Kingfisher(85)

Where had he been? he wondered, seeking Dame Scotia’s face again to steady himself as he balanced precariously between worlds.

He remembered then the knight in black he had battled with a broadsword, whose impervious, implacable strength within the armor, behind the expressionless helm, had seemed to him the shape and invincible face of his own confusion, his conflicted impulses. The lovely, smiling, unexpected face that appeared beneath the helm as he lay vanquished on the ground had transformed the dark.

“How did you do that?” he demanded, incredulous again. “Is there some Ravensley in your past? Is that how you could follow me even here?”

“Ravensley? Not that I know,” she answered, looking baffled. “The family crests tend toward beasts that get along very well with this world. Is that where we are? In that fay realm?”

He glanced at the silent trees, the bay streaked with long sluices of mudflat as the tide slowly, gently, pulled back into the sea. “I’m not sure. In someone’s past, I think.”

“Is that why you stopped here? Because you sensed something? It drew you here?”

“I stopped because I heard a rumor that within a shabby diner advertising all you can eat there might be the vessel of ancient and enormous power I was requested to find and return to Ravenhold.”

“Ravenhold. Not Wyvernhold.”

“I have the raven’s eyes. So I’m told. And the raven’s heart. I would recognize what belongs to the raven.” He wandered restively a few steps to where the Kingfisher Inn should have cast its shadow, should have hidden the water from view. “Apparently, the inn vanished when it saw me coming.”

“The entire town vanished,” she breathed. “It’s like a dream. A spell cast over us.”

“Yes.”

“Has this happened to you before?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, memories flooding into his head, a colorful wave of scraps, moments, brief and timeless.

“Well, how— What do you do to find your way out of it?”

He looked at her from within the tide, no longer seeing her. “What makes you think I have ever wanted to find my way out? Have you ever been spellbound?”

“Not until now.”

“This is where I found everything I thought I wanted. I left the world behind to come to this place. I left my heart here, always, so that I could find my way back. Now I can’t even find that.”

“What?”

“The face I loved. My heart.” He paused, searching for one face in memory, and finding someone else entirely. “You should not be here.”

“No,” she said softly, somberly. “But I am. Lord Skelton warned us about quests. How they reveal even when they seem to conceal, or confuse, or make no sense whatsoever. Maybe this is not the spell that binds your heart; maybe it is part of the quest you are on.”

“This has nothing to do with Lord Skelton’s quest—”

“You are searching for the same thing,” she said inarguably. “What would you have done with that extraordinary vessel if you had walked into the Kingfisher Bar and Grill and found it there? You recognize this marvel, you take it—and you do what with it? Use it to threaten your own father with war if he doesn’t return a long-forgotten land to its rightful ruler? Would you really do that?”

He was seeing her clearly, then, and wondering at the question, which took on dimensions he hadn’t noticed before, or had so completely forgotten why he should care about them. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes. I would have. If I had walked into the Kingfisher Inn instead of into this mystifying, exasperating no-place. This mist would still have been in my head instead of all around us. Now, my head is appallingly clear. And when we are finally allowed to leave this place, I will be of no use any longer to the one who enchanted me. Or to myself,” he added with wry sorrow. “I will be disenchanted.”

He was astonished at the sudden sheen in her eyes, the well of tears from some source hidden within her prowess, her composure.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I should never have followed you so far.”

“I didn’t think anyone could.” He was silent again, thinking clearly for once, and finding it disconcerting. “If this isn’t within the definition of Lord Skelton’s idea of a quest, and it isn’t the enchanting place I had begun to know so well—if some power is guarding that vessel from both the wyvern and the raven, then where are we? Who brought us here?”

“Good question,” his mother said, and he saw the three familiar faces behind Dame Scotia.

She whirled, as though she felt the intent gazes homing in between her shoulder blades.

“Who is this,” Vivien wondered, “standing between you and me, my love?”

Scotia moved again, quickly, stepping to one side of Daimon. “Lady Seabrook,” she exclaimed, and Morrig smiled suddenly with delight.

“Dame Scotia Malory. I met your ancestor Tavis once, you know. Well, of course you don’t, but I did. You’d think, writing all those tales of valor and romance, he would have led a more respectable life. But then, how would he have recognized me?”

“You knew Tavis?” Scotia said faintly.

“Of course. I have been at the Wyvernhold Court since the first King Arden overran Ravenhold. I thought it would be the best place to hide.”