WE START WITH a thief: slim, wiry girl with ash-gray hair and eyes the color of the winter sky. No one knew how old she was and no one cared. Old enough to beat; just barely old enough to bed.
Tarsia was running from an angry baker. The loaf tucked under her arm was still warm. She dodged between the stalls of the market, heading for a spot where she knew she could climb the tumbledown wall that ringed the city.
From there she could run surefooted across slate roofs, hide among the chimneys. A creature of the wind and sky, she could escape all pursuit.
She heard the whistle of the guard’s warning and the pounding of his running feet. Ill luck: he was between her and the wall. Behind her, the baker shouted curses. She changed course abruptly, ducking into the mouth of an alley and—too late—realized her mistake.
The walls were slick stone. Though she climbed like a monkey, she could not scale them. The alley’s far end had been blocked by a new building. A dead end.
She heard the guard’s whistle echoing down the cold stone walls and remembered the feel of the shackles on her wrist. Her bones ached in memory of the cold jail.
A jumble of papers that the wind had blown against the alley’s end rustled. A rat peered out at Tarsia—a grizzled old grandfather rat who watched her with an arrogant air of unconcern, then turned tail and darted into a hole that had been hidden in the shadows. It was a dark, dank hole just the width of a small thief’s shoulders.
Tarsia heard the footsteps at the mouth of the alley and, like a sensible thief with a healthy concern for her skin, she dropped the loaf and squeezed into the hole. Her shoulders scraped against the damp stone. A creature of rooftops and light, she wiggled down into the darkness.
On her belly, she groped her way forward, reminding herself that rats were only bats without wings. As a child of the rooftops she knew bats. But she could hear her heart beating in the narrow stone passage and she could not lift her head without bumping it. She inched forward, telling herself that surely the drain led into a larger passage; it could not just get smaller and darker and damper.
A cold blast of air fanned her face, carrying scents of still water, damp stone, and sewage. At last, she could raise her head. She felt a soft touch on her ankle—a tiny breeze rushing past—with only a hint of fur and a long tail.
She heaved herself out of the drain into a larger space, quick and clumsy in her eagerness to move. She stepped forward in the darkness, stepped into nothing and stumbled, clutching at an edge she could not see, slipping and falling into a moment she did not remember.
A thunder of wings from the pigeons wheeling overhead, the scent of a charcoal fire—damp, dismal smell in the early morning—drifting from a chimney. The slate roof was cold beneath Tarsia’s bare feet and the wind from the north cut through her thin shirt. In one hand she clutched the damp shirt she had taken from a rooftop clothesline.
She was listening.
She had heard a sound—not the rattle of the latch of the door to the roof. Not the pigeons. Perhaps only the wind?
There again: a rumbling like drumbeats and a wild sweet whistling like pipes in a parade. From behind a cloud swept the chariot of the Lady of the Wind. She brought the sunshine with her. She wore a silver crescent moon on her forehead and a golden sun shone on her breast. Ash-gray hair floated behind her like a cape. Four lean hounds—winds of the North, South, East, and West ran laughing through the sky at her side.
The Lady looked down at Tarsia with wise eyes, smiled, and held out her hand. Tarsia reached out to touch her.
Tarsia’s head ached and her feet were cold. She opened her eyes into darkness, leaving behind the bright dream of a memory that had never been. Tarsia had watched the caravan that carried tribute to the Lady leave the city, heading north, but she had never seen the Lady.
The hand with which Tarsia had clung to the edge was sore and stiff; when she touched it to her lips, it tasted of blood. She lay half-in and half-out of a cold stream that tugged at her feet, as it flowed past.
She could not go back, only forward. She felt her way slowly, always keeping her hand on the wall and always sniffing the air in hopes of scenting dust and horses—city smells. She heard a rumbling sound ahead that reminded her of cartwheels on cobblestones, and she quickened her pace.
The tunnel opened into a cavern—a natural formation in the rock of the earth. Patches of fungus on the walls glowed golden, casting a light dimmer than that of the moon.
The giant who lay in the center of the cavern was snoring with a rumbling like cartwheels. He slept in a cradle of rock, molded around him, it seemed, by the movements of his body. The air that blew past the giant, coming from the darkness beyond, carried the scents of grass and of freedom.
A giant blocked her way and she was only a small thief.
She had never stolen from the house of the wizard or the stall of the herb-seller. She knew only the small spells that helped her break the protection of a household.
The giant had an enormous face—broad and earth colored. He shifted in his sleep and Tarsia saw the chain on his ankle, bound to a bolt in the floor. The links were as thick as her leg; the rusted lock, the size of her head. She wondered who had imprisoned him and what he had done to deserve it. She tried to estimate the length of the chain and judged it long enough to allow him to catch anyone trying to sneak past.
The shifting breeze ruffled his hair and the rumbling stopped. Nostrils flared as he sampled the air. “I smell you,” he said slowly. “I know your scent, witch. What do you want with me now?” He spoke as if he knew her.
Tarsia did not move. One hand rested on the rock wall; one hand uselessly clutched her knife. The giant’s eyes searched the shadows and found her.
“Ah,” he said. “The same eyes, the same hair, the same scent—not the witch, but the witch’s daughter.” He grinned and Tarsia did not like the look in his eyes. “You were a long time in coming.”
“I’m no one’s daughter,” she said. Giants and witches she had no place in this. Her mother? She had no mother.
“I’m just a poor thief from the city. And I want to get back.”
“You can’t get past me unless you free me, witch’s daughter,” he said.
“Free you?” She shook her head in disbelief. “How? Break the chain?”
The giant scowled. “A drop of your blood on the lock will free me. You must know that.” His voice was unbelieving.
“How can you hope to win your mother’s throne when you don’t even know—”
“Who is my mother?” she interrupted, her voice brittle.
“You don’t know.” He grinned and his voice took on the sly tone she had heard from strong men who did not often have to be clever. “Free me and I’ll tell you.” He pulled his legs under him into an awkward crouch, his head bumping the cavern’s ceiling. “Just one drop of blood and I’ll let you go past. Even if the blood does not free me, I’ll let you go.”
“Even if it does not free you?” she asked warily.
“You doubt yourself so much?” He shrugged. “Even so.”
She stepped forward, wary and ready to dart back to the passage. With her eyes on the crouching giant she nicked the scrape on her hand so that the blood flowed fresh and a drop fell onto the rusted lock. She backed away. The giant’s eyes were fixed on the lock and on the smoke that rose from the lock, swirling around the chain.
She reached the far side of the cavern while the giant watched the lock, and from that safety she called out sharply, “Who is the witch who bound you here, giant? Keep your part of the bargain. Who—?”
“There!” the giant said. With a triumphant movement, the giant tugged the chain and the lock fell free.
“Who is the witch?” Tarsia called again.
“Thank you for your help, witch’s daughter.” He stepped past her, into the darkness where the ceiling rose higher.
“I will go now to playa part in bringing the prophecies to ass.”
“But who is my mother?” she shouted. “You said you would tell me.”
He grinned back over his shoulder. “Who would be strong enough to chain a son of the earth? No one but the Lady of the Wind.” He stepped away into the darkness.
“What?” Tarsia shouted in disbelief, but her voice echoed back to her. She could hear the giant striding away in the darkness and her mind was filled with the thunder of wings, with the baying of four lean hounds. She ran after the giant, knowing that she could not catch him but running in spite of that knowledge. The scent of fresh air and growing things grew stronger as she ran. “Wait,” she called, but the giant was gone.
The air smelled of newly turned earth. She ran toward a bright light—sunlight of late afternoon. She could see the marks left by the giant’s fingers where he had torn the rock aside and pushed his way out. His feet had ripped dark holes in the soft grass and the prints led down the rolling hills to the river that sparkled in the distance. She thought that she could see a splash in the river—tiny and far away—which could have been a giant splashing as he swam.
Sometimes stumbling, sometimes sliding in the grass, she ran down the hills, following the footprints. Ran until her legs slowed without her willing it. She trudged along the riverbank as the shadows grew longer. She was heading north. The mountains lay to the north, and the Lady’s court was in the mountains.
The light was failing when she stopped to rest. She sat down just for a moment. No more than that. Shivering in the chill twilight, she tumbled into a darkness deeper than the tunnels beneath the city.
A scent of a charcoal fire—damp dismal scent in the early morning—but Tarsia did not stand on the cold slate of the roof. The wind that carried the scent of smoke blew back her hair and the sound of wings was all around her.
She stood at the Lady’s side in the chariot and the four hounds of the wind ran beside them. Far below, she saw the gray slate rooftop and the fluttering clothes on the line. Far below, the ancient towers of the city, the crumbling walls, the booths and stalls of the marketplace.
“This is your proper place, my daughter,” the Lady said, her voice as soft as the summer breeze blowing through the towers. “Above the world at my side.” The Lady took Tarsia’s hand and the pain faded away.
Tarsia heard a rumbling—like the sound of cartwheels on a cobbled street. Far below, she saw the towers shake and a broad, earth-colored face glared up at them. Shaking off the dust of the hole from which he had emerged, the giant climbed to the top of the city wall in a few steps. He seemed larger than he had beneath the earth. He stood on top of the old stone tower and reached toward them.
Tarsia cried out—fearful that the giant would catch them and drag them back to the earth. Back down to the smoke and the dust.
The scent of smoke was real. Tarsia could feel the damp grass of the riverbank beneath her, but she was warm. A cloth that smelled faintly of horse lay over her.
She forced her eyes open. A riverbank in early morning mist sparkling on the grass; a white horse grazing; smoke drifting from a small fire; a thin, brown-haired man dressed in travel-stained green watching her. “You’re awake,” he said. “How do you feel?”
Her head ached. She struggled to a sitting position, clutching the green cape that had served as her cover around her. Wary, used to the ways of the city, she mumbled, “I’ll live.”
He continued watching her. “You’re a long way from anywhere in particular. Where are you going?” His accent matched that of traders from the South who had sometimes visited the city.
She twisted to look behind her at the hills. She could not see the city, and she wondered how far she had come in the winding tunnels. “I came from the city,” she said.
“I’m going away from the city.” More alert now, Tarsia studied the white horse. It looked well fed. The saddle that lay beside the animal was travel worn, but she could tell that it was once of first quality. The cloak that covered her was finely woven of soft wool. A lute wrapped in similar cloth leaned against the saddle.
“I’m a minstrel,” the man said. “I’m traveling north.”
Tarsia nodded, thinking that when a person volunteered information it was generally false. No minstrel could afford a saddle like that one. She looked up into his brown eyes—noting in passing the gold ring on his hand. She knew she could trust him as a fellow thief. As far as she could trust a thief. She was not sure how far that was, because she had always preferred to work alone.
“I was planning to head north too,” she said. “If you take me with you, I can help you out. I can build a fire that doesn’t smoke …” She looked at the smoldering fire and let her words trail off. She knew she looked small and helpless in the cloak and she hoped that her face was pale and smudged with dirt.
“I suppose I can’t very well leave you here,” he said, sounding a little annoyed. “I’ll take you as far as the next town.”
She got to her feet slowly, taking care to appear weak.
But she made herself useful—poking the fire so that the sticks flamed. She toasted the bread that the minstrel pulled from his pack and melted cheese on thick slices.
She helped him saddle the white horse. On a pretext of adjusting the saddlebags, she slipped her hand inside and found a money pouch. Swiftly, she palmed one, two, three coins—and slyly transferred them to her own pocket for later examination. Even if he only took her to the next town, she would profit by the association.
As they traveled alongside the river, she rode behind him on the horse. “How far north are you going?”
“To the mountains,” he said and began to pick a tune on his lute.
“To the court of the Lady of the Wind,” she guessed, then suppressed a smile when he frowned. Where else would a minstrel go in the mountains? She amended mentally; where else would a thief go? “Could I come with you?”
“Why?”
She shrugged as if reasons were not important. “I’ve never been to a court before. I’ve heard the Lady is very beautiful.”
The minstrel shook his head. “Beautiful, but wicked.”
“I can pay my way,” Tarsia said, wondering if he would recognize the look of his own coins.
But he shook his head again and the tune he was playing changed, mellowing to music that she remembered from her childhood. She could not remember the words except for the refrain about the beautiful Lady and the four lean wind hounds at her side. The Lady was the sister to the sun and daughter of the moon.
When the minstrel sang the refrain, it had a sneering, cynical tone. The lyrics were about how the Lady had bound the spirits of the Earth, the Water, and the Fire, how she had captured the four winds and bound them in her tower, about how the world would be unhappy until the four winds were free.
“That isn’t the way that I remember the song,” Tarsia said when the minstrel finished.
He shrugged. “In my country, we pay the Lady no tribute. Our lands have been dry and our crops have been poor for five long years. We do not love the Lady.”
Tarsia remembered the parade that was held each year in the Lady’s honor when the tribute was sent. The city was noted for its silverwork, and each year, the best that the artisans had produced was sent to the mountain court. And the winds blew through the towers and brought rain for the farmers around the city walls.
Last year, at the end of a day of picking the pockets of parade spectators, Tarsia had climbed the city wall and watched from above the gate while the caravan headed north, winding between farmers’ huts and green fields.
On her high perch, she had been chilled by the wind but glad to be above the crowd. The last horse in the caravan had carried a silver statuette of the Lady gazing into the distance with one hand resting on the head of a hound. Tarsia had felt a kinship with the Lady then—alone and proud, above the world.
“Why don’t you pay tribute?” she asked the minstrel. “Are you too poor?”
“Too proud,” he said. “Our king will not allow it.”
“How foolish!”
The minstrel smiled wryly. “Maybe so. The whole family is foolish, I suppose. Idealistic and stiff-necked.”
“So the people of your land will die of pride.”
He shook his head. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe something will happen.” He sighed. “I don’t know, though the king seems inclined to rely on luck. He seems to think the prophecy will come to pass.”
Tarsia frowned. “Why are you going to the Lady’s court if you don’t like her?”
“A minstrel doesn’t worry about magic and winds.” He started to play another song, as if to avoid further discussion.
The notes echoed across the slow green waters of the river and the steady beat of the horse’s hooves provided the rhythm. He sang about an undine, a river nymph who took a human lover, then betrayed him to the waters, letting the river rise to drown him.
Trees with long leaves trailed their branches in the water. The path twisted among the gnarled trunks. They wandered deeper into the shade and the river seemed to take the sunlight into itself, letting it sparkle in swirling eddies but never allowing it to escape. On the far side of the river, the bank rose in a fern-covered cliff, decked with flowers.
“Pretty country,” Tarsia said.
“Treacherous country,” said the minstrel. “If you tried climbing the cliff you’d learn that those flowers mark loose rock, ready to give beneath your hand or tumble down on you.”
At dusk, they were still in the wood and the trees all looked the same. They made camp in an inviting glen, but the tiny fire that Tarsia built seemed to cast little light.
Tarsia thought she heard rustling in the trees and once, while she was toasting bread and cheese for dinner, thought she glimpsed a flicker of white in the distance over the river. She wrapped herself in the minstrel’s extra cloak and curled up alone by the side of the fire.
For a moment she thought that she was in the cavern beneath the city: it was dark and cold. But the wind that beat against her face smelled of flowing water and growing things, and above her, she could see the stars. The Lady stood beside her, a proud, silent presence.
They had escaped the giant and Tarsia realized that the giant alone was no threat to the Lady. They dipped closer to the earth, and Tarsia could see the winding water of the river, glittering in the moonlight. She could see a tiny spot of light—her own fire—and she thought she could see the minstrel on the ground beside it. So far below.
She thought of him coming to the Lady’s court to steal and she wished she could invite him into the chariot beside her. So cold and alone he looked, as she had felt so many times on the wall in the city of towers.
“You are above all that now,” whispered the Lady at her side. “You are the daughter of the moon, sister to the sun.”
The lapping of the water and the soft nickering of the horse woke her. The water sounded near, very near. She sat up and blinked at the sheen of moonlight on the water, just a few feet away from her. The horse stood at the limits of his tether, pulling away from the rising waters. Blinking again, Tarsia could see the slim figure of a woman dressed in white, standing in the water. At the sound of Tarsia’s movement, the woman looked at her with mournful eyes.
She held out her hands to Tarsia and water dripped from the tips of her long fingers. Moonlight shimmered on her, just as it shimmered on the water. From her delicate wrists, silver chains that seemed to be fashioned of moonlight extended to the water.
Tarsia drew her legs away from the water, stood up and backed away. The water nymph stretched out her hands and almost reached Tarsia. The young thief could hear words in the sound of the lapping water: “Come to me, touch me, touch the river.” Tarsia laid a hand on the horse, ready to vault to its back and run.
The moonlight touched a spot of darkness in the water—the minstrel’s cloak. The water was around his neck and still he slept peacefully. His cloak drifted about his shoulders, moving with the water, half tangled around the tree against which he leaned. To reach the minstrel, Tarsia would have to touch the river and approach the woman of water. But no one would know if she ran away to her mother’s court.
“Let me go, daughter of the moon,” whispered the water. The breeze that rustled the leaves by Tarsia’s head seemed to be chuckling.
“Let him go and I’ll free you,” Tarsia bargained desperately.
“But let him go first.” She did not know how to free the nymph. The watery hands reached for her and she wanted to leap onto the horse and run.
“Free me, and I will let him go,” hissed the voice of the lapping water.
“But I can’t … I don’t know how ….”
A whisper in the night: “Give to me of yourself, daughter of the moon,”
In the moonlight, Tarsia could see the minstrel’s head fall back into the water and a swirl of silver bubbles rise.
She stepped forward, ready to push the water nymph aside. Tarsia’s eyes were wet: tears of frustration, anger, sorrow, pain. A single tear escaped, trickled down her face and fell into the river. Just one.
Tarsia grabbed the minstrel’s cloak and his arm and roughly dragged him toward the riverbank. At the sound of a long sigh, she looked up to see the moonlight chains on the water woman’s arms fade. The nymph raised her hands to the sky in an exultant gesture and the river sighed, “Thank you, daughter of the Lady.” The slim figure melted into the river, becoming one of the sparkling ripples in the current. The minstrel coughed and began to move.
Tarsia lit a fire to dry him out, draping the dry cloak over his shoulders. She did not need it for warmth. She felt strong—no longer a thief, but daughter to the Lady.
“How did you plan to get along without me to build fires?” she asked the minstrel.
He shrugged his slim shoulders beneath the cloak. “I trust to luck to get me by. Luck and destiny.” His eyes were bright with reflected moonlight. “Sometimes they serve me well.”
The next day’s ride took them out of the river canyon into the golden foothills. A boy tending a flock of goats by the river stared at them in amazement. “No one ever comes by that path,” he said.
Tarsia laughed, cheered by the sight of the mountains ahead. “We came that way.”
“What about the undine?” the boy asked.
“What about the undine,” she said, still laughing as they rode past. “We sent her on her way.”
They walked the horse along the river’s edge just past the goat herd. Ahead, they could see the buildings of a small town. The sun shone on Tarsia’s face and she saw the mountains, craggy peaks where the snow never melted.
“Take me with you to the Lady’s court,” she asked the minstrel suddenly. “I know why you’re going there, and I want to come.”
He looked startled. “You know? But …”
She laughed. “Do you think I’m half-witted? No minstrel could afford a horse like this one or a fine leather saddle. I knew you were a thief when we first met.” She shook her head at the incredulous look on his face. “I know you are going to the Lady’s court to steal.”
“I see,” he said slowly. “But if I’m a thief, why do you want to come with me?” He studied her face intently.
For a moment, she considered telling the truth. But she was city bred, not trusting. “I want to see which of the stories about the Lady are true,” she said. “Besides, I can help you.” She could imagine herself at her mother’s side, rewarding the minstrel with gold and jewels for bringing her there, and she smiled.
“It’s a dangerous place,” he said.
“If you don’t take me, I will go alone,” she said. “If you take me, I’ll pay my way. I’ll pay for tonight’s lodging.”
He nodded at last. “If you wish, I’ll take you. But it’s your choice.”
The breeze whispered in the tall grass of the riverbank.
“The wind is encouraging us,” Tarsia said.
“The wind is laughing at us,” said the minstrel.
In the inn that night, Tarsia and the minstrel were the center of a group of villagers. The boy with the goats had told what path they had followed. “You came past the undine,” the innkeeper said in amazement. “How did you do it?”
Tarsia told them, leaving out only the water nymph’s sigh of farewell. “So the river is free of the Lady’s bond,” said a sour-faced farmer. “She will not be happy.” And the corners of his mouth turned up in a grim smile.
“Softly, friend,” advised the innkeeper. “You would not want to be overheard ….”
“We live in the shadow of her rule,” grumbled the farmer. “But maybe that will come to an end. My boy said he saw the footprints of a giant heading toward her court. These folks say the undine is free. Maybe the Lady …”
“Only one of the Lady’s own blood can free the winds,” interrupted the innkeeper. “And she has no children.”
“They say she had a daughter once,” said the minstrel quietly. “I studied the ancient stories as a student of the lute. They say that the child was captured in a battle with a neighboring city. The child was killed when the Lady would not release the winds to ransom the girl.”
“And the Lady mourned for her daughter?” Tarsia added tentatively.
The crowd of villagers laughed and the minstrel raised his eyebrows. “I doubt it. But the stories don’t really say.”
A loose shutter banged in the rising wind outside the inn. The group of villagers that had gathered around Tarsia while she had been telling of the water nymph dispersed to other tables.
“Some say that the winds that the Lady allows to blow carry tales back to her,” the minstrel told Tarsia softly. “No one knows for certain.” The shutter banged again and the conversations around them stopped for a moment, then resumed in hushed tones.
“The land here was green once,” said the minstrel. “The people have become bitter as the land has become dry.”
The minstrel began to pick the notes of a slow, sweet tune, and Tarsia went to the bar to bargain with the innkeeper for their night’s lodging. She took one of the minstrel’s coins from her pocket and it flashed silver in the firelight. The innkeeper weighed it in his hand and turned it over to examine both sides.
“A coin of the south,” he said, then peered more closely at the profile etched on one side.
The notes of the song that the minstrel was playing drifted across the room, over the sounds of conversation.
He was picking out the sad ballad about the Lady that he had played the day before. The innkeeper glanced at him sharply, then looked back at the coin. He seemed to be listening to the sound of the wind prowling around the windows.
“You are heading into the mountains from here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Tarsia said cautiously. She knew that he was no friend of the Lady.
He handed her back the coin. “Good luck,” he said.
“Eat supper as you like, and you may sleep in the loft above the stable.”
She frowned at him without comprehension. “What do you mean? Why?”
He seemed to study the minstrel’s face in the dim light.
“Consider it as payment for ridding the river of the undine.” He smiled at her for the first time, and took her hand to fold her fingers around the coin. “Good luck.”
She pocketed the coin and returned unhappily to the minstrel’s side. She did not like bargains she did not understand. Like the giant, the innkeeper seemed to think that she knew more than she did.
“Did you make a deal?” the minstrel asked.
She sat down on the bench beside him, frowning.
“We’re sleeping in the stable loft. No payment—he didn’t even argue.”
“I see.” The minstrel nodded across the room to the innkeeper and the older man waved back, a gesture that was almost a salute.
“There are things on which one does not bargain, little one,” said the minstrel. “You’ll have to learn that.”
That night they bedded down in sweet-smelling hay.
Outside, the wind bayed like a pack of hounds on the hunt, and Tarsia lay awake. She listened to the minstrel’s steady breathing and thought about the mountains and the court of the Lady. But she did not want to sleep and dream.
When she wined restlessly in the hay, the minstrel blinked at her. “Lie down and go to sleep.”
“I can’t,” she grumbled back, into the darkness that smelled of horses.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m cold,” she said, and it was true—even with his extra cloak around her, she was shivering.
He raised himself on one elbow wearily, and lifted his cloak to invite her to lie beside him. She snuggled against his chest and he touched her cheek lightly. “What’s worrying you?” he asked. “Do you want to turn back?”
“It used to be so simple,” she said, half to herself. “I used to be just a thief in the city, climbing on the city wall and laughing at people who were foolish enough to let me ick their pockets. So simple …”
“What are you now?” Though his voice was soft, the question had edges.
The winds bayed and she shivered. “No one. No one at all.”
The minstrel rocked her gently in his arms and she listened to his steady breathing as he slept beside her.
She slept, but not easily.
The Lady’s hand was warm on Tarsia’s. Far below, the small thief could see the Village: toy huts set on a golden hillside. The mountains rose ahead of them: cold, gray, and forbidding.
“We don’t need them,” the Lady said in her soft voice. “It doesn’t matter that they hate me.”
The wind was in Tarsia’s face and the stars wheeled about her and she was high above them all. No one could touch her here. No one could put her in shackles or chase her into the sewers. She had come home.
She was quiet when they left town the next morning.
The same boy who had met them on the river path was grazing his goats on the hillside. “There are robbers in the mountains,” he called to them. “They’ll get you if you go up there.” The boy was cheerful at the prospect. “There’s a dragon, too. The Lady bound him there. If the robbers don’t get you, the dragon will find you and …”
The minstrel urged the horse through the center of the boy’s herd and the goats scattered, bleating as they ran.
The horse picked its way carefully up the dry slopes.
Toward dusk, the grass gave way to rough rock and the animal began stumbling in the dying light. At Tarsia’s suggestion, they dismounted and led the horse. To shake the saddle-weariness from her legs, Tarsia ran ahead, dodging around rocks and scrambling up boulders, feeling almost as if she were at home on the walls of the city. She climbed a rock face and peered over the edge at the minstrel, considering surprising him from above. She saw a movement—a flash of brown—the trail ahead of him, movements in the brush on either side.
“Hold it there.” The man who stepped from behind a boulder had an arrow pointed at the minstrel. Other men closed in from behind.
“I have nothing of value,” said the minstrel casually.
“Nothing at all.”
“You’ve got a horse,” said the leader of the robbers. The man had a soft, lilting accent like the minstrel’s. “And I think we need it more than you do.” The man lifted the minstrel’s money pouch from his belt. Grinning, he hefted the pouch in his hand and gazed at the minstrel’s face.
“Damn, but your face looks familiar. Do I know you …”
His voice trailed off.
“I’m going to the court of the Lady. I need the horse to get there,” the minstrel said.
“A man of the South going to visit the Lady,” the leader wondered. “Strange. Since our foolish king has refused to pay tribute to the Lady, few from the South venture into her mountains.” As he spoke, he fumbled with the minstrel’s pouch, pouring a stream of coins into his hand.
“Nothing of value,” he said then. “Just pretty gold and silver.” The robber held a coin up to the light of the dying sun—just as the innkeeper had held it up—and he whistled long and low. He glanced at the minstrel’s face and Tarsia could see his teeth flash in a grin. “Did I say our king was foolish? Not so foolish as his son.” The leader tossed the coin to another man in the circle. “Look. We’ve got a prince here.”
The coin was tossed from hand to hand—each man inspecting the minstrel and the coin, the coin and the minstrel. Tarsia, peering over the edge, tried to remember the profile on the coin, briefly glimpsed in a dim light. She tugged a coin from her pocket and compared the cold metal etching with the minstrel’s face. They matched.
“We follow our destiny and our luck,” the minstrel—or the prince?—was saying. “I am on a mission at my father’s request.”
The leader’s grin broadened and he tossed a coin into the air so that it flashed gold as it tumbled back to his hand. “Bringing tribute,” the leader said.
“No.” The winds were silent and the voice of the prince—once, the minstrel—was calm. “I have come to free the winds.”
Tarsia leaned against the rock and listened to the rhythm of her heart—beating faster and faster. She heard the leader laugh. “What do you expect the Lady to say to that?”
“I may have to destroy the Lady. But the winds must be free. For the sake of the land you have left behind, you must let me go.”
“You appeal to the honor of a thief?” the leader said. “You are foolish indeed. And foolish to think that you alone can destroy our Lady.”
The prince looked up then, just as if he had known all along where Tarsia was hidden, then looked back to the leader. But his words were echoing in Tarsia’s mind: “destroy the Lady …” And in her mind, the winds howled. The prince was not alone: the giant had been seen climbing toward her court and the undine was free. Tarsia leaned against the rock for support and listened to the men argue about what to do with the minstrel—no, the prince. She had to remind herself he was a prince. They could hold him for ransom, deliver him to the Lady for a reward, kill him on the spot, feed him to the dragon. She followed, a little above them and a little behind them as they walked to the dragon’s cave, still arguing. She heard the horse nicker softly as they stood at the cave entrance. The man who held the animal’s reins was right below her hiding place, paying more attention to the argument than to the horse.
Tarsia sprang. Landed half-on and half-off the white horse’s broad back, gripping its mane and pounding its sides with her heels. The animal leapt forward—was it by the horse’s inclination or her direction? She was not sure—toward the prince. The horse reared as she strove to turn it, dancing in place and throwing its head back, startled past the capacity of even a well-trained horse to bear.
Tarsia fought for control, only partly aware of the men who dodged away from the animal’s hooves in the dim light of twilight. She could not see the prince.
A crackling of flame, a scent of sulfur, and the mountain was no longer dark. Small thief—she had never dabbled in magic, never met a dragon. If she had imagined anything, she had imagined a lizard breathing fire.
A lightning bolt, a fireworks blast, a bonfire—but it moved like an animal. Where it stepped, it left cinders and when it lifted its head she stared into the white glory of its eyes. A sweep of its tail left a trail of sparks.
Half-flame, half-animal—perhaps more than half-flame.
She could see the prince, standing in its path. The child of fire opened its mouth and for a moment she could see the jagged lightning of its teeth.
“Child of fire,” Tarsia called to it, “if I free you will you lead me to my mother?”
The crackling warmth assented with a burst of heat and a flare of flame.
Tarsia’s heart was large within her and she was caught by confusion—burning with shame and stung by betrayal.
She saw the prince through a haze of smoke and anger.
The coins she had stolen from him were in her hand and she wanted to be rid of them and rid of him. “I give of myself to you, child of fire,” she said, and hurled them into the flames. Three points of gold, suddenly molten.
The heat of her pain vanished with them. She burned pure and cold—like starlight, like moonlight, like a reflection from the heart of an icicle.
The dragon beat his wings and she felt a wave of heat.
He circled the mountain, caught an updraft and soared higher. His flame licked out and lashed the granite slope beneath him before he rose out of sight.
In the sudden silence, Tarsia fought the horse to a standstill. The prince stood alone by the cave. The world was tinted with the transparent twilight blue of early evening in the mountains, touched with smoke and sprinkled with snow.
“You didn’t tell me you wanted to free the winds,” Tarsia said. Her voice still carried the power it had had when she spoke to the dragon. “You didn’t tell me you were a prince.”
“I could only trust you as much as you could trust me, daughter of the wind.”
“Ah, you know.” Her voice was proud.
“I guessed. You freed the undine,” he said.
“Had you planned to use me to destroy my mother?” she asked. “That won’t work; prophecy or no. I’m here to help my mother, not to destroy her.” She urged the horse up the canyon, following the mark left by the dragon’s fire.
She did not look back.
Up the mountains, following the trail of burned brush and cinders, kicking the horse when it stumbled, urging it to run over grassy slopes marked by flame. The moon rose and the horse stumbled less often. Alpine flowers nodded in the wind of her passing. On the snowbanks, ice crystals danced in swirling patterns.
The towers of the Lady’s castle rose from the center of a bowl carved into the mountain. A wall of ice rose behind the towers—glacial blue in the moonlight. The ice had been wrought with tunnels by the wind and carved into strangely shaped pillars. Tarsia rode over the crest of the ridge and started the horse down the slope toward the gates when she saw the giant by the towers.
She felt the strength within her, and did not turn. As Tarsia drew nearer she saw the figure in the ice wall—the slim form of the undine. She smelled the reek of sulfur and the ice flickered red as the dragon circled the towers.
The gates had been torn from their hinges. The snow had drifted into the courtyard. The stones had been scorched by fire.
Tarsia pulled the horse to a stop in front of the grinning giant. “So you’ve come to finish the job,” he said.
“I have come to see my mother,” Tarsia answered, her voice cold and careful.
“I hope you know more than you did when I talked to you last,” said the giant.
“I have come to talk to my mother,” she repeated. “What I know or what I plan to do is none of your concern.” Her voice was cold as starlight.
The giant frowned. “Your mother’s men have fled. Her castle is broken. But still she holds the winds in her power. She stands there where we cannot follow.” The giant gestured to the tallest tower. Tarsia noticed that the wind had scoured a bare spot in the snow at the tower’s base. “Visit her if you will.”
Tarsia left the white horse standing by the tower door and climbed the cold stairs alone. She could feel a breeze tickling the back of her neck and tugging at her clothes. She was cold; so cold, as cold as she had been the morning she stole the loaf of bread.
A slender figure was silhouetted in the doorway against the sky. “So you have come to destroy me,” said a voice that was at the same time silky and sharp.
“No,” Tarsia protested. “Not to destroy you. I came to help you.”
She looked up into the gray eyes. The Lady was as beautiful as Tarsia’s vision: slim, gray-eyed, ashen haired, dressed in a gown as white as a cloud. In her hand, she held on leash four hounds. They were silver in the moonlight and their bodies seemed to shimmer. Their eyes were pools of darkness and Tarsia wondered what the winds of the world thought about. Where would they wander if they were not on leash? The breeze tugged at her hair and she wondered why they needed to be bound.
Tarsia stared into the Lady’s eyes and the Lady laughed a sound like icicles breaking in the wind. “I see myself in your eyes, Daughter. You have come to help.” She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder, pulling the young thief to her. Her hand was cold—Tarsia could feel its chill to her bones.
The wind beat in Tarsia’s face as she stood beside the Lady, looking down at the giant and the snowbank, silvered by moonlight. The dragon swooped down to land nearby and the glow of his flames lent a ruddy cast to the snow.
“We are above them, Daughter,” said the Lady. “We don’t need them.”
Tarsia did not speak. Looking down, Tarsia saw the piece of chain still dangling from the giant’s arm and remembered wondering why he had been bound.
“You are waiting for the coming of the one who will destroy me?” called the Lady. “You will wait forever. Here she stands. My daughter has joined me and we will be stronger together than I was alone. You will be cast back to your prisons.”
The dragon raised its fiery wings in a blaze of glory. The giant stood by the gate, broad face set in a scowl. The undine flowed from one ice pillar to another—her body distorted by the strange shapes through which she passed.
“All who have risen against me will be chained,” said the Lady.
“That need not be,” said Tarsia, her voice small compared to her mother’s. Then she called out to the three who waited, “Will you promise never to attack us again? Will you vow to—”
“Daughter, there can be no bargains,” said the Lady. “No deals, no vows, no promises. You must learn. Those who betray you must be punished. You have power over them; you cannot bargain with them.”
The Lady’s voice gained power as she spoke—the cold force of a winter wind. Not angry, it was cold, bitter cold. Like the bitter wind that had wailed around the towers of the city—alone, lonely, proud. Like the gusts that had chilled Tarsia when she slept on the city wall. Like the chill in the dungeon when she was chained and unable to escape.
Tarsia looked at the hounds at her mother’s feet: shimmering sleek hounds with eyes of night. Why must they be chained? She looked at the Lady: sculpted of ivory, her hair spun silver in the moonlight.
“Go,” Tarsia told the hounds. “Be free.” The words left her body like a sigh. And the power that would have been hers, that had been hers for a time, left her with the breath. With her sharp knife and an ease born of a magic she did not understand, she reached out and slashed the leashes that held the hounds. Beneath her, the tower trembled.
The hounds leapt forward, laughing now, tongues lolling over flashing teeth, sleek legs hurling them into the air, smiling hounds looking less like hounds and more like ghosts, like silver sand blown by the wind. The Lady’s hair whirled about her. She lifted white arms over her head, reaching out to the faraway moon. Tarsia watched and knew that she would never be so beautiful, never be so powerful, never would the winds heel to her command.
The tower trembled and the scent of sulfur was all around and crystals of snow beat at Tarsia’s face. She felt herself lifted—or thrown—and caught and tumbled like a coin through the air.
Somehow, someone shut out the moon and stars.
A scent of a charcoal fire—damp dismal smell in the early morning—and … damn, she thought. Will I never be free of this? She forced her eyes open.
“You’re awake,” said the prince. “How do you feel?”
She had been angry, she remembered. And she had been cold with a frozen bitterness. Now she felt only an emptiness where once the power had dwelled within her.
She felt empty and light.
She looked back at her mother’s castle. A ruin: scorched stones marked with the handprints of the giant, dusted with snow and tumbled by the wind. The ice had crept over the ruin, cracking some stones. Tarsia shivered.
She struggled to her feet and stepped away from the castle, toward the village. Ahead, she could see snow crystals whirling on the surface of a drift. The grass around her feet shifted restlessly in the breeze. She looked at the prince and thought of all the things that she wanted to explain or ask—but she did not speak. The wind flirted with the hem of her skirt and tickled the back of her neck.
“I’ll take you with me to my land if you bring the Winds along,” the prince said. His gaze was steady, regarding her as an equal.
“I can’t bring them,” she said. “I’m not their mistress.”
“They will follow,” said the prince. “You’re their friend.”
The breeze helped him wrap his cape around her and the winds made the flowers dance as the prince and the thief rode away from the ruins.