the sud-
den shock within his thoughts, as if it had disturbed
the air between them. "He remembered?"

"A few things. The mage's name. That once he
loved him and now he wants to kill him. Even the
firebird recognizes the mage."

"And what more does he remember?"

"Saphier. You. That's why we came here: to
search for you. He is convinced you can remove the
spell because you are the most powerful mage in Sa-
phier."

"The mage who made the spell will unmake it,"
he said harshly- "I have him."

She made an abrupt, uncalculated movement; her
body peeled itself away from the stones, stiffening.
"You have Rad Ilex?"

"I trapped him on the Luxour two nights ago."

She reached out to touch him, did not. "Please."
She felt herself tremble, windblown. "Was there a
woman with him? He pulled my cousin out of Ro
Holding; I came to Saphier to search for her—"

"You followed Rad Ilex out of Ro Holding?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   241

"No, I came later. She is tall, with long pale
hair—"

He was nodding. "Meguet Vervaine." he said, and
for an instant she saw gold rays of dragon-light burn
in his eyes. "I found her half-dead, alone in the Lux-
our." Nyx tried to speak, put her hand over her
mouth. "I was suspicious of her at first. She tried to
protect Rad Ilex, she lied about herself and him. But
I persuaded her to help me trap him. She did, and so
I took her with me to my court, where she is safe,
cared for by my mages. She knows that you are here
in Saphier, and that I am searching for you."

"Thank you." She closed her eyes, felt a burning
like hot, dry winds, the merciless sun, behind them.
She said again, numbly, "Thank you. I would have
blamed myself forever if she had died here, alone and
lost in a strange land."

"Blaming Rad Ilex seems more to the point. He
brought her here. Under duress, you say. Then why
would she have tried to protect him from me?"

"I don't know." She eased back against the stones,
considered the question blankly. "Falling headlong
into another world, perhaps she trusted no one. One
mage had already terrified her; perhaps you frightened
her even more. She isn't used to mages."

"I fed her, spoke gently to her. She recognized me
as Brand's father and as Saphier's ruler. Still she
tried—" He lifted a hand, let it fall. "It isn't impor-
tant. I have you aU now: Brand and Rad Ilex, your
cousin and you. As you said, I must have frightened

242 Patricia A. McKillip

her, and it is sometimes difficult to think clearly in
the Luxour."

"But where was Rad Ilex?" she wondered, puz-
zled. ' 'Why was she alone? If she ran into the desert
to escape him, why would she try to protect him?"

' 'People do strange things when they are confused
by circumstance. She said, when she finally told me
her name, that she was walking to my court."

"Across the desert? On foot?"

"So she said."

"But if she was running away from Rad Ilex to
your court, then why was she afraid of you, and trying
to protect Rad at the same time?"

"I thought," he said patiently, "you might explain
that."

She brooded, her brows knit. "It makes no sense.
Meguet usually makes more sense than that."

"Is she a mage?" he asked abruptly. She trans-
ferred her brooding from the ground to him.

"No," she said, surprised. "Why ask me? You rec-
ognized what I am the moment you saw me. You
were with Meguet; if you were curious, you would
have answered that question, one way or another."

"At first I thought not. And then I saw -,." He
hesitated. "A shadow. Perhaps it was only the Lux-
our."

She was silent, gazing at him, trying to put pieces
together: Meguet protecting Rad Hex from Brand's
father, Meguet trying to walk alone and powerless
across a desert to get to Draken Saphier's court, Me-
guet casting a shadow of power when she no longer

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   243

had the strength to move. "It makes no sense," she
said again, baffled. "If Rad Ilex left her in the desert
to die, then why would she—and if he didn't, then
what was she doing there? She has more intelligence
than to try to cross a wasteland like this on foot."

"One or two other things I found puzzling also.
Why did Rad Ilex go to Ro Holding? And how did
you get from Ro Holding to my court, and then from
my court to the Luxour? Rad Ilex wears the time-
paths I forged for him, and so does my son. But
Brand's were destroyed. So. You must have walked
paths of your own making."

She opened her mouth to answer, and hesitated,
unwilling, without knowing why, to open the marvels
of Chrysom's book to Draken Saphier. As the answer
hung in the air between them, she saw his eyes
change, and she realized that he had known the an-
swers to those questions even before he had found
her on the Luxour. His eyes caught mage-light, turned
gold. Dragon's eyes, she thought, frozen under the
strange, inhuman gaze, and then: Meguet was born
knowing what to fear,

She remembered the figures standing in the door-
way of Chrysom's library, as the time-paths slowly
misted the world with silver: the young man with Me-
guet's hair, and her heritage, with the warning to the
Cygnet in his eyes....

The stones and shadows were misting around her
now, washed with gold; the pale mage-light burned
gold. The key floated in a dark, secret place in her
mind. But the dragon-eyes permitted no secrets; the

244 PatnciaA McKillip

key might as well have been in her open hand. It
turned slowly in her mind, as if touched by invisible
hands, that could not, for the moment, break through
its mystery to open it.

Then the dragon closed his eyes; the gold melted
into shadow and stone and light. Nyx blinked, saw
Draken frowning deeply, concentrating, but not on
her. She took a step away from him, another. He did
not notice, lost in some private, harrowing moment.
At her third step, his eyes opened. The taut lines of
his face loosened; he sagged against the stones, spent
and amazed.

"I've lost him," he breathed. "How could he es-
cape a time-path looped back into itself?" He was
silent, working out an answer; so did Nyx, in case the
knowledge came in handy. But it only mystified her.
^He had help," Draken said flatly, and Nyx felt her-
self grow cold with fear.

"No," she said quickly. "Not—"

* 'No one in my house would have helped him. No
one else."

"She wouldn't have. She couldn't have- She has
no power."

He shook his head impatiently. "She wouldn't
need power for that. She'll be with him now."

"No."

He pondered, his eyes human again. "The Lux-
our," he said at last. "They'll come here. It's the only
place in all Saphier where he can breathe a moment
or two longer, though he is dead now, as he runs."
Then a ghost of memory haunted his face; he whis-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   245

pered. "Brand." He turned away from Nyx, slumped
against the wall, his face hidden in one upraised arm.

She heard a sound: stones shifting, dragon-claws
scraping over them. It was Brand, she realized, climb-
ing down from the firebird's roost. The garnets had
vanished. Standing within the dragon's golden eyes,
she had not seen the milky rising of the moon. Draken
lifted his head, listening as Brand followed the path
of the mage-light through the stones to Nyx.

He stopped when he reached me light; she saw him
rock on his feet, as if a wind had pushed him. Then
he made a sound, a broken word, and slid to his knees
at his father's feet. Draken bent to pull him up, then
knelt himself, as if even he could not bear the weight
of all the bird's enchantments, and drew Brand into
his arms.

Brand, lifting his face from Draken's shoulder,
found Nyx, and stretched one hand out to her. Drak-
en's shadow lay between them; she could not bring
herself to move. Draken said, bringing Brand to his
feet,

"Nyx Ro said she found you in Ro Holding."

"The firebird found her." His eyes clung to her a
moment longer, and then returned to his father- His
hold on Draken's arms tightened a little. "She gave
me the only hope in the world of finding you again."

"Yes. I did not know how or when or where I
would see you again, since your time-paths were de-
stroyed."

"Nyx has a book. The ancient mage Chrysom of
Ro Holding fashioned time-paths all through the Lux-

246 Patricia A McKiHip

our. I made her bring me here to search for you. When
we could not find you, I made her search for dragons.
For my grandfather."

Draken looked at her, his expression unfathomable.
"And did you," he asked, "find dragons?"

"No."

' 'Nyx decided that, even for a desperate man in the
shape of a firebird, the dragons were too dangerous."

"That was wise of her." He touched his son's hair
lightly, let his hand drop to Brand's shoulder. "What
a strange thing to find in Ro Holding: the paths to the
dragons of the Luxour."

"And equally strange," Nyx said tightly, "to find
on a warrior's wrist the path from Saphier to Ro
Holding."

They both looked at her as she stood alone, the
mage-light casting her shadow wide and dark across
the stones behind her. Draken seemed only thought-
ful, but Brand, troubled, left his father abruptly.

"Nyx." He put his hands on her shoulders, frown-
ing, then kissed her, as if to change the expression on
her face. He succeeded only in changing his father's
expression. "How can you believe that my father will
be anything but grateful to you, to your house, to Ro
Holding, for caring for me?' *

"How could I?" she wondered.

He held her a moment longer, searching her eyes,
tuned to the undercurrents in her voice, but not un-
derstanding them. He turned to his father again, said
tautly, "Help me. Please. Nyx tried to remove the
spell, Magior has tried—I can barely remember day,

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   247

and I am beginning to hate the night. It's like drown-
ing, every midnight, night after night after night. Only
Nyx has made it bearable."

"I see."

"You can remove the spell. You taught Rad Ilex
everything."

"Rad." Draken's mouth tightened. "For a day or
two I had him trapped."

"You found him?" Brand said sharply. "Where?"

"Here in the desert. But he managed to escape."
He touched his eyes. "I am sorry."

"Free me." For a moment Nyx, used to all Brand's
expressions, barely recognized him: He wore the cold,
intent, merciless face of a warrior of Saphier. "We'll
both find him."

Meguet, she thought, chilled, and a stranger's eyes
nicked at her, as if responding to her fear, yet hardly
seeing her.

"He must be here still," Brand added. "Where
else could he go without leaving Saphier? Unless he
went back to Ro Holding. But he wants Chrysom's
key, and Nyx has it here. He must have known she
would come here to find Meguet-"

Nyx closed her eyes, heard Draken say, "Chry-
som's key."

"His book. The key is the book. Father—I am only
human by moonlight, only until—"

"Listen to me." Nyx, wondering if she could fray
into wind before either of them noticed, opened her
eyes at the urgency in Draken's voice. He took
Brand's face between his hands. "Listen to me," he

245 Patricia A McKillip

said again. "I will try to help you. But I may fail.*'

"No."

"Listen. I know Rad's power. The Luxour shaped
it. Before he could speak, he understood the language
of these winds, the stones; he heard the dragons
breathe before he knew the word for dragon. I don't
know what of all this vast and unpredictable power
around us went into the making of that spell—"

"Why?" Brand whispered. He was trembling; Nyx
saw a streak of silver run down his face. "Why did
he do this to me? I can't remember."

Draken shook his head. "1 never knew," he said
bitterly. "I only saw you after you had changed.
When your human cry became the firebird's cry. You
will remember. Look at me."

They were both silent. Nyx, sensing all Draken's
attention on his son, was caught in the spell of the
Luxour as its magic responded to Draken's making
and unmaking. Their shadows, etched lean and black
across the ground, changed shape: A great dragon
spanned the circle of light, its black wings closed, its
long neck bent toward me thing it held mesmerized
beneath its gaze. The shadow of the firebird lay be-
yond Brand; winds shifted it, colored it yellow, red,
peacock-blue. Then the dragon's wings lifted, opened,
folded around the gaudy shadow, swallowed it into
blackness. Nyx, staring, raised her head abruptly, star-
tled by a movement above her head. Something
shifted in the night: A head as bright as blood rose
clear against the moon. Fire streamed out of it,
washed red across the stars. The great head disap-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   249

peared. Nyx found Brand again; spells flowed over
and away from him like tattered rags: an owl wing, a
lizard claw, a lion's face, his father's face, a dragon's
misty, glittering breath.

Then the magic flowed elsewhere, left their shad-
ows intact, shifting, as Draken's hands fell from
Brand's face, and Brand, white, tearless, took a step
back from him.

"I'm sorry," Nyx heard Draken whisper. And then
she opened Chrysom's book, chose a dragon at ran-
dom, and ran.

Whether Draken tried to follow her or not, she was
unsure: What leaped at her like a great wind, nearly
tangling the strands of the path in her mind might
easily have been the raw power sweeping across the
Luxour, forming its own spells around anything mag-
ical. She found herself in the deep caves, among the
roaring waterfalls where Brand had forgotten, so
briefly, the memories that constantly reshaped him.
Her own memories threatened to distract her; she felt
the sudden loss of him like a hollow in the air beside
her, a silence where his voice belonged, stone where
her eyes expected his face. But she had no time for
such unusual feelings; she had no idea whether
Draken would pursue her or Rad Ilex first, and she
had to reach Meguet before he did.

She turned another page, opened another path. This
one ended among the stones and dream-palaces, too
close to where Draken had found her. She opened
another path instantly, and fell into a place so black
she thought she had reached the ice-dragon's hole

250 Patricia A McKiHip

torn out of the night between the stars. But the air
was warm, tranquil; she caught her breath a moment,
reading a phrase or two about the dragon hidden
within this shadow.

... a small and exquisite creature, with scales like
gold leaf and shining copper... its eyes are azure.
By temperament elusive but not unfriendly ...

She opened its path back into the Luxour, and came
face to face with a warrior-mage.

He carried ritual blades; they and the time-paths on
his wrists glittered like frost in the moonlight. His
black garments flowed on the wind; odd colors
seemed to flame and break free from them, then fade
into night. With mages* sight, they recognized one
another.

"Nyx Ro."

She stopped herself from vanishing before he at-
tacked; he sounded only surprised.

"Yes," she said tersely.

"Draken Saphier is looking for you and his son.
Where is Brand?"

"He flew ahead," she said, hoping it was some-
where near midnight. The mage looked disturbed.

"Rad Ilex is loose in the Luxour. It's not safe for
the firebird to wander."

"How—"

"Meguet Vervaine is with him," the mage said
without expression. "Your kinswoman. The warrior-
mages are searching the Luxour-"

"She was obviously under duress," Nyx said
quickly. "He ensorcelled her."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   251

"Most likely," the mage agreed politely.
"How many of the warrior-mages are out here?"
"All of them." He shook his head a little, fretfully.
"Magic blows like sand in your eyes, here. It's hard
to distinguish minds, even faces, from the lies the
desert tells. Even those of us searching together got
separated. You must not lose the firebird."

* 'No,'' she said, and he vanished, leaving a shining,
faceless ghost of himself imprinted on the wild winds.
She opened a path hurriedly to anywhere, and nearly
scalded herself in steam from a boiling pool.

She backed away from the heat and cloying smell,
and found a slightly cooler place where she could
think. Surrounded by the bubbling pools, the mists,
she felt hidden for the moment. She wiped steam-slick
hair out of her face, and wondered starkly how, in a
desert full of wild magic and mages who could barely
find each other, she could possibly locate the two who
had fled there to hide.

The Luxour itself had shaped Rad's power. So
Draken had said, and if Rad could wear the faces of
the desert, stones and dragon-dreams and shadows,
and empty his mind of all but the constantly shifting
winds of power, then even Draken with his dragon's
eyes and relentless mind would have trouble picking
him out of the air. But how Rad could hide Meguet,
Nyx was unsure. Rad might transform her into a
moon-shadow, but not even he could hide her
thoughts. Nyx would be on her mind, Ro Holding,
the Cygnet; words foreign to Saphier would drift into
Draken's mind. If the warrior-mages did not find Me-

252 Patricia A.. McKiUip

guet first. Like Draken, they would search for her to
find Rad. Would Rad, knowing that, abandon Meguet
to plead coercion and duress to Draken Saphier? Me-
guet would more likely fight what would be the short-
est battle in her life. And if Draken didn't kill her, he
would use her to force Nyx out of hiding.

And to yield the key. She stirred, remembering her
own danger, and made herself as transparent as the
steam billowing around her. But what, she wondered,
would he do about Brand? Rad Ilex, she was certain,
had not cast that spell. If not even he could remove
it. Brand would wrench the firebird's voice outofthe
Cygnet's labyrinth, and its fire from Nyx's hold, and
sear the burning desert itself with his despair.

But the firebird had attacked Rad. Brand had
named him the maker of the spell.

Meguet had tried to protect Rad from Draken.

Rad knew who had cast me spell. He had been
there.

She felt her body shocked into visibility; even in
the steam, her skin was cold.

No witnesses, Draken had said. No one else saw,
but he and his son and Rad.

Three leaves. One blue as Brand's eyes. One gold
as the Luxour. One as red as the black war-dragon's
eyes.

She whispered, "Draken."

As if she had summoned him, he began to shape
himself out of the mists in front of her.

She ran before he had a face. But his mind's eye
saw her and the random path she had pulled from

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   253

Chrysom's book. He pursued her, a single burning
dragon's eye in the dark, a force like night-wind at
her heels. He could, she remembered with horror,
forge his own paths, not from place to place perhaps,
but from here to nowhere. As quickly as she shaped
Chrysom's path, he reshaped it, cutting through her
weave of silver, leaving her on an edge of nothing,
or turning her own path back on itself, until she lost
all sense of Chrysom's design, and guessed that the
path she fled down would loop through itself to lead
her inevitably, strand by shifted, twisted strand, to the
Dragon of Saphier,

In desperation she opened another path, and then
another, flowing away from that. She shaped a third,
a fourth, flinging them into the dark, and running
without knowing what dragons waited at their end-
ings. She opened others, sending filaments of silver
like crazed nets to catch a drifting moment and open
it. She gave Draken no time to alter them before she
spun another, sent it branching away into the un-
known. Finally, she opened two that, by some luck,
were so close they seemed almost indistinguishable.
She fled down one, leaving Draken to snarl the other
until he wove it through itself and then found he had
trapped nothing.

So she hoped. The path she followed remained true
to Chrysom's pattern. She had no idea where it led;

there could be no worse, she reasoned, than the
dragon hunting her. When the path ended, she closed
it behind her, let it fade back into possibility, and then
into a dream that only Chrysom's key would bring to

254 Patricia A. McKillip

life. Stranded on some island of time within the Lux-
our, she turned to face the dragon.

At first she thought she was alone. She stood at the
mouth of a cave so massive even her mage's eye
could not find walls or ceiling. But she smelled earth,
wet stone, heard the slow drip and trickle of water,
She took a step forward, sensed something where her
eye saw only air. Tentatively, she let her thoughts
flow around it: It might have been the ghost of stone
that had once filled the cave. As she had with Chry-
som's tiny jars, she let her mind drop into it.

She seemed, for an instant, made of light, as if the
sun bumed behind her eyes, and all her bones were
lucent and bright as fire. She could not speak or think;

she was as formless and bright as air at noon in the
Luxour. Then the sun blinked, and she felt cold stone
beneath her face, her body, and realized she had
fallen. She pulled herself up, shaking, stunned, blind,
waiting for the pain to begin, the punishment for
touching fire. But she felt only the cool breath of the
cave. She opened her eyes finally, and saw the
dragon.

Its shadow had been burned into her mind, it
seemed; her eye shaped a darkness against the dark.
The heavy bulk of its head loomed above her; it could
have swallowed her and scarcely noticed. Its huge
eyes glittered faintly, flecks of light as colorless as
stars. Its voice filled the cave or her head, slow, an-
cient, dry, dust blowing across dust.

"Who are you?"

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   255

Her own voice sounded small, trembling in the
vastness. "I'm sony—"

"Answer."

"Nyx Ro. A mage. I came—I was running_I
didn't see you. I didn't mean to disturb you."

She heard its breath, long and endless. "Nyx Ro.
Running. From where? To where? Answer."

"I was running away. From another mage."

"What mage?"

"Draken Saphier."

She had no idea what those words might mean to
it: The act of running would not occur to it, and she
could not imagine anything it would be compelled to
run from. A great nostril, vague and colorless, ex-
panded slightly; she heard a hiss from it. "When hu-
mans run, they run from the greater to the lesser fear.
They do not run down the spider webs of time where
unknown dragons wait. How did .you find me? An-
swer."

"I have a book of paths—"

"You did not make them."

"No."

"I eat paths of the makers I dislike." It seemed to
shift. A hollow echo rolled through the cave; light
sparked as its scales dragged across stone. Still she
could not see its color. She swallowed.

"You eat power."

"I dislike minor annoyances."

She made a movement, half a step. "I won't dis-
turb—" Black moons sculpted out of the dark de-
scended behind her, slid together and locked. She

256 Patricia A McKillip

stood ringed by dragon-claws, and wondered if some
of the minor annoyances it ate were human. She said
carefully, "I would not make much of a meal. You
have already terrified me. Your power is like the LUX-
OUT'S, ancient and unimaginable. You don't need to
threaten me, any more than the sun needs to threaten.
I must get back to the Luxour. Those I love are in
terrible danger. If there is a price I must pay for dis-
turbing you, just tell me."

It made another sound, a faint, distant rumble.
"Who disturbs the Luxour? Answer."

"Draken Saphier. And his mages."

An eyelid descended; stars vanished, reappeared,
"A dust storm. A random shift of rock. The Luxour
will survive that."

"Yes." Her voice shook again. "But Brand Sa-
phier may not. And Ro Holding may not—"

"Human names. Human dreams."

"That's all I know. That's what I am. I have no
dragons' time for loving. While I stand here in your
hold I am disturbing you, and those I love might cease
to exist. Please let me go. Tell me what I must do. I
will leave you in peace; you'll never see me again.
Please."

"You woke me- Nyx Ro. Weaving my secret path
out of mages' fire."

"Destroy the path behind me," she said desper-
ately. "I don't have the power to make such things,
only to follow them.

"Who does make them? Answer."

"He is dead."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   257

"Who else?"

"No one."

"Why have you come here? What petty breath of
storm across the Luxour sends humans running in fear
beyond time? Answer."

She drew breath, held it, feeling as if its thoughts
had looped back through themselves, trapping her
within some answerless question. There was no place
where she could hide herself from its bright, relentless
eye. It would bum the leaves of Chrysom's book in-
side her mind; it could turn her bones to gold and
hoard them until trees grew on the Luxour- She
searched for an answer it had not already heard, and
remembered at last the word for what she fought.

"The dragon's son," she said.

The dragon was silent. She waited a moment or
two, listening, before she realized that the black
around her held no more subtle shades of dark, nor
did the stillness hold more questions. She turned,
trembling again, and opened Chrysom's book to fash-
ion a simpler path back to the Luxour.

-Sixteen-

Rad Ilex took one step onto the Luxour from his time-
path and vanished. Meguet, looking for him wildly in
the moonlight, saw winds, shimmering veils of dark
and silver, swirl around her. She closed her eyes and
heard Rad's voice.

"Meguet."

"What?" she said tersely. She opened her eyes,
saw nothing now but the vast, wind-swept desert.

"I've made you invisible." For a moment, she was
afraid to move; she stared rigidly ahead, lest she look
down and find she stood on nothing. "Don't be
afraid," he added. "You can see yourself. I can see
you."

"I can't see you."

"Wait."

Slowly he shaped himself out of air and night; she
saw the strange winds glide over him. He said softly
when his face became more than a blank shadow,
"I'm using the power of the Luxour to do this. It's a
turbulent force all across the desert. Draken will have
trouble isolating me from it."

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   259

"What causes it?"

"The dragons, I think. They breathe power; they
dream it; it escapes from all their private worlds into
the desert. I can disguise myself in it. But hiding you
will be more difficult. Look."

She looked down and saw a moon-shadow the
strange power had shaped, that clung to her invisible
heel: a black swan, its wings outstretched. She swal-
lowed drily. The shadow peeled away, flew into the
wind.

"Will he see—"

"I don't know. The magic creates itself constantly,
especially when it responds to other sources of
power." She stopped searching the night for the
shadow of the Cygnet, and met his eyes. "I can hide
from Draken Saphier. Perhaps I can hide you. But you
cannot hide from the Luxour."

He was worried, she realized, and with reason; she
felt the ground drop away again, as if she stood on
nothing. "It's a power," she heard herself say, "that
rouses only in defense of the Cygnet. When Ro Hold-
ing itself is in grave danger."

She saw his grim face tighten. "Now?" he de-
manded incredulously. "In the middle of the Luxour
with a hundred mages and Draken Saphier alert for
any hint of power?"

"If Draken threatens Ro Holding, or Nyx in such
a way that Ro Holding itself is threatened, then by
my heritage I must fight for the Cygnet. Even on the
Luxour. Even against a hundred mages."

Another shadow formed, broke away from her: a

260 Patricia A McKiUip

black rose. She heard his breath. "How were you
trained? And by whom?"

'*No one," she said simply. "I was born. I am the
Cygnet's eye, its hand. At such times. Now, I'm only
a woman in a desert in the dead of night, facing dan-
ger without even a sword."

"A sword. You saw how much use that was to you
in Chrysom's tower."

"•I know. But it would make me feel better."

"If I could risk it, I would make you a hundred
swords. But if you raise a weapon against the warrior-
mages bearing the ntual blades, they will fight back.
They are fast, ruthless, efficient. You saw what Brand
could do. And he's not even a mage."

She nodded, her eyes wide "They lied to me."

"Who?"

"The warrior-mages. They said the dance was only
ritual. I didn't believe them and they knew it."

"They are preparing for war. They don't care
where. They want to experiment with an attack
through time: an army of mages and warriors and
dragons that can appear and disappear seemingly out
of nowhere. Ro Holding is as good a place as any to
begin."

She stared blindly at the ground, trying to think.
"We must find Nyx."

"And that key, before Draken does. I can hide it
forever from him among the dragons."

"They will still have time-paths," she said starkly.
"Who will hide Ro Holding?"

He shook his head, scanning the desert. She saw

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   261

nothing move in the moonlight but dust; they might
have been the only people on the Luxour. "I'll do
what I can."

"Can you find some water? With your face like
that, you look already dead."

"Oh." He touched it; the dark mask of blood and
dust vanished. His own face, taut with weariness and
pain, was no more comforting. He stood silently, let-
ting his mind wander, she guessed, for a long time.
He seemed to draw strength from the desert's power,
calm from the ancient, unchanging mountains; his
face eased a little as he contemplated the thing he
loved. He stirred finally; she said,

"Now what?"

"There are a dozen mages prowling nearby, but
neither Draken nor Nyx."

"I don't see anything," she said, shaken. "Can
they see us?"

"I can't see them either. But I can tell the differ-
ence between a warrior-mage's power, and the Lux-
our's. That's what keeps me safe. To them, I am
another random thought of the Luxour."

"And what am I?"

"In danger," he said. "Let's search among the
stones and pools; it would be easier for her to hide
there than out here."

They emerged from another silver path onto the
banks of a steaming waterfall that poured down steps
it had carved in stone washed with all the colors of
opal. Rad was silent, searching again, Meguet
guessed, while the damp, cloying mist billowed

262 Patricia A. McKidip

around them and away, finding nothing of them to
cling to. She heard Rad breathe finally,

"I think she's here...." Then he vanished again
within his thoughts. Meguet watched the colors in the
water swirl, form a reflection of her face. The reflec-
tion slid leaflike down the steps before it broke apart.
A warrior-mage appeared out of nowhere, stared into
the water. He turned abruptly, searched the mist. Me-
guet, not daring to breathe, turned her thoughts to
steam, stone, crystal. Then the mist itself leaped at
him, poured, burning, into his mouth as he .drew
breath to scream. He fell backward into the scalding
water and followed Meguet's reflection into deeper
water. Meguet saw a silver path begin to form in the
air above him, break apart as he sank. One of his
ritual blades spun out of the water, snagged on the
crystals along the bank. She eyed it, but seemed oddly
incapable of moving.

She heard Rad's whisper close to her ear, and
started. "I found Brand. The firebird. But I can't find

Draken-"

She allowed herself to move finally, tried to touch
him. "Let's find Nyx. She must go home- She won't
leave until she knows where I am."

"She won't leave without you," he said, startled-

"I must stay. I can't hide behind the walls of Ro
House and wait for Draken Saphier to bring his war
there. If I must fight, I must fight here."

"You'll die," he said incredulously.

"Either here, or in Ro Holding. As I would have
died defending Chrysom's tower, if Draken Saphier

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   263

had come to steal that key instead of you. It's my
heritage."

"It's ridiculous," he snapped, but no more, for the
mists, snatching at Meguet's thoughts, whirled into a
high white tower covered with what, at first glance,
seemed to be red roses, but which changed, to Me-
guet's horror, into the black dragon's malevolent,
flame-red eyes. They looked everywhere, the eyes of
Draken Saphier; they saw through mist, through Rad's
spell, through her mind into the Cygnet's eye....
"Come," Rad said, gripping her. She could not move.
He pulled her roughly away from the image, and down
another silver path.

Here they were surrounded by bubbling pools; even
the mud spoke. Meguet could scarcely see the wall
of yellow rock rising above the mud-pools, which she
might have touched with the point of a broadsword.
She waited while Rad searched the place; his thoughts
came back to her,

"You must leave," he breathed. "You'll kill us
both."

"Then leave me."

"No."

"Were they real?" she asked. "The dragon-eyes?"

"One might have been. Draken knows how to play
with the Luxour's power. But only as a man with one
finger knows how to play a flute. I still can't find him.
Finding him will be dangerous enough, but it's far
more dangerous not knowing where he is."

"Hide." she suggested after a moment. "I'll bring
him to you."

264 Patricia A McKiHip

He looked at her darkly, but said only, "You'll do
that soon enough as it is. I want the key first. And
then you and Nyx Ro out of Saphier. Then I want
Draken Saphier. In that order."

She did not bother to answer. She saw something
move in the solid wall of yellow stone. Mist, she
thought, a trickle of water. But something made her
reach out to grip Rad, warn him silent. Her fingers
closed on nothing; he had vanished even to her eye.
The dark shifting became a crack in the stone. The
crack widened as she stared. Then the face of the rock
tore like paper and a dozen warrior-mages emerged.

She was surrounded in an instant; their whirling
blades spun, plunged into the ground around her,
elongating into a high, deadly cage so tight she cut
her forearm, turning. The teasing desert gave one
blade swans on its hilt, down its blade; she reached
for it desperately. It snapped silver light, numbing her
hand. She stumbled back, cut her shoulder on another
blade. She caught her balance desperately, stood
trembling while the mages appeared and disappeared
into the mists, searching for Rad Ilex.

The ground around her turned to boiling mud. It
swallowed the mages' blades, along with one mage
who, leaping for Meguet, turned visible in midair as
a wave of mud flung itself up and shaped him before
it slapped him down. Steam blew everywhere, glit-
tered with fine grains of silver and gold. Meguet, feel-
ing a hand close on her wrist, pulled against it. It
pulled harder; the silver grains snaked into a pattern
around them. The pattern shattered like glass. She

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   265

heard Rad cry out; the grip on her wrist slackened,
tightened again. Light flashed, bright and painful as a
flashing mirror; the island she stood on melted be-
neath her. She had no time to scream before she was
dragged into mud. Like the mist, it found nothing of
her to grasp. Silver wove in the murk; she could see
again suddenly, as the mud pool faded. Still Rad re-
mained invisible. Or was it Rad? she wondered sud-
denly, panicked. Was it Draken Saphier instead,
leading her down the time-path? She pulled free
abruptly; a flock of tiny swans formed themselves out
of the silver path, soared upward, flew in a ring
around her. She stopped, tense, her eyes wide, search-
ing nothing.

"Meguet."

It was Nyx. The swans scattered at the word, turned
back into silver. Nyx appeared a moment later, pale,
and dishevelled, her eyes full of color, but, to Me-
guet's eye, unharmed. Nyx took a deep breath, closed
her eyes. "Meguet," she said again. "What a place
to find you in. A lake of boiling mud."

"Nyx." She felt, saying the name, as helpless as
she had ever been in her life, finding the heir to Ro
Holding underground in a strange country, while a
deadly storm of magic raged above their heads. "Do
you have any idea what kind of danger you're in?"

Nyx nodded. "I know exactly what kind of danger
I'm in. And so are you and so is Ro Holding." Her
voice sounded composed, but as she touched Me-
guet's bleeding forearm, Meguet saw her hand shake.
"You're hurt."

266 PatnciaA McKiHip

Meguet ripped a length of silk loose from her torn
sleeve impatiently. "Nyx, listen to me—" She
stopped abruptly, searching the soundless dark be-
yond the time-path. "Where's Rad Ilex?"

"Still battling mages." She took the silk, wound it
methodically around Meguet's arm. "I thought he
would be safer without you."

"He said so, too. But he wouldn't leave me."

"You might as well be carrying a blazing torch,
the way power is escaping you."

"I can't help it. Rad complained, too." Nyx
checked her shoulder; Meguet shrugged away. ' 'Nyx,
listen."

Nyx folded her arms, stood quietly, her eyes col-
orless again, "fm listening."

"I want you to give me that key and go back to
Ro Holding before we take another step in the LUX-
OUT."

Nyx raised an eyebrow. "You do. While you do
what? Battle the warrior-mages of Saphier with your
good intentions? Don't be preposterous."

"Then give the key to Rad and go home. He can
find the dragons, bring them to the Luxour to fight
Draken."

Nyx was silent a moment, her fingers tight on her
arms. Her eyes slid away from Meguet's, the expres-
sion in mem unfathomable. "Does he imagine them
to be so obliging? To rouse themselves to fight for or
against Draken, at the whim of whichever human
reaches them first? They are very dangerous."

"I don't know." Meguet rubbed her eyes wearily.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   267

"I don't know what he thinks, except that this is what
he wants. He takes power from the Luxour, he says.
Maybe that would persuade them. At least he could
hide the key from Draken. Or you could. Hide it on
some path and go." Nyx remained unmoved; Me-
guet's voice rose. "Nyx, you are heir to Ro Hold-
ing!"

"I might as well be heir to the moon if we can't
stop Draken here and now. I know what he wants. I'd
go home only to sit in Ro House and wait for him
and his army of mages and dragons to knock at the
gate. I saw your kinsman with his com-silk hair ap-
pear in Chrysom's tower just as I left with Brand- He
came to warn me,"

"Then why did you leave? Nyx, what possessed
you to come here?"

"What possessed you to think you could cross the
Luxour on foot to Draken Saphier's court?"

"I had to find the danger—I couldn't see it sitting
safely in Rad's village."

Nyx shrugged slightly. "And I couldn't see what
the firebird saw, by sitting safely in Chrysom's tower.
Nor could I find you. A minor point to you, perhaps,
but it seemed important to my mother. What was the
warning you were given?"

"I saw a dragon of night and stars across Rad's
doorway, in the morning light. At first I thought Rad
was me danger—he knew too much—and Draken,
when he found me in the desert, was persuasive. I
didn't know—I was confused—"

"With reason."

268 Patricia A. McKillip

Meguet paused, remembering the dragon, her hand
straying to her shoulder. "I doubt that Corleu even
knew the word for what he was compelled to warn
you of. The Dragon hunts the Cygnet. That is the
warning."

"I thought as much." Nyx gazed at nothing, wan-
dering a tangled path of magic or memory, while Me-
guet contemplated their dubious fates grimly.
"Brand," Nyx said softly. The color washed into her
eyes at the name. "He might stop Draken."

"Why should he?"

"It's complicated," Nyx said, and nothing more,
seeming, for once, at loss for words. Meguet, looking
at her, found the unspoken words in her eyes.

"Nyx Ro," she said incredulously, the blood star-
tling through her. "He's a warrior!"

"So? You love a Gatekeeper."

"At least he is part of Ro Holding." Meguet laid
a hand on her forehead, where the headache was be-
ginning, and added crossly, "Moro's name. Brand
himself barely knows who he is. Other than the son
of a ruler who wants to scorch the four Holds of Ro
Holding with dragon-fire. Is he Saphier's heir?"

"I forgot to ask."

"Oh, Nyx, really."

"Such things are unimportant in Ro Holding. You
know that. I never knew my own father's name."

"That's because your mother fell in love discreetly
and in private, and not, I would imagine, in the mid-
dle of a strange land with a man who spends most of
his day in a tree." She was holding her shoulder as

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   269

she spoke, frowning at the nagging pain. "You love
him for the color of his eyes."

"Most likely," Nyx said terilperately. She drew the
ivory ball out of her pocket, opened it, and extracted
something that looked like a brown, withered hand.

"What is that?"

"Olem root. From Berg Hold." She applied it gen-
tly to Meguet's shoulder. A numbness washed across
the pain; the scent of cloves and earth and mint
seemed to quiet even the nickering ache behind her
eyes. "Country magic. It will cling there until the
bleeding stops, and then it will drop away and wither
again. A trifle gruesome, but it works."

"Yes," Meguet sighed. "Thank you. So. Brand
will stop his father from destroying Ro Holding for
your sake?"

"Not exactly for my sake," Nyx said, but did not
elaborate, nor did she allow expression into her eyes.
She took the amber earring from the ivory, hung it
from her ear. Gold fire shimmered across it, faded.
"As you say, we hardly know each other. But," she
added on a breath, "he knows his father even less,"

"What—"

"We must find the firebird now. Quickly."

"Draken will be with him."

"Draken was alone, when I saw him last. I'm hop-
ing the Luxour separated them."

"What about Rad?" Meguet asked anxiously, as
Nyx shaped the silver pattern into their future.
"Should we leave him on his own?"

"He would only distract the firebird. I want all of

270 Patricia A McKillip

Brand's attention.*' She listened a moment, for what
Meguet could only imagine: dragon's breath, the si-
lent voices of the mages, the footsteps of the dragon-
lord. "Come."

Winds, desert, stars, spilled around them at the
path's end. Meguet saw the broken palaces rising up
against the night. The transparent, elusive colors in a
dragonfly's wing illumined windows, flickered away.
In the next moment, the palaces were only stones.

"Should we hide?" she whispered to Nyx. "Are
we invisible?"

Nyx shook her head. The wind tossed her hair into
dark, tangled paths; for an instant her eyes reflected
moonlight. "I want the firebird to find me."

"What if the mages find you first?"

"That's a risk I'll have to take. Meguet—" she
breathed, as stars sparked in the ground around Me-
guet, shifted to form a familiar constellation. "Will
you stop that?"

The Cygnet rose above their heads, star-fire mark-
ing its wings, its cold bright eye, until the winds
picked the stars apart and they fell like fading embers
into the dark. "It's the Luxour," Meguet said a little
wildly. "I can't control it."

"I can't either."

"What do you want me to do? Should I hide?"

"Go wait among those stones. Maybe their power
will disguise yours."

Meguet left her alone, barely more than a shadow
in the desert, using a power at once simpler and far
more complex than any mage's power to call the fire-

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   271

bird. Turning as she entered the nearest mass of
stones, she saw tiny black swans form and fly out of
her footprints in the dust. Appalled, she moved deeper
into the stones.

Moonlight pulled her own shadow from the dark;

she looked up and saw again the haunting shift from
jumbled stones to the sagging walls and broken tow-
ers of a great ruined palace. Her mind wandered down
an imaginary time-path and found the palace again,
in a moment so close'to the Luxour's time that the
two worlds of desert and palaces, made unstable by
enormous, random powers, were constantly overlap-
ping. The moonlight in the high windows grew filmy
with butterfly colors. The colors washed away; the
cold light poured down stone. She heard Nyx's voice.

She walked soundlessly to the opening in the
stones, looked out. The firebird had come to Nyx; as
it spiralled around her, she coaxed it down. It came
to rest finally in front of her. It gazed at her a moment,
motionless, crying neither sorrow nor fire. And then
it changed.

He is free, Meguet thought with wonder, and then,
as the stones around her shifted, he changed under
her eye: She saw the broader, more powerful line of
his shoulders, the white in his hair. She felt something
flash out of her entire body; the winds took her fear
and shaped it into the dragon's shadow.

Nyx vanished. Draken simply turned his head,
looked at the stones where Meguet was hiding, and
Nyx appeared again.

"No," she said sharply.

272 Patricia A McKilhp

"Then give me what I want."

"Where is Brand?"

"Where I left him. Give me the key. Then I will
set you and Meguet on the path to Ro Holding. You
can go home."

"And wait for you." Her voice shook with anger.
Draken said very softly,

"Yes."

Meguet felt her body flash again. This time her own
rage shaped the shadow that flew, soundless and dark
as night, with its coldly burning eye on Draken Sa-
phier. She flew and did not fly; she felt the power
gather in her again, as the black swan neared him.
Blue light flickered along its wings. He must have
heard the winds part for it; he spun suddenly, flung
up his hand. The black dragon formed against the
moon and stars, its red eyes flaming. It opened its
mouth, swung its long neck down and caught the
black swan as it flew into Draken Saphier.

He cried out, as the blue flame rippled over him.
Then the dragon broke the swan's neck and tossed it
away. Meguet, still caught in it, felt herself grow limp
and thoughtless with its death, falling farther and far-
ther away from a point of light that grew small, so
small she could scarcely see it, though it seemed, as
she fell. the only important thing left to do.

Then the hard ground shaped under her again;

someone gripped her, shook her. "Meguet!" She
opened her eyes. The world was still black, but she
recognized Rad's voice. She lifted her head, saw
Draken rising. She heard a strange noise beside her;

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   273

Draken, hearing it also, vanished just before the
mage-light struck.

So had Nyx; the light snaked across the air where
she had been, and picked one of the warrior-mages
out of nothing. Her ritual blades and time-paths
caught the light, flared brighter than the moon. Then
she seemed to lose all light, become a piece of noth-
ing darker than the night. She fell without a sound.
Another mage appeared beside her; power snapped
back at Rad. The stones shook around them; a shard
flicked across Meguet's cheek. She flinched, heard
Rad breathe something.

"Stay here," he said, and vanished. She stumbled
to her feet, gripping stones to keep her balance, and
looked out.

She saw a calm and empty desert. Then both Rad
and Nyx seemed to waver in and out of the air, as if
they were being pulled into eyesight and constantly
pulling themselves back. As the silent struggle grad-
ually and relentlessly worked them visible, the war-
rior-mages appeared around them, still as monoliths
in the moonlight.

Draken saw her. He was an eye in her mind in-
stantly, blood-red and unblinking, staring everywhere
she fled, forcing her finally into a maze where she
took every wrong turn she could make, and every wall
that stopped her turned into the dragon's eye and
forced her on. Once she turned and stood in its glare,
refusing to move- The eye turned to fire in her head;

from some far place she heard her own voice. She
ran.

274 Patricia A. McKillip

Abruptly, she could see again. She was on her
knees, clinging to stone, trembling as if she had been
running for her life through the maze of palaces on
the Luxour. Draken had turned away from her to
watch the firebird come.

It flew fast, and it flew straight to Rad Ilex.

He could not seem to move; he could only watch
it, his head uplifted. He tried to speak; he could not.
The bird's silver claws shone like ritual blades; they
were open, curved, and dropping toward his heart.
Nyx's face was turned toward the bird; she too strug-
gled to speak. Meguet, freed from Draken's attention,
walked the maze in her mind to what the dragon had
sought: the eye of the Cygnet.

Nyx, she said, from that secret place, and Nyx met
her eyes.

Power swept through her, from the Cygnet to the
Cygnet's heir. Nyx shook free of the web of minds
that held her, and cried to the firebird,

"Brand* Not Rad! It's your father's spell! Remem-
ber!"

The firebird faltered above Rad. It tore its voice out
of Ro Holding and screamed, falling as if it had been
shot. Brand, his face rigid with the firebird's fury,
rolled to his feet and leaped in a single unbroken
movement, at his father. Draken, startled, nearly un-
leashed mage-fire; he pulled it back quickly as
Brand's body struck him. He staggered, regained his
balance and gripped Brand. The back of his hand,
coupled with the weight of time-paths, whipped

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   275

across Brand's face. He fell like the firebird had out
of the air, and lay still.

A few of the warrior-mages stirred; Meguet heard
an indrawn breath. Draken met their eyes, said
calmly, "It was necessary. He will understand." He
looked at Nyx. "The key."

Her eyes flicked at Meguet, leaning drained and
helpless against the stones. She bowed her head.
Something small, burnished with amber fire dropped
into her hand. Draken, his eyes on it, stepped toward
her. She flung the amber at his feet.

It exploded with all the firebird's beautiful enchant-
ments. For a moment Draken vanished among them:

a scattering of garnet roses, a diamond snowfall. But
as he picked himself out of the spell he had made,
(he mages held Nyx, shaped her back into the waning
moonlight as she tried to vanish. Draken, shaking
gold leaves out of his hair, stepped across Brand's
body to her.

"Perhaps." he said, "you will give me something
to fight after all in your peaceful kingdom. You and
your cousin who is not a mage."

He held her eyes and held out his hand. After a
long time, during which she stood like the warrior-
mages, a standing stone beneath the setting moon, she
reached into her pocket for the key to all the dreaming
worlds.

-Seventeen-

The first of the dragons appeared at dawn. Nyx
watched the line of light above the mountains turn
fiery with sunrise, and listened to Brand breathe. He
might have been the firebird still, his bruised face
empty, his thoughts hidden from her. Twice she had
heard him try to speak in the night, then stop. He sat
beside her on bare ground. The mages had tied his
hands behind his back, while his father roamed the
time-paths. They did not, Nyx guessed, want to use
power against Draken Saphier's powerless son. Rad
slumped against a rock near him. A web of power,
spun from mage to mage across the circle, trapped
him in its intricate strands; Nyx caught a glimpse of
it in the dawn, fine-spun and dangerous, each tendril
clinging to Rad, trembling a warning at his every
breath. It vanished from eyesight, then; the mages hid
it from the light of day. She felt no such elaborate
constraints on her; they knew she would not leave
Meguet or Brand. The mages had left Meguet free;

they watched with cold curiosity the odd enchant-
ments the Luxour pulled out of her. She was mage

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   277

and not mage. Nyx they understood; they might not,
Nyx feared, let Meguet return home. Meguet sat near
Rad, leaning against the same rock. She watched the
sunrise absently, frowning a little; Nyx wondered if
Meguet saw, instead of the rising sun, the great shin-
ing prism hidden within time, which was the Cygnet's
power and its eye.

She heard Brand's breath catch. An eye had opened
in the distant mountains: a second sun, red-gold, nam-
ing through the harsh, barren crags. A crag unfolded,
extended itself upward in a broad sweep of gold. An-
other eye opened. The true sun rose above them.
Shadows scattered away from the mountainside as the
dragon's face emerged. A second crag broke away,
moved upward into the sky, to catch the wind. The
dragon shrugged itself out of the mountain, soared
upward, light sliding like molten gold across its bright
scales. In that moment Nyx felt the slackening of the
mages' guard. It did not matter; as they watched the
dragon bum across the morning, no one could have
moved.

It came straight to them; its vast shadow, flung for-
ward, reached them first. It seemed, as the earth dark-
ened beneath its broad underbelly, to have swallowed
the sun. Then it veered, loosed the sun from beneath
its wing. It settled on top of the steep ruin of stones
near them. It stretched its wings in the light; gold
shook into their eyes. Then it faded into itself among
the rocks, its brilliant, craggy profile to the light. One
eye stared down at them, wide and ruthless as the sun.

Nyx felt a touch, and started. Brand had shifted

278 Patricia A McKillip

closer; his shoulder brushed hers. She looked at him;

the dragon had wakened something in him besides the
firebird's silent, endless cry.

"My father—" His voice caught. He began again,
softly, but Nyx sensed the mages' attention riveted on
them. "He won't stop this, until he finds his own
father. The dragon-mage."

"I know."

"Such monsters will make a wasteland out of Ro
Holding." He closed his eyes, his face twisting.
"Why must he take Ro Holding? There is a land for
him at the end of every path."

"He glimpsed the power in Meguet," Rad Ilex said
wearily. "It's mysterious, beyond his control, beyond
his experience. He will take apart Ro Holding to find
the source." Meguet's eyes nicked to him. She turned
her face away abruptly, her mouth tight. He reached
out with some effort, as if he lifted stone instead of
bone, and touched her. "I'm sorry. If I hadn't dragged
you here with me—"

"If I had just let you take the key," Nyx said bit-
terly.

Meguet's head bowed. "If I had not picked up the
rose."

"It's my father's fault," Brand said with savage
lucidity. "None of yours. Any of you." He struggled
impatiently with his bonds, and added dispassion-
ately, "I would like to kill him."

Nyx asked tentatively, "Do you remember—"

"Everything." He stopped. He raised a shoulder,
brushed it against his swollen cheek, where a few

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   279

fragmented time-paths had imprinted themselves in
blood. He looked at Rad finally and said again,
"Everything. You told me this would happen. That
you needed to leave Saphier to look for Chrysom's
key, and you told me why. You had told my father,
in all innocence, that it existed, and then you realized
that all the innocence was yours. You knew he would
kilt you for the key. I didn't believe you. Then he
came in and I saw his eyes. Dragon's eyes. You had
already opened a path to Ro Holding. He—I—" He
shook his head. "It becomes confused here. He tried
to stop you—I tried to stop him—I don't know how
I thought I could." He swallowed, added huskily,
"He was no one I knew then. Not my father—No
one. He had transformed himself. He was the dragon.
And I became the firebird."

"He made the firebird to kill me," Rad said, and
then was silent, as if words, like his hands, were fixed
to the mages' web of power and had become too
heavy. He lifted his head suddenly; Nyx, following
his gaze, saw a piece of morning sky detach itself and
fall. Against the gold-brown desert its shape became
visible; a sky-blue dragon, smaller than the first, with
eyes like cloud. It dropped onto another pile of stones,
and vanished again; with difficulty she saw it settle
itself, now stone-brown and grey, flecked with black,
a rock-dragon hidden among the rocks. "I envy
him," Rad whispered. "Seeing all their private
worlds." Only Brand stared at the ground, seeing
nothing. "Brand," Rad said, again with effort, and
Brand turned his dark, empty stare at him. "He didn't

280 Patricia A McK.illfp

know you either, then. You were someone for him to
use. He would have used anyone."

"Don't defend him," Brand said fiercely. "Not to
me."

"I'm not. He barely glimpsed then what he is
bringing to the Luxour now, and if you hadn't been
there, he would have turned himself into the firebird
to stop me."

"I was there. And so were you. He had no mercy
for either of us. It was cruel. And unforgivable."

"Yes. I'm only explaining why—"

"Power. I know my father that well at least." He
made a sudden, furious attempt at the leather thongs
binding his wrists. The mages watched impassively.
Nyx, her throat aching suddenly, reached out to
loosen them. Light charred the ground under her
hand; the snap of air numbed her fingers. She started
to rise, swallowing anger, to plead with the mages.
Meguet's eyes caught her, wide, warning, and held
her still.

"But why," Nyx asked Rad, when Brand had
calmed himself, "did Brand become human again,
those few hours every night? Why would Draken
have done that?"

"I don't think Draken did," Rad said softly. They
watched a crimson dragon, long and sinuous, flicker
in and out of time, its scenting tongue bright and
quick as lightning, burning and vanishing. The winds
of the Luxour finally dragged it into shape; it took its
place on another ruin. "Brand and I met in secret at
moonrise. Draken transformed him into the firebird at

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   281

midnight. I remember hearing the changing of the
guard, how the familiar ritual noises frayed apart at
the cry of the firebird. I think Brand broke his father's
spell every night trying to remember the significance
of moonrise, of midnight. Not even Draken could cast
a spell more powerful than love, or rage, or grief."

Brand shook suddenly with a terrible, noiseless
grief. He bowed his head, hid his face behind his hair;

Nyx saw the tears fall on the barren ground like rain.
She eased closer to him, slipped her arms around him.
He dropped his face against her. Her hold tightened;

she felt her own tears slide into his hair. The mages
cast no spell to stop her. She held him until his trem-
bling eased, and her own eyes were hot, heavy. She
sat back; he raised his head, shook the hair out of his
face. He leaned forward, kissed her; she tasted his
tears. He said softly,

"And so the firebird found you,"

"If the firebird had come to Ro Holding a month
or two earlier, it would never have come to me." Her
voice shook. "In some ways, I was as ruthless as your
father. The small birds in the back swamps of the
Delta know. Meguet knows."

He rested his face a moment longer against her
dusty hair. "My father does not intend to war against
swamp birds," he said wearily. "And whatever you
did to Meguet, she still loves you and she is still
alive."

Another dragon broke into the morning, this one
building itself out of a line of stones half-buried in
the ground. It was huge, as grey as smoke, with a

282 Patnaa A McKillip

flattened, predatory skull. Its eyes sparked light like
diamonds; they looked as hard and cold. One of the
mages whispered uneasily to another as it took to the
air. Its shadow slid slowly over them; it circled and
settled on a massive rise of stones as grey as itself.
Something in the distance disturbed it, perhaps an im-
age drifting out of the winds. Its jaws opened; a col-
orless light flashed out of it. One of the piles of stone
exploded, left a ghostly image of ruins where it had
stood. The shock of boulders hitting the ground
rocked the mages on their feet.

"Moro's name," Meguet whispered. Nyx watched
her tensely, wondering if she were about to vanish to
fight a dragon that made even the mages wary. An-
other appeared. This one Nyx recognized: A drifting
wall of steam among the pools tore itself open to
reveal an empty blackness, a hole in the shape of a
dragon, with eyes like stars, and breath that froze the
rocks it settled on. A few cracked; fragments rattled
down. It curled and breathed; the hot morning light
slid like white fire over the ice on the dark stones.

"How many more?" Meguet asked rigidly.

*Tm not sure."

"A dozen? Two?"

"Maybe. Not that a dozen more or less matters
much."

"Draken can't control them all," Rad said. His
head jerked, as if a strand of the mages' web had
tightened around his throat. He swallowed, leaned
back silently.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   283

"He is looking for his father," Brand said. "His
father will control them."

"I hope," Nyx murmured. Meguet turned her head,
looked at Nyx without fear, without hope. simply rec-
ognizing the frail bonds of time and memory between
them. With a shock deep in her, as if something
named Ro Holding had suddenly ceased to exist, Nyx
realized that the Luxour might hold the only moments
they had left. All for a firebird, she thought numbly.
All for a key. For a challenge to a mage on a warm
summer day. She stared blindly at her eyeless
shadow, felt sorrow, heavy, motionless, endless, begin
to replace her bones.

More dragons became visible: one of air, translu-
cent, its bones pale light, its wings faint shimmerings
of heat; another, formed of twilight cloud, with scales
of deep purple, blue-grey, violet. A white dragon,
carved of ivory, it seemed, and as delicate, shaped
itself out of steam and rode the wind to its distant
perch. The stones were filling with dragons, watching
the desert like birds of prey. A cobalt dragon flew out
of the broken roof of one of the palaces, and then a
black one with rust-red wings broke out of the pal-
ace's shadow, its great, ax-shaped head lowering on
its long neck to study them as it passed.

And then Draken Saphier came out of a flash of
silver.

He studied the dragons surrounding them, their
heads and great winged bodies etched in vivid, pow-
erful lines against the sky. He said to the mages,
"There are others. I haven't found my father- He may

254 Patricia A McKHHp

be one hidden in a misty time-path with dangerous
properties for the unwary. Have they been quiet?''

"The dragons, my lord?" With a start, Nyx rec-
ognized Magior.

"Our guests. What have I missed from Meguet?"

"A comment or two, my lord."

"I can imagine." He took a ritual blade from her,
walked over to Brand. His shadow fell over his son;

Brand lifted his face. Whatever his eyes held made
Draken toss the blade on the ground. He squatted in
front of Brand, held his shoulders. "Listen to me—"
He dodged spit, said again, patiently, "Listen." Brand
gazed past him, motionless now. "I was aiming that
spell at Rad Ilex. You flung yourself in the way,
in some misguided attempt to protect him. You fled
before I—''

"You," Brand said furiously, "destroyed my time-
paths so that I could never return to Saphier! So that
I could never speak the truth, never say that you had
made the firebird out of me to kill Rad Ilex."

"That's not true," Draken said gravely.

"What's not true?"

"That I never wanted you to return. I would have
searched for you in every world we conquered."

Brand's face flamed. He rolled so fast, his father
barely had time to move; his sharp kick caught
Draken Saphier in the chest, but only hard enough to
stagger him. Brand, his hands tied, was off-balance
as he rose. Draken spun around him, slid one arm
between his wrists and Jerked upward on the leather
thongs. Brand gasped. Draken forced his rigid arms

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   285

higher; the blood ran out of his face; his eyes closed.

"Listen to me," Draken said again, very patiently,
and Nyx thought coldly: Either here or in Ro Hold-
ing. She flung power across the web and ducked into
her own shadow. Meguet, moving faster than the eye
could follow, was a blur, picking up the blade Draken
had dropped. Nyx's power tangled in the web; it be-
came visible for a second, a flaring crosshatch of light
that dissipated just before it touched Draken. Meguet,
nearly invisible, brought the ritual blade slashing
down between Brand's wrists. It cut through the
leather, but Draken misted away at its touch. Meguet
vanished as he reappeared; the Cygnet, blown across
the winds like black flame, marked the place where
she had been.

Then a strange light sprang down out of nowhere,
peeled layers of wind and power and time itself apart
like paper to find her, force her, pale and shaking,
back into eyesight, despite all the Cygnet's power.
Nyx, stunned, dragged her eyes away from Meguet
finally, traced the light through the air above their
heads, through the bright morning sunlight, up stone
and the shadow flung by stone, to its source: the dra-
gon's mouth.

Around her no one moved. No one spoke. Even the
mages were staring upward. Rad Ilex might have un-
bound himself from their loose and fraying concen-
tration and slipped away, but his eyes too were on
the dragon slowly rising on the stone pile above them,
unfurling its wings to fly.

It had risen with the sun, Nyx remembered: the

286 Patricia A McKidip

golden dragon with the red-gold eyes. It had perched
up there all morning without a claw or a wing-bone
moving, its great eyes smoldering down at them, un-
blinking, until it had opened its jaws and caught Me-
guet with a flick of light as easily as a swamp toad
catching a butterfly.

It dropped off the stones; the sky darkened as. it
flung its shadow over them all. It came down fast, for
all its bulk; still no one moved, not even Draken, for
it held them all with its fiery eyes. It could have
landed on mem, or scorched them all to ash, stray
shreds of power for the winds to play with; no one
could guess what it might do, and no one lifted a
finger to stop it.

It vanished. So did the light holding Meguet. Nyx
still searched the sky for it, her eyes bewildered by
its absence, until movement among the motionless
mages drew her attention back to earth.

A strange mage walked among them toward
Draken. His hair was gold, his eyes were amber
flecked with red. He wore a robe of dragon scales that
drifted and glowed like the strange desert winds. His
face was clean-lined, hard and powerful, like the de-
sert itself, a thing so ancient it had been scoured by
wind and sun and time of everything except its es-
sence.

He stopped in front of Draken, studied him ex-
pressionlessly. Draken's face lost color in the light;

Nyx saw him try to speak, falter. The dragon spoke
first, his voice low, sinewy, harsh with unexpected
inflections. "You arc mine.'*

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   287

Draken's eyes burned, the dragon's gold in them
reflecting light. "I am Ragah's son."

"She gave me no name," the dragon said indiffer-
ently. "She asked me to name her and I did. A word
that means 'night-fall.' For her hair, and her powers
that waxed by moonlight. She sent a message to the
dreaming winds that she wanted a dragon-born child.
I heard her dream in my dreams. She haunted the
desert, she sent her wish on every wind, and I
dreamed and dreamed until she roused me, drew me
out of my world into this place. And I remembered
the human-born, the human shape. And now you are
here, Ragah's son, rousing dragons with your
dreams."

"I was looking for you." Nyx heard the wonder in
Draken's voice. "I didn't know I had already found
you."

The dragon sighed, a long, slow, lizard's hiss.
"You have found me." His burning, light-filled eyes
moved to Brand, standing in Draken's shadow, and
to Meguet, who still held Magior's ritual blade. He
turned then; his slow, unblinking gaze swept around
all the mages' faces. His hand opened. Nyx saw the
mage-web become visible, shining, all its strands
linked to Rad. The dragon's hand closed. The strands
snapped in his grip, vanished. Rad gripped the rock,
pulled himself to his feet, trembling with exhaustion,
or with wonder. "You have dreamed," the dragon
said to Draken, "of dragon-wars and found me."

"Teach me," Draken breathed. "Teach me. The
heart of power is the dragon's heart. You have all the

288 Patricia A McKiUip

power of the Luxour in you, all the power of the
dragon-worlds, all the power of time. You haunt my
dreams, your shadow spans my life. I have looked for
you since I was bom."

"You woke me."

"Yes."

"And you brought me here."

"Yes."

"For this." His face tightened; deep. bitter lines
formed. "For this." He looked at Nyx. His eyes were
endless; they had seen forever, and they left her
breathless, as if, meeting them, she had begun a slow
fall off the world. They went to Brand again, who
gave him only an expressionless, unyielding warrior's
stare. The dragon sighed again. ' 'What will you give
me to teach you?"

"Anything."

"Your son?"

"Anything." The word nicked across Brand's face;

he closed his eyes. "Everything."

"Seven years."

"Seven. Twelve. A lifetime."

"Seven I will take from you. In return, I will teach
you what you need to know before I will permit you
to call yourself my son."

"Yes," Draken breathed.

"If, in seven years, you have not learned what you
must leam, I will kill you." Draken opened his mouth
to answer, did not. "Answer," the dragon said. Nyx,
staring at him, felt the cold silken touch of dread and
wonder glide over her.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   289

"Yes."

"So dragons treat their children. So I have learned
from you, as I waited on that bright, high place, lis-
tening to your son. As I woke in my quiet dark to
listen to the mage who, running for her life away from
you, found herself faced with me. All these small,
disturbing human voices. Because of you, I was wak-
ened; because of you I listened, having nothing else
to do. You taught me."

Draken was silent. He turned his head, looked at
Nyx, as did Brand, Rad Ilex, and the entire circle of
mages, everyone but Meguet, who had closed her
eyes at the thought of the Cygnet's heir running head-
long into a dragon's lair. "You? You found my fa-
ther?"

"I didn't know," she whispered.

His attention moved to Brand. He seemed uncer-
tain, suddenly, as if, not seeing the firebird, he did
not recognize his son. "Brand?" he said. The hard,
set face with Draken's hair, his eyes, gave him noth-
ing.

"You wanted paths to find us," the dragon said.
"You woke us, brought us out to use us. To burn, to
annihilate. There are those among us who crave such
work. Like you, they do not discriminate. They may
begin here."

Draken moved a little, as if a wind had pushed him
lightly, "hi Saphier."

"You have brought us into your land." His slow,
burning gaze swept the mages again. "They could not
begin to fight us."

290 Patricia A McKillip

Draken whispered, "You would not destroy Sa-
phier." Something besides the memories of his dead
and blackened past touched Brand's face, altered the
white, stiff lines of it. His eyes glittered faintly, with
a shock of hope or horror, Nyx could not tell.

"It is a place," the dragon said indifferently, "to
begin."

"No." The wind pushed harder, moved Draken
back a pace. The mages' voices murmured around
him, shaken, protesting.

"You'll find another country. Take Ro Holding in-
stead. What does it matter where you rule, if you have
conquered time?"

"It matters."

"Why?"

"Saphier is the dragon's face. The Luxour is its
heart. Saphier's history is my past, my future. The
Luxour is my heart."

"You have no heart," the dragon said contemp-
tuously. "This stone has more heart. I should kill you
now, let them bum Saphier to ash and rubble. Shall
I?" he asked Brand, who started under his sudden
gaze. "Shall I? Answer."

Brand's hands clenched. His mouth tightened; his
silence wore at Nyx as she sat tensely, neither moving
nor breathing, listening. It wore at Draken, who
seemed to hear in it, or in himself, something of the
firebird's endless, anguished cry. "He is your son,"
Brand said finally. His voice shook. "How do drag-
ons treat their children?"

Lines that were not bitter shifted unexpectedly

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   291

across the ancient face. "Who taught you to riddle
with dragons? Your father? Does he know the answer
to that riddle? Tell us the answer, Ragah's son. Guess
if you do not know. How do dragons treat their chil-
dren? Answer."

Draken, his eyes on Brand's rigid face, started to
answer, stopped. He lifted one hand, hid his eyes from
what he saw. "With lies," he said. "With ruthless
cruelty. They make their children love them, and then
twist their love into hate, their trust into fury, their
innocence into despair and grief. So dragons treat
their children."

"No," the dragon said softly. "You are wrong. So
humans treat their children."

The mages* voices fluttered like leaves in a treeless
place. In the distance, the great, grey dragon rose on
its rock pile, sent a flash of deadly light at whatever
had annoyed it. The ground shook as the dragon-fire
scarred the Luxour; stones whirled into the air.
Draken watched them fall; they struck the earth like
random heartbeats. He said, his voice sounding
weary, almost as ancient as his father's, "I have noth-
ing to give you for Saphier but my life."

"A poor price."

"All I have. Spare Saphier. I beg you."

"It made you. You are its past, its future."

"It made Rad Uex. Something good must dream
its way out of the minds of dragons into the Luxour,
into the air of Saphier to shape the likes of Rad Ilex,
who of all my mages defied me. And Saphier made
my son. In spite of me."

292 Patricia A McKilf/p

"There is a price," the dragon said, "for Saphier."

"And all in it?"

"All."

"Take it," Draken said harshly, and bowed his
head.

The air ignited with silver. Paths tangled with
paths, melted, converged, tore, until it seemed to Nyx
that they were all trapped in Chrysom's impossible
black box, where all the threads of time led into one
another, and no path opened beyond the chaos. The
image of melted, burning threads of silver imprinted
itself on the air for moments after the time-paths had
vanished from every wrist.

"There are no more such paths anywhere in Sa-
phier," the dragon said. "Except one." He held out
his hand; the gold and ivory key lay in it. Again the
hard lines of his face eased; he looked at Nyx. "The
mage—what was his name? Chrysom. He was a gen-
tle man. I dislike burning books."

Nyx's face shook. She put her hands over her
mouth; the burning tears slid down between her fin-
gers. Meguet, tearless, stunned, turned to her as at a
touch, seeing what she saw: Time, nearly ended on
the Luxour, was shaping its path again toward home.

"I will take the key," the dragon said. He added
an afterthought, "And you, my twisted son. For seven
years. And I will take the dragons back. But who,"
he wondered of the mages, "will watch these human
dragons for me?1' The mages, under his eye again,
turned to stone. He lifted a finger, spun a thread of
fire. It streaked through the air and caught Rad Ilex.

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   293

Rad, white, silent, ringed by fire, stared into the
dragon's eyes. The winds died; time stilled on the
Luxour. In an hour. or in the next breath, Rad moved
again, turned to the mages of Saphier. The dragon-
fire parted, looped around his wrist, burning gold and
red and all hues between. He said nothing- He didn't
have to, Nyx thought. Only he and the dragon knew
what power had passed between them, and no one
seemed likely to test him.

"In seven years," the dragon said, "Rad Ilex will
come to me for Draken Saphier. Do not force him,
by any intention or act, to find me sooner than that."

In the motionless ring of mages, someone moved:

Magior stepped forward. "And who, my lord," she
asked humbly, "will rule Saphier? It is best for Sa-
phier if you choose."

"Who will rule in your place for seven years?" the
dragon asked Draken Saphier. "Answer."

Draken was silent. An errant wind scattered a hand-
ful of dust at his feet; briefly, his noon shadow shaped
the firebird. He swallowed something bitter, painful,
the lines on his face running deep, before he lifted his
head, held Brand's eyes.

"Brand Saphier will rule," he said. "Now and for
the rest of his life. I know Saphier. I will not have it
tear itself apart choosing between the dragon and the
firebird." He added, so softly that even the Luxour
stilled itself to hear, "If in seven years you have any
desire at all to find me, look for me here. The Luxour
seems the only thing that I have ever loved."

Brand's expression blurred, as if the magical winds

294 Patricia A. McKillip

had reshaped it briefly, and then shaped again the
warrior's mask. The dragon said to him,

"Is human justice served between father and son?
Are you content? Answer."

"No," Brand said huskily. His own hands
clenched; expression shook again into his face, and,
unexpectedly, into Draken's. "There is no justice for
this. Nothing will ever quiet the firebird's cry."

Draken nodded wearily. "I hear it now," he said.
He turned away from Brand, to his father.

"Come," the dragon said, and Draken vanished. A
black dragon with eyes of cobalt and gold lifted itself
into the winds above Brand. From the jumbled stones
and palaces the dragons rose, soared into the air,
shapes of fire and shadow, a progression across the
bright sky as strange and gorgeous as the firebird's
enchantments. As the dragon-mage led them back into
their secret worlds, the Luxour sent a shadow after
them, a memory in the wind: the Cygnet, with its
wings of night, its starry eye, following dragons
across an unfamiliar sky.

- Eighteen-

Nyx saw the face of the firebird one last time as the
dragons disappeared: The cry filled Brand's eyes, then
left them empty, searching the barren desert for some-
thing he had forgotten. She took a step toward him.
His eyes found her then. He waited, drained, motion-
less, for her to come to him, the terrible emptiness in
his eyes slowly filling again with memories, dragons,
the magic of the Luxour. She put her arms around
him, heard nothing for a long time but his breathing,
his heartbeat. Finally she heard his voice.

"Can you stay?"

She shook her head against him, her own face col-
orless, expressionless. "I must go home."

"Then how will I see you again?"

"There is a way," she said, but for once she
doubted herself. "There is always a way." She
shifted to see his face; it was set, but more in deter-
mination than despair. He even smiled a little, crook-
edly.

"I have never made things easy for you."

"I never liked things easy." She held him again,

296 Patricia A. McKillip

tightly, aware this time of all the silent, watching ma-
ges. "Will you be safe?" she asked him.

"The dragon rules Saphier," he said softly. "For
seven years. Even the most powerful of the warrior-
mages will be wary of that. I trust Magior. And Rad.
They will help me- Saphier's future has always been
its past. I don't know how to change that. Perhaps
only the threat of dragons can change Saphier's ways.
The threat of something more dangerous than itself."
He dropped his face against her lank, dusty hair,
kissed it. "Some day," he whispered, "we will find
that cave full of waterfalls and dragon-mist again."

"I'll find a way," she promised. Her throat ached.
"Chrysom did it. I can do it."

"I can't. This time you will have to come to me."

She looked at him, saw his face, his father's face,
even something of the dragon's hard, powerful face.
"If Saphier's heart is the Luxour, and the Luxour is
the dragon's heart, perhaps it is more your grandfath-
er's heart. He found something of Ro Holding to
value. Something ofRo Holding's peace."

"So have I," Brand whispered. He bent his head,
found her lips, coaxed peace from them until the
winds of the Luxour, hot and fuming and enchanted,
swirling around them, seemed to her the winds of
home. He raised his head finally; she felt him draw
in air as if he would swallow all the magic in the
winds.

She loosed him reluctantly. "Come to me,** he
said, and she nodded. He cast an eye over his mages
then. Some were watching him, astonished; others

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   297

dreamed across the distances, searching for a glint of
dragon-wing. Most had clustered in small groups, to
unravel the events that had so abruptly changed the
path of Saphier's future. Nyx looked for Meguet. She
stood beside Rad Ilex as he spoke with Magior; Nyx
saw him lift one hand, draw it lightly down Meguet's
hair. She stiffened slightly, then met Nyx's eyes. She
looked too tired to stand; her face pleaded silently:

Home.

"We must go,'*»Nyx said to Rad Hex as she joined
them. Magior, her face seamed with fine, troubled
lines, said to Nyx,

"Draken Saphier cast a spell, it seems, over his
entire house, as well as his son. We were all ensor-
celled by his vision. The dragon was wise to destroy
the time-paths. It is still a very powerful vision."

"There are other visions," Nyx said wearily. "Per-
haps the dragons of the Luxour will dream up some-
thing for the mages of Saphier to do besides war."

"Yes," Magior agreed, but doubtfully. "It will
take some time to change. Saphier has always
been'*—she gestured toward a sudden feathery sweep
of distant steam—"volatile."

"Saphier," Rad said grimly, "has a choice be-
tween inventing peace or ceasing to exist. A more
merciful choice than you would have allowed Ro
Holding."

"Yes." Magior cleared her throat. "I know. Force
is its own justification. It exists primarily because it
is capable of existing. Now that we are made pow-
erless, I can find no justification for what we had con-

298 Patricia A McKi/lip

temptated. I thought I was too old to change. Too old
to see Saphier in the light of anything but its own
history. We will need help. Your ideas, Rad, and
Brand's. Even Draken's. Perhaps, in seven years, he
will be alive to advise us."

"You would trust him?" Rad asked sharply.

*'l would trust his father," Magior said simply. "If
he permits Draken to live, he will have changed the
heart of Saphier itself." She paused, her eyes on Nyx.
"Perhaps, with Brand, it is already changing."

*'So will Ro Holding," Meguet murmured, "if you
manage to find each other again."

"Across mountains and seas and endless wastes,"
Nyx said, seeing them spread across the distance be-
tween Ro Holding and Saphier, each mountain, each
ocean, pushing them farther apart. "And worlds," she
added speculatively. "And time." She put a hand to
her eyes against the vision, felt Meguet's hand on her
shoulder.

"There is always—"

"A way," Nyx finished. She looked at Rad, won-
dering how anyone so haggard and spent that he could
scarcely cast his own shadow, could possibly be
standing upright, "Is there a way home?" she asked
him. "Will the dragon permit you to use Chrysom's
lime-path back to Ro Holding?''

He nodded, and held out his hand: What he had
sought in Ro Holding lay in his palm. "One last
time," he said with an effort. "Then I must return
the key to him. Or he will come back to Saphier look-
ing for it, and he will not be pleased. You'll have to

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   299

help me open the paths. I can hardly open the book
itself."

Nyx was silent, thinking of the key holding all the
mysteries of the Luxour, all Chrysom's innocent, se-
cret journeys. So was Rad; their minds touched in-
advertently, holding the same key. They pulled back;

their eyes met. Nyx said ruefully,

"Now I would be content for either one of us to
keep it."

"Yes." He reached out to Meguet, held her wrist
as he had when she had been pulled so precipitously
into Saphier's history. "So," he said without looking
at her, "I must return you to your Gatekeeper." She
said nothing, did not move, until he finally raised his
eyes. She said softly,

"I will never forget the dragons. Or the Luxour."

"Or the rose?"

She started to speak, then stopped. She smiled sud-
denly, and a little color came back into his drawn
face. "Or the rose that got us into all this trouble."

"Now you know why I dropped it there."

"Now," she said, "I know why I picked it up."

He held her eyes, using her, Nyx realized, as his
calm focal point of concentration. She turned
abruptly, for one last glimpse of Brand standing in
the Luxour, stones towering behind him in a tumbled
jagged disorder that seemed to be always on the verge
of order. In the next moment, in the next... Sur-
rounded by mages, ail their thoughts and ideas pulling
at his attention, he detached himself for a moment,
stood alone, saw only her. The Luxour slowly misted

300 Patricia A. McKiUip

from gold to cobalt-blue to black, until the only clear
thing in the world was the silver path to Ro Holding
forming beneath their feet.

Chrysom's tower, building around them out of the
mist, seemed, for a moment, another rising of stone
at the moment of change. It did change into a palace
and remained changed, though Nyx noted, with an
instant of surprise, without the firebird. Her throat
tightened. Rad's white dragon waited for him still; she
freed it. It leaped gracefully to its place across Rad's
heart. Together she and Rad fashioned a path back to
the Luxour while he still had strength to think. Me-
guet had not even that left; Nyx found her a moment
or two later, sunk deep into a leather chair and fast
asleep.

She paced a step aimlessly, bewildered by the si-
lence, some part of her still expecting to see the fire-
bird. Her bones ached with exhaustion, but she could
not bring herself to leave the tower. It seemed the
only bridge between two worlds, and a broken one at
that, but alt she had. Memories crowded into her
mind, far too many for the tower to hold; she had no
other place to keep them. She touched her face, and
still moving, found a tear on her fingers. Her hand
shook, her whole body trembled. She looked at Me-
guet, who had escaped the world somehow; not even
Nyx's tears brought her back. She was trapped, it
seemed, like the firebird, by memory: impossible to
go back, yet equally impossible to open the tower
door, leave the past behind her. She forced herself
still finally, stood in a drift of sunlight, her arms

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   301

tightly folded to stop her trembling. Still she could
shape no path, not even into the next moment.

The door opened abruptly. She caught a glimpse of
her mother's face, chalk-white and delicately lined,
before the Holder gripped her, shook her a little, and
finally pulled her into an embrace that took her breath
away. She blinked, vaguely aware mat her mother
was holding her upright; her bones preferred to spill
onto the floor.

"What happened?" the Holder was demanding,
her attention divided between Nyx's frozen face, her
torn, dusty clothes, and Meguet, dressed in the same
peculiar fashion, with blood on her sleeve and her
face as pale and still as ivory. "What happened?"

"I fell in love," Nyx said.

Meguet woke out of a dream of dragons. A black
dragon had been trying to tell her something: not the
red-eyed dragon of war, nor the dragon with the hu-
man eyes that had been Draken Saphier, but one with
a gentle voice, and eyes as cold and pure as stars. Or
had it been a dragon? she wondered, in the moment
between sleeping and waking. Something dark as
night that flew... She opened her eyes then and
found the night.

Memory returned slowly: She had fallen asleep in
a chair in Chrysom's tower, not, as her bones felt, on
the stone floor of a cave in the Luxour. Nyx was safe,
Ro Holding was safe, time had been breached and
sealed again. She gathered herself wearily, piecemeal,
and stood. Nyx had left a candle lit for her. In the

302 Patricia A McKiHip

dark yard beyond the south window, she saw another
flame. She moved toward it thoughtlessly, as if to
walk to it on air, before her mind woke and told her
what it was.

She turned and took the stairs instead.

She wondered, as she crossed the quiet yard, what
time it was, what day it was. Midnight might have
come and gone; there was no firebird to cry against
it. There was still a Gatekeeper; she saw a taper flame,
trembling in the sea air, rise to light his pipe. The
flame vanished suddenly, as if he had dropped pipe
and taper to stand, a dark figure against the torchlight
at the top of the turret steps.

She did not see him come down. He was just there,
with her in the yard, holding her face between his
hands.

"Meguet," he said, and she felt his swift, fierce
embrace, as if he could not bear even a shadow of
night between them. She held him as tightly, feeling
for the bone beneath his face, the bone beneath her
hands, feeling for his heartbeat against hers. "I
thought I lost you," he whispered.

She shook her head. "I came back." He said no
more, turning his face, bone by bone, against hers to
find her mouth. For a moment she wandered with him
beyond time, beyond memory, beyond weariness and
terror. A stray touch made her wince; she dropped
back into time.

"You're hurt," he said, his hands sliding lightly
down her arms, loosing her.

"Only a little." Draken's relentless eye tracked her

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   303

suddenly as she ran down the secret paths in her
mind; she hid her face against Hew's shoulder, added
numbly, "I should be dead. And you should be trying
to bar the gate against a hundred mages, and dragons
of air and night and stone that could tear this house
apart with a breath and toss it into the swamp. And
the dragon-lord of Saphier, Brand's father, who
caused all this trouble."

She felt him shudder. "There's been nothing at the
gate lately but what's expected, familiar. All the odd
enchantments went with you and Nyx. We had a
warning. And then nothing, not even a lost swamp-
bird. Blue sky and tranquil seas. And a Gatekeeper
going blind trying to shape you out of thin air. You
vanished out of the world with a mage who gave you

a rose-


She lifted her head, blinking. "I was dragged." She
could see vague lines and shadows on his face in the
torchlight; she could not see an expression. "Into a
desert. Like no place I have ever been, not even in
dreams. Dressed for supper in a hot, barren, nameless
wasteland where there were dragons or maybe not,
with a dying mage on my hands."

He made a sound, touched her again, gently. "Let's
go up," he said, "where I can see your face."

They sat in the turret, a dragon's eye of a moon
watching them from over the swamps while she told
him where the rose had led her. She could see him
clearly then, in the taper-light, the shadows beneath
his eyes, the ghosts of worry and care still haunting
his face as he listened, one hand linked in hers, so

304 Patricia A. McKtUip

still she scarcely heard him breathe. When she had
wakened herself again in the chair in Chrysom's
tower, he moved finally. His lips parted; he didn't
speak. One hand reached toward a taper, dropped- She
said very softly,

"You opened the gate between Ro Holding and
Saphier."

He met her eyes; still he didn't speak. Then she
heard his breath, long and slow like tide.

"I am Gatekeeper," he said finally. "In the light
of day or in me dark, in the end ifs me, standing
here, making a choice to open or not."

"Nyx said she was warned, just as she left with
the firebird, that there would be danger to the Cygnet.
You let her go."

He picked the taper out of its sconce then, lit his
pipe. "I promised her I would.*'

"Even when—"

"She gave me a name. The place where you were
lost, where she would go to find you if she found a
way. I never saw the dragon's shadow behind the fire-
bird, only me strange mage, and the firebird, who
cried questions without answers here in Ro Holding.
And only you. vanishing like that, dragged to any-
where by a mage who got past my eye."

"Did he? Or did you let him in, too?"

He shifted, putting the pipe down, and turned to
her. grasping both her hands in his. "He found his
own way in. As he had, you said yourself, many times
before. Chrysom made this house, and its gate, and
maybe left a door open somewhere, for the mage he

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   305

liked. If I had stopped Nyx from going, then what?
We would have had at least one dragon at our gate,
and maybe we can move the house across Ro Hold-
ing. but not Ro Holding itself to a safe place. The
Cygnet flies alone among the dangers of the night. It
doesn't live quietly in some safe place. And neither,
as you of all of us know best, does Nyx."

She opened her mouth, found herself wordless. The
house, she decided, in that tangled moment, had its
mysteries, and she was one of them and so was he.
Mysteries, by their nature, behaved in mysterious
ways. She settled back, calmer now. "Sometimes,"
she said, "I know you as well as yesterday. And
sometimes not at all."

He watched her, his own face calmer, still holding
her hands. He leaned toward her; she met him half-
way. The moon disappeared between their faces,
reappeared now and then, in various phases, until a
step disturbed them, and as they drew apart, the full
moon grew again between them.

Nyx stood at the top of the steps, looking tired but
composed. "My mother sent me to find you," she
said to Meguet. She held out a hand as Meguet
straightened. "She doesn't need you yet. She only
wanted to make sure you hadn't vanished again."
Meguet eyed her narrowly. Nyx had dressed for sup-
per in familiar fashion, but supper was long past, and
small jewels flashed askew in her hair, and a button
dangled by a thread.

"What have you been doing?"

"Trying to find Saphier." She tucked a strand of

Patricia A. McKillip

306

hair behind her ear. "What else?"

"How?"

"In books. And other places."

"What other places?"

"Odd places." Her eyes went to the Gatekeeper.
"Hew—"

"What other places? That box of Chrysom's?"

Nyx drew breath, loosed it. She folded her arms,
leaned against the stones. "Don't worry. I'm being
careful. I've figured out how to come and go; I don't
get lost inside the box and I don't go far down any
of the paths. None of them," she added wearily, "are
at all familiar. Hew—*'

He was shaking his head, his brows crooked. "I'm
sorry," he said gently. "You found your own path
there before; I can't do that for you. All I do is open
and close."

"Well." She pondered, her eyes on the stars, while
the Gatekeeper shifted past Meguet in the tiny turret,
came out to stand beside Nyx. He lit his pipe again.
"Assuming it's on the same world, in Ro Holding's
present, and not its past or future—which I can't en-
tirely rule out—it must be somewhere. Not even Ca-
lyx can find it, and she's been searching records as
old as the house."

"It's just as well," the Gatekeeper said, "from the
sound of things, that the Dragon hasn't flown itself
into the household records before now."

"I suppose." Nyx yawned; her eyes looked col-
orless and luminous as the moon. 'Meguet, watching

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   307

her through the open turret arches, asked with some
sympathy,

"What does your mother think of all this?"

"She seems unusually resigned. I suspect she
hopes that I'll never find Saphier and that I'll forget
about Brand. Perhaps. Anything is possible. But ex-
pecting me to forget Brand, and the Luxour, and the
dragons of the Luxour, and the dragon-mage, and all
that wild, unfocused power that shaped even the Cyg-
net out of our thoughts, is expecting too much. There
is, I reminded her, a precedent. Chrysom also loved
the Luxour."

"So did I," Meguet said softly. "For a few mo-
ments. When I saw it through Pad's eyes."

"You didn't tell me that," the Gatekeeper said.
She met his eyes across the torch fire.

"No," she said, smiling a little. "I felt it was
wrong of me, wanting to see dragons. Things that lay
beyond the Cygnet's eye."

"How do you know they do?" he asked curiously.
"Or do you know at all?"

She was silent, gazing back at him. "I don't," she
said, and got to her feet abruptly. "None of us would
have recognized a dragon before now. And perhaps I
never saw the Cygnet among the stars only because I
didn't expect it to fly anywhere in Saphier's sky."

She stepped outside the turret; Nyx was already
searching the night sky. "The Dragon hunts the Cyg-
net," Nyx murmured. "Behind the constellation? Or
above it? The black war-dragon with blood-red
eyes."

308 Patricia A McKillip

"I saw it," Meguet said wonderingly. "The con-
stellation in Rad's doorway. The dragon of night and
stars. It never occurred to me it might be—"

"There," the gatekeeper said, pointing over the
sea, "just on the horizon. That red star. Two red stars.
And look. One star its breast, one star the tip of its
outflung wing, those stars its claws, and those, that
faint cloud of stars, its breath of fire. And that star
over there, perhaps its tail? Would that be it?"

"I see it," Nyx breathed. Her fingers, chilled,
closed on Meguet's wrist. "There. South and west
above the sea."

"I see." Meguet was staring at the Gatekeeper.

"Is that what you saw, Meguet?"

"Yes."

"So Saphier lies somewhere beneath the dragon's
eye. I can sail there—"

"Please," Meguet breathed.

"I'll send explorers," Nyx conceded. "Messen-
gers- Even my mother would approve of that. As
much as she approves of any of this. I'll take Chry-
som's box to Rad Uex; perhaps he can help me find
a path between Ro Holding and Saphier. A private
path ..." Her voice trailed into silence; she contem-
plated the dragon's eyes a moment before she asked
slowly, "How would a man bom in a swamp in the
Delta in Ro Holding recognize a dragon?"

"I was wondering that myself," Meguet said. And
then she felt all thought fade away until she was
barely air, barely night within the night. She was
touched, it seemed, by the light, flickering, changing

THE CYGNET AND THE FIREBIRD   309

winds of the Luxour. "Were you there?" she asked
die Gatekeeper. His face was in shadow again; she
could not see his eyes. "On the Luxour? All those
dark swans flying out of my night-shadow, all those
winds stealing magic out of me. One of those swans
wasn't wind. One was real." He didn't answer. "Tell
me," she pleaded, her voice still spellbound, her
bones shaped of stars now, at her elbow and ankle,
throat and amazed eye. "Tell me that you saw the
dragons. That when I say dragon, that's what you will
see: the flight of dragons across the Luxour under the
noon sun."

He started to speak, stopped. Then he shifted into
light, and she saw them in all their terrible grace and
power flying through his eyes. He drew her against
him tightly, perhaps to hide what he had seen by day,
perhaps in memory of what he had fought by night.
"Gatekeepers don't leave the gate," he said at last
into her hair. "But what my heart does, flying out of
me in terror or wonder or love, only you can tell me,
because it will follow only you."

She felt his heart fly into her; her mind filled with
dreams and memories of the soft touches of wings,
the rustlings and night-munnurings of flight- Her hand
brushed his wrist; his fingers opened, linked with
hers. She whispered, "Then follow."

She led him down the turret steps. Behind them,
Nyx stood in the moonlight, waiting as patiently as
stone or time, for the slow dance of constellations to
reveal a path by star and water into the Dragon's
dawn.