The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus Read online

  The forest pulsed with power as Virginia felt the creatures of the wood draw near. In their footsteps a wild drumbeat echoed. The wind played around Virginia’s head like a living thing. She heard voices in it: exulting, laughing, swirling and dancing on the eddies of the air.

  “Free!” an ethereal voice cried. The wind danced and shivered as the voice coursed through it.

  “The hold of the Blackness is broken,” said another, one that spoke with a voice timeless and strong and deep: the sort of voice an ancient tree might have, if it could speak.

  “Where has the witch gone?” roared another voice, the voice of youth and battle and tooth and claw; the voice of wolves and hawks and bounding deer. “Let me at her!”

  “Gone for now, is she,” whispered the voice in the wind, trailing silver tendrils through the air.

  “We have defeated her purpose,” said the tree-voice. “Rest content.”

  “I have rested for five hundred years!” roared the animal-voice. “It is time that I act again!”

  “Peace,” said the tree-voice. “The time to vanquish our enemies will come when it comes.”

  “What have we been loosed for, if not to fight?” demanded the animal-voice.

  “We have been loosed to prepare. And to help this one, as we have done,” said the tree-voice. Virginia was suddenly aware of eyes on her. A warm breeze blew through her clothes and hair gently, kindly.

  “Sees much, the blind one,” whispered the wind-voice. “She has set us free.”

  They fell silent. They were waiting for Virginia to speak.

  “No,” she faltered. “I did nothing. It was you who rescued me.”

  She heard a sound like the near-silent laughter of a wolf.

  “Your need loosed our chains,” rumbled the animal-voice. “We feel the power in you… the life in you. We have waited five hundred years in darkness, bound and blind, for you to call us out.”

  “But I didn’t call,” Virginia said, her voice full of wonder.

  A voice spoke in her memory: “Through you I will wake the world.” She shivered, as one shivers at the touch of delight.

  Again they waited. Virginia said, “Who are you?”

  The wind-voice rushed past her ears. “We are the Children of the Burning Light!”

  “We are the Brotherhood of the Earth,” said the tree-voice. “We are the living spirits of the forest, of the beasts, and of the wind.”

  “What happened to you?” Virginia asked.

  The animal-voice growled. “We were banished by the traitor Morning Star, held in darkness that we might not rip out the throat of his Empire.”

  “We fought in the Great War, gloriously,” said the tree-voice. “With all of our Brethren and the righteous children of men.”

  “So few,” whispered the wind. “Few men in our ranks.”

  Virginia felt as though sharp eyes were piercing through her. “Have you children of men forgotten so soon how it was?” the animal-voice asked. “How the teeth and the claws and the antlers of the beasts ran red with the blood of traitors, how the trees sent their roots and branches to block off the roads, how the wind beat on the gates of the city? Do you no more tell how the River-Daughter and the Sea-Father swamped the ships of the enemy?”

  Virginia hung her head. “I am afraid we have forgotten everything we ought to have remembered.”

  She thought she heard the wind sigh, and the tree-voice said, “But the race of men was always short of memory. Or have you forgotten, Gwyrion?”

  The animal-voice grunted in reply, like the grunt of a boar.

  “Forgotten,” repeated the ethereal wind-voice. “What else have you forgotten, daughter of men?”

  Virginia held her head up again, and her face was wet with tears. “We have forgotten the King himself,” she said. “We have forgotten that there was ever a world of beauty before the Empire.”

  “The Empire!” the voice of Gwyrion, the animal spirit, spat. “Unholy offspring of Men and Blackness! Spawn of death and rebellion!”

  The tree-voice spoke then. A note of heart-breaking sorrow strained its words. “Have you truly forgotten the King? Can there be any hope for a world that has forgotten him?”

  It was the wind spirit that whispered, “She has not forgotten.”

  “I have seen the King,” Virginia said. “He came to me on a hillside near my home.”

  “Far away, your home,” said the wind.

  “There!” roared Gwyrion in a voice full of triumph. “The King’s feet have walked our earth again! Hope lost? How could you say such a thing, Tyrentyllith?”

  The tree-voice answered, “You are right, my brother. Of course you are right. He will come soon if in this generation human eyes have seen him.”

  “He will come soon!” Gwyrion roared. “We, the Children of the Burning Light, will prepare the way for him! We will fight, as we did in the Great War, and this time we shall see who will rise the victor!”

  “In good time, proud one,” said Tyrentyllith, the tree spirit. “Many, many of our Brethren still sleep, bound by the Blackness. Their silent dreams creep into the roots of the earth, even now. And do not forget what the prophets have foretold. It is the children of men who must prepare the way for the King.”

  “I don’t understand,” Virginia said. “If you are a small part of the King’s forces, you must have been a far greater army than men could raise up. How were you ever defeated?”

  A palpable silence came over the glen, and Tyrentyllith answered. “We did not only fight men, but the Black Ones as well.”

  “They would have fallen beneath our strength!” Gwyrion said.

  “Lost were we when our heart was taken,” the wind whispered sadly.

  “It is true,” the tree spirit said. “It was not force of strength that won the day against us. We lost the battle when our heart was broken.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Virginia whispered.

  “Traitors! Traitors are men!” the wind said in a sudden cold blast.

  “The children of men are loved above all else by our King,” said Tyrentyllith. “When they broke his heart, they broke us. He left the Seventh World of his own choice. For this reason, it is men who must usher in his return. Those who sent the King into exile must open their arms to him again.”

  “It has begun,” the wind said, quiet once more.

  “It has begun in you, daughter of men,” said the tree spirit. “And there are others. It was the life in you that awakened us, and will awaken the rest of our Brethren. The end of the Blackness is coming.”

  “Seeks you, does the Blackness,” whispered the wind. “It desires to use your power.”

  “I will never help them,” Virginia said.

  “We must be gone,” said the tree spirit. His voice was gentle in response to her words, though he neither confirmed nor denied what she had said. “We have work of our own to do. The earth has lived long without us. It is time the trees felt spirit at work in them again. But I have a gift to give you, daughter of men.”

  Virginia felt a small pouch pressed into her hand by a smooth hand large enough to enfold hers entirely. The pouch was woven of rough fibers.

  “Seeds,” Tyrentyllith said. “Life itself is in your hands. Use it wisely.”

  Suddenly Virginia felt that the tree spirit was gone, though how she knew she could not say. Before she had time to think more on it, Gwyrion’s deep voice was speaking. “The wild calls to me, and my soul rises up to meet the call. I must gather my creatures and teach them again what it means to have a beating heart to guide them! To you, little cousin, I give the strength and eyes of a hawk to watch over you. Heed its call at all times.”

  Virginia felt and heard the beating of huge wings lifting high above her, and then she knew that Gwyrion, too, was gone. Far off in the forest she heard a wolf’s howl, long and wild and free.

  Last, she felt the wind begin to play around her once more, and the spirit voice whispered to her.

  “My
name is the gift I give to you,” said the wind. “Llycharath is the name of the wind. In greatest need, call out for me. To ride the skies and hear what I may, I go.”

  There was a sound like leaves blowing in the trees, and then, though the breeze continued to blow, Virginia knew that Llycharath also was gone.

  Virginia rubbed her fingers over the pouch in her hand, and raised her head up high.

  “Farewell, Children of the Burning Light,” she called. When the echo of her voice had died away, exhaustion fell over her. She lay down in the clearing, and with the far-off keening of a hawk in her ears, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Late that night, Maggie rose from her bed and dressed quickly. Huss had supplied her with clean clothes, but she shunned them and dressed instead in the worn, stained clothing from the journey. Her coat seemed lighter without the heavy weight of the scroll tucked inside it. It seemed years since she had left the shelter of Mrs. Cook’s home to embark on the journey that had led her so far from everything she had ever known.

  A strange joy burned in her, untainted by the gravity and sorrow of the circumstances around her. She had found her path. She knew her enemy now; knew it by name. In the hours of the night she had come to believe it all: in the King, in the Veil, everything. And without fully realizing it, she had committed herself to fighting against Morning Star and his earthly stewards. Thread by thread, she was beginning to see a picture.

  Quietly as a cat, Maggie moved down the stairs and into the courtyard. She stayed in the shadows and watched as men began to gather. They wore black and carried swords. Jerome stood in the courtyard near the trapdoor. Each new arrival presented himself by laying his hand on Jerome’s shoulder. Jerome touched each of them and spoke words in a low voice.

  At last they were all together, fifteen young men with strong arms and a steady fire in their eyes. Maggie watched as Jerome approached the trapdoor and beat out a rhythm upon it. It swung open and the men began their descent.

  As the last man’s cloak disappeared below the ground, Maggie darted out from the shadows and slipped under the trapdoor even as it began to close. It shut behind her with a musty thud, plunging her into deep blackness. Just ahead of her she could see the faint lantern light of the men. She followed as quietly as she could.

  The men wound their way through the underground passages, turning at the door where the rebels had gathered only a night before. The new corridor branched off in several directions, with no markings of any kind that Maggie could see to indicate where they would lead. From one, Maggie heard a distant roar. The men paused for a moment, and she heard Jerome’s voice.

  “That way leads to the river,” he said. “It is a dangerous escape, especially now, when the river is low. It leads out onto a thin ledge, and from there it is a thirty foot drop to the water.”

  They moved on in silence. After a short while they reached a steep stone staircase like the one that descended from Huss’s courtyard, seeming to end in a ceiling of rock. Maggie hung back as the men began the ascent. Jerome put his shoulder to the rock and pushed. It lifted easily. A faint, dusty light came down from the opening. The men extinguished their lanterns and left them in the tunnel as they climbed into the house above.

  Maggie waited a while, her heart pounding. At last she bit her lip and climbed the crumbling staircase. She emerged in a wine cellar. The thick cellar door was slightly ajar. She approached it softly and pushed it until she could see outside. The cellar opened into a kitchen, empty but for Jerome and his men. They were creeping silently toward the kitchen door, beyond which a bright light shone. The sound of coarse laughter could be heard from the house.

  Maggie waited and watched as the men whispered to one another. In the next instant they burst through the door to the light beyond, and the house filled with shouts and the sounds of clashing steel.

  Lightly, Maggie ran to the door and looked out. Jerome’s men were evenly matched. There were at least ten guards in the foyer, guarding the stairs, and more were appearing every minute from rooms above and around. Maggie’s eyes flitted up the stairs to where she knew Libuse’s room must be.

  They’ll never make it, Maggie thought. There are too many guards. They’ll never defeat them in time to help Libuse.

  The thought was barely gone from her mind before Maggie acted. Fixing her eyes on the staircase, she left the safety of the kitchen and ran into the melee. She darted through the fight and reached the stairs without any trouble. No one even seemed to see her.

  As fast as she could, she ran up the stairs. At the top she paused for a moment and looked wildly around her. At the far end of the hall was a door, and someone was pounding on it from the inside.

  Libuse.

  Maggie raced toward the door, and let out a startled scream when a man in black armour seemed to appear out of nowhere. Her heart pounding wildly, she laughed slightly when she realized that the suit of armour was empty—a piece of art to adorn the hall. But her eyes lighted on the axe in the empty, gloved hand, and she wrested it free and charged at the door.

  “Get back!” she shouted, and drove the axe into the door. She hacked around the lock, sending wooden splinters in every direction, and kicked it. It swung open.

  Libuse was inside, a spear in her hand raised and pointed at the door. She lowered the spear without a word when she saw Maggie. The princess was dressed like a man in dark clothes. Her long brown hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  “We haven’t much time,” Maggie said. An idea occurred to her. “Do you have a cloak with a hood?” she asked. “Anything to cover my hair?”

  “Yes,” Libuse said, and flung open a wardrobe. She pulled out a blue cloak and handed it to Maggie. “Will this do?” she asked.

  “Perfectly,” Maggie said as she tied the cape around her shoulders and pulled the hood up over her hair.

  “Why…?” Libuse asked.

  Maggie smiled. “Because Libuse is not a redhead.”

  Together the two women cautiously made their way to the top of the stairs. Below, the men were still fighting. A few men, both guards and students, lay wounded or dying on the stairs and the floor, but for the most part little progress seemed to have been made. Both sides were succeeding only in frustrating the other.

  “We came up through the cellar,” Maggie said. “Do you know the way?”

  “Yes,” Libuse said.

  “Then go to the professor,” Maggie said. “Go as fast as you can. No one will follow you.” She put her hand on the princess’s shoulder and pushed her gently. “Go,” she said.

  Libuse looked deeply into Maggie’s eyes for only a moment, but Maggie read volumes in the look. Then the princess turned and ran down the stairs, swift as a gazelle, gracefully leaping the steps. Near the bottom she changed course and vaulted over the banister, landing on the ground where no one was fighting. Maggie watched the princess disappear through the kitchen door and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Quietly, Maggie descended the stairs, still clutching the old axe in her hands. She followed Libuse’s example and vaulted the banister so that no one saw her land. Softly she made her way to the kitchen, and stepped inside the door to witness a sight that made her heart stop.

  A guard stood in front of the cellar doors, pointing a crossbow at Libuse’s throat. The princess held her head high, her whole bearing regal. She was staring death in the face, and she did not look away.

  Before Maggie could do anything, the man lowered his crossbow and stepped away from the cellar door. He bowed low as Libuse regarded him.

  “Go, my lady,” Maggie heard him say. “May the stars give you speed.”

  Tears filled Maggie’s eyes as Libuse entered the cellar and passed beyond vision. A moment later, a shout arose from the foyer.

  “The princess is escaped!” a voice bellowed.

  Maggie swallowed hard and ran back into the foyer where the guards could see her. Her blood froze as they caught sight of her. She whirled on her heel and ran ba
ck into the kitchen, through the cellar doors.

  The men were right behind her as Maggie dropped through the trapdoor and raced down the steps into the darkness. She could see nothing—the tunnels were black as midnight, and she had no time to light a lantern. Muttering a prayer under her breath, she stumbled down the black corridor, listening to the echo of footsteps behind her as the guards gave chase. The axe in her hands scraped against the rock walls. She dropped it without regret.

  The bobbing light of lanterns danced off the walls behind her and glinted off the water that ran down the tunnel walls, illuminating flecks of gold in the stone. Maggie’s mouth was dry as she ran, and her fingers brushed against the cold, slimy rock.

  They were gaining.

  She picked up speed, knowing that she had to stay where they could see her; and knowing, too, that she could not afford to be caught. They were shouting for her to stop, and she heard one of them curse as one of his fellows shoved by him, forcing him into the rock wall.

  A roaring sound met her ears.

  She swerved down the new tunnel. Libuse’s cloak caught on the stone. The men were almost upon her as her cold fingers worked to untie the cloak. At last it came free, and she left it behind her without a moment to spare.

  Not far ahead, the river roared.

  Someone shouted, “This way!” Lantern light filled the tunnel behind her. Ahead, another sort of light was filtering its way into the darkness. Moonlight.

  Maggie’s legs felt as though they would give way beneath her, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to give it one last burst of energy. She closed her eyes and ran.

  She nearly fell over the ledge.

  She caught her breath in great gasps as she looked over her toes at the raging water below, storming at the base of a steep drop. Above her to the right, a great bridge cast its shadow over the river. The lights of other bridges illuminated the river in both directions, and waves crashed up against a dark island downstream. The air was piercingly fresh and cold, and the moon shone high above.

  The men were coming.

  The ledge was just wide enough to stand on, and slippery with spray. Maggie shut her eyes and moved to the right, her back pressed tight against the rock wall. Her hands clutched for something to steady her, but they found only smooth stone. Breathing hard, she inched along the ledge toward the shadow of the bridge.