7

ELSPETH

“Elspeth?”

Despite the anxious tone of Skif’s voice, Elspeth didn’t look up from her book. “What?” she said, absently, more to respond and let Skif know she’d heard him than a real reply. She was deep in what was apparently a firsthand description of the moments before Vanyel’s final battle.

It was then that we saw how the valley walls had been cut away, to widen the passage, and the floor of the vale had been smoothed into a roadway broad enough for a column of four. And all this, said Vanyel, was done by magic. I knew not what to think at that moment.

“Elspeth, don’t you think we should be getting out of here?” Skif persisted. “On the road, I mean.” She looked up from her page, and into Skif’s anxious brown eyes. There was no one else to overhear them; they were the only ones in the library archives, where the oldest Chronicles were stored.

Sunlight damaged books, so the archive chamber was a windowless room in the center of the library. Smoke and soot damaged them as well, so all lighting was provided by smokeless lanterns burning the finest of lamp oil, constructed to extinguish immediately if they tipped over. No other form of lighting was permitted—certainly not candles. Elspeth realized, as she looked into Skif’s anxiety-shadowed face, that she didn’t know what time it was. If any of the Collegium bells had rung, she hadn’t noticed them.

Her stomach growled in answer to the half-formed question, telling her that it was past lunchtime, if nothing else.

She rubbed her eyes; she’d been so absorbed in her reading that she hadn’t noticed the passage of time. “Why?” she asked, simply. “What’s your hurry?”

He grimaced, then shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of riding off south with just the two of us, but since you seem so set on it—I keep thinking your getting the Council to agree was too easy. They didn’t argue enough.”

“Not argue enough?” she replied, making a sour face. “I beg to differ. You weren’t there. They argued plenty, believe me. I thought they’d never stop till they all fell over from old age.”

“But not enough,” he persisted. “It should have taken weeks to get them to agree to your plan. Instead—it took less than a day. That doesn’t make any sense, at least, not to me. I keep thinking they’re going to change their minds at any minute. So I want to know why we aren’t getting out of here before they get a chance to.”

“They won’t change their minds,” she said, briefly, wishing he’d let her get back to her researches. “Gwena says so.”

“What does a Companion have to do with the Council changing its mind?” he demanded.

That’s what I would like to know, she thought. Gwena’s playing coy every time I ask. “I don’t know, but ask yours. I bet she says the same thing.”

“Huh.” His eyes unfocused for a moment as he Mindspoke his little mare; then, “I’ll be damned,” he replied. “You’re right. But I still don’t see why we aren’t getting on the road; everything we need is packed except for your personal gear; I should think you’d be so impatient to get out of here that I would be the one holding us back.”

She shrugged. “Let’s just say that I’m getting ready. What I’m doing in here is as important as the packing you’ve been doing.”

“Oh?” He shaded the word in a way that kept it from sounding insulting, which it could easily have done.

“It’s no secret,” she said, gesturing at the piles of books around her. “I’m researching magic in the old Chronicles; magic, and Herald-Mages, what they could do, and so forth. So I know what to look for and what we need.”

If he noticed that some of those Chronicles were of a later day than Vanyel’s time, he didn’t mention it. “I suppose that makes sense,” he acknowledged. “Just remember, the Council could change their decision any time, no matter what Gwena says.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied, turning her attention back to her page. After a moment, Skif took the hint; she heard him slip out of his chair, and leave the room.

But her mind wasn’t on the words in front of her. Instead, she gave thought to how much Skif’s observations mirrored her own.

This was too easy. There was no reason why the Queen should have agreed to this, much less the Circle and Council. The excuse of the magical attack on Bolton, the Skybolts’ deeded border town, was just that; an excuse. She had checked back through the Chronicles of the past several years, and she had uncovered at least five other instances of magical attacks on Border villages, all of which looked to her as if they showed a weakening of the Border-protections. The records indicated no such panic reaction as she’d seen in the Council Chamber; rather, that there was a fairly standard way of responding. A team of Heralds and Healers would be sent to the site, the people would be aided and removed to somewhere safer, if that was their choice, then the incident was filed and forgotten. Farther back than that had been, Talia’s encounter with Ancar, that had signaled the beginning of the conflicts with Hardorn. There had been long discussions about what to do, how to handle the attacks of mages; Elspeth remembered that perfectly well. And there had been some progress; the Collegium made a concerted effort, checking the Chronicles following Vanyel’s time, to determine how Heralds without the Mage-Gift could counter magical attacks. Some solutions had been found, the appropriate people were briefed and trained—

And that was all. The knowledge was part of the schooling in Gifts now, but there was no particular emphasis placed on it. Not the way there should have been, especially following Ancar’s second attempt at conquest.

File and forget.

For that matter, there was even some evidence that Karse had been using magic, under the guise of “priestly powers.” No one had ever followed up on that, not even when Kero had made a point of reminding the Council of it.

There had to be another reason for letting her go on this “quest.” Especially since there were overtones in the Council meetings she attended of “the Brat is getting her way.” It would have been obvious to anyone with half a mind and one ear that now that the initial excitement was over, they regretted giving her their permission to leave, even to as safe a destination as Bolthaven, deep in the heart of her uncle’s peaceful kingdom.

Even the Heralds on the Council gave her the unmistakable feeling that they were not happy about this little excursion, and they’d gladly use any excuse to take their permission back.

But they didn’t. Gwena had said repeatedly that they wouldn’t. There was something going on that they weren’t talking about. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that, whatever it was, the Companions, en masse, were hock-deep in it.

And did it have something to do with her growing resistance to this compulsion to forget magic, to avoid even thinking about it?

Once her suspicions were aroused, Elspeth had decided that, before she ran off into unknown territory, she was going to do a little research on the Herald-Mages. Not just to find out their strengths and weaknesses, nor to discover just what the limits and gradations of the “Mage-Gift” were, but to see just how extensive the apparent prohibition against magic was; how deeply rooted, and how long it had been going on.

And what she had learned was quite, quite fascinating. It dated from Vanyel’s time, all right—but not exactly.

To be precise, it dated from the time that Bard Stefen, then an old and solitary man, vanished without a trace.

In the Forest of Sorrows.

At least, that was Elspeth’s guess. He was supposed to be in the company of some other young, unspecified Herald, on a kind of pilgrimage to the place where Vanyel died. He never arrived at his destination, yet no one reported his death. Granted, he had not yet achieved the kind of legendary status he had in Elspeth’s time, but still, he was a prominent Bard, the author of hundreds of songs, epic rhymed tales and ballads, and the hero of a few of them himself. He was Vanyel’s lifebonded lover, the last one to see him alive, and Vanyel did have the status of legend. Someone would have said something if he had died—at the very least, there should have been an impressive Bardic funeral.

No mention, no funeral. He simply dropped out of sight.

Nor was that all; even if he had vanished, someone should have noticed that he disappeared; surely searches should have been made for him. But no one did notice, nor did anyone look for him.

He simply vanished without a trace, and no one paid any notice. And that—possibly even that precise moment—was when it became impossible to talk about magic, except in the historical sense. That was when the Chronicles stopped mentioning it; when songs stopped being written about it.

When encounters with it outside the borders of Valdemar—or, occasionally, just inside those borders—were forgotten within weeks.

Fortunately those encounters were usually benign, as when ambassadors from Valdemar would see the mages in the Court of Rethwellan performing feats to amuse, or ambassadors from outside of Valdemar would mention magic, and some of the things their kingdoms’ mages could do. The Chronicler of the time would dutifully note it down—then promptly forget about it. So would the members of the Council—and the Heralds.

Did they attribute all of that to boasting and travelers’ tales? Now I wonder if, when other people read the Chronicles over, do their eyes just skip across the relevant words as if they weren’t even there?

It wouldn’t surprise her. Elspeth herself had noticed whole pages seeming to blur in front of her eyes, so that she had to make a concerted effort to read every word. She had initially ascribed the effect to fatigue and the labor of reading the archaic script and faded inks, but now she wasn’t so sure. It had gotten easier, the more she had read, but she wondered what would happen if she stopped reading for a while, then came back to it.

She had even found a report from Selenay’s grandfather, back when he was plain old “Herald Roald,” and the Heir, about his encounter with Kero’s grandmother Kethry and her partner.

Tarma shena Tale’sedrin, a Shin’a’in Kal’enedral, sworn to the service of her Goddess, was plainly some kind of a priest. In fact, much to Roald’s surprise, she had achieved a physical manifestation of her Goddess right before his eyes. Never having seen a Goddess, he was rather impressed.

So would I be!

He’d described the manifestation; the impossibly lovely young Shin’a’in woman, clothed as one of her own Swordsworn—but with strange eyes with neither pupil nor white; just the impression of an endless field of stars.

Brrr. I would probably have passed out.

He and Tarma had become quite firm friends after that; Roald’s Companion approved of both the priest and her Goddess, which Roald had found vastly amusing. But if Tarma was a powerful priest, Kethry was just as clearly a talented and powerful mage. Roald had quite a bit to say about her; it was evident that he was quite smitten with her, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was obviously just as smitten with the Rethwellan archivist they had rescued, he hinted that he might well have considered a try in that direction.

A superb tactician, however, he knew a hopeless situation when he saw one and wisely did not pursue his interest any further.

It was Roald’s account of Kethry’s magical abilities that interested Elspeth. It was in this account that she got a clearer idea of the differences between Journeyman class and Master, of Master and Adept. That alone was useful, since it proved to her that what Valdemar needed was indeed an Adept, more than one, if at all possible. Certainly a teacher. There was no reason why the Mage-Gift should have vanished from the population of Valdemar, when it was clearly present elsewhere.

Roald did not have a great deal to say about Kethry’s magical sword, “Need,” other than the fact that it was magical, with unspecified powers, and would only help women. So at that point in time, the song “Threes” had not migrated up to Valdemar, or Roald would have made certain to mention it.

Interesting about songs…

As evidence of just how strong that magic-prohibition had been, Elspeth had come across another fascinating bit of information in the Bardic Chronicles, which were also stored here. The song “Kerowyn’s Ride” had preceded the arrival of the real Kerowyn by several years—ascribed to “anonymous.” Which it wasn’t; several times visiting Bards had attempted to set the Valdemaran record straight. Each time the attribution was duly noted, then the very next time the song was listed in a Court performance, it was ascribed to “anonymous.”

It was the habit of Master Bards, particularly the teachers, to write short dissertations on the meaning and derivation of popular songs to be used as teaching materials. Out of curiosity, Elspeth had made a point of looking up the file on “Kerowyn’s Ride.”

At that point, it would have strained the credulity of even a dunce to believe that there was nothing working to suppress the knowledge of magic—for even after the arrival of the real Kerowyn, Master Bards were writing essays that claimed it was an allegorical piece wherein the Goddess-as-Crone passed her power to the Goddess-as-Maiden at Spring Solstice. She found several other papers stating that it described an actual event that had taken place hundreds of years ago, as evidenced by this or that style.

That was quite enough to get Elspeth digging into more of the Bardic Chronicles, and that was when she discovered corroborating evidence for her theory that something was suppressing the very idea of magic.

Despite the fact that there had been a concerted effort to get the songs about Herald-Mages and magical conflicts back into the common repertory, despite the fact that this was Bardic Collegium’s top priority—and despite the fact that perfectly awful, maudlin songs like the unkillable “My Lady’s Eyes” stayed popular—the “magic” songs could not be kept in repertory. Audiences grew bored, or wandered away; Bards forgot the lyrics, or found themselves singing lyrics to another song entirely. When given a list of possible songs for various occasions, a Seneschal or Master of the Revels would inexplicably choose any song but the ones describing magic.

Only those songs that did not specifically mention magic, or those where the powers described could as easily be ascribed to a traditional Gift, stayed in popular repertory. Songs like the “Sun and Shadow” ballads, or the “Windrider” cycle, songs that were hundreds of years older than the Vanyel songs and written in archaic language, were well known—was it because not once was there a reference to a specific spell, only vague terms like “power” and “curses?”

Furthermore, Elspeth herself had heard the “problem” songs being sung, not once, but fairly often, and with a great deal of acclaim and success. So it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the songs themselves. It had to be because of their content. And was it possible that the reason the songs had been successful was that they were sung in the presence of many Heralds? For that seemed to be the common factor. It was when they had been sung with no Heralds present at all that the worst failures occurred.

She had learned several other things from the Chronicles of Vanyel’s time—things which had no direct bearing on her present mission, but which explained a great deal.

For instance: there had been something called “The Web,” which demanded the energy and attention of four Herald-Mages. Those four apparently had been somehow tied to one-quarter of Valdemar each, and were alerted to anything threatening the Kingdom by the reaction of the spell. The problem was, by the end of Queen Elspeth the Second’s reign, there were not enough Herald-Mages to cover the four quarters… not and deal with enemies, too.

That was when Vanyel altered the spell, tying all Heralds into this “Web,” so that when danger threatened, everyone would know. Before that, it was only chance that a ForeSeer would bend his will to a particular time and place to see that something would be a problem. After, it was guaranteed; ForeSeers would see the danger, and would know exactly what Gifts or actions were required to counter it. Heralds with those Gifts would find themselves in the saddle and heading for the spot whether or not they had been summoned. The Chronicles were not clear about how he had done this, only that it definitely worked, and there was a great deal of relief knowing that the Kingdom no longer depended on having four powerful Herald-Mages to act as guardians.

Vanyel had done something else at that time, though whether or not it was part of the alterations to this “Web” or not, the Chronicles were unclear. He had summoned—something. Or rather, he had summoned things. Having called them, he did something to them or with them, somehow gave them the job of watching for mages and alerting Herald-Mages to their presence in Valdemar.

What happened when there weren’t any more Herald-Mages? she wondered. Did they just keep watching, or what? Have they been trying to alert Heralds, or not?

At least this accounted for something Kero had said, about why Quenten and the rest of the Skybolts’ mages couldn’t stay inside Valdemar. “He said it felt like there was someone watching him all the time,” she’d told Elspeth. “Like there was someone just behind his shoulder, staring at him. Waking or sleeping. Said it just about drove him crazy.”

That certainly made a good enough reason for Elspeth; she didn’t think she would want to stick around anywhere that she felt eyes on her all the time.

Unless, of course, she was a truly powerful mage, one able to shield herself against just about anything. One that knew she was so much the superior of other mages that she felt totally confident in her ability to hide from the enemy.

Like Hulda, maybe? We still don’t know everything she can do. We’ve been assuming she was just Ancar’s teacher and attributing all his success to Ancar himself… But what if it’s really Hulda, letting him think he’s in control, while she is really the power and the mind behind his actions?

Again, that would explain a great deal, particularly Ancar’s obsession with eliminating Talia, Selenay, and Elspeth.

It could be he simply hated suffering defeat at the hands of women.

But it also could be Hulda, egging him on. If he felt somehow shamed at being defeated by females, she could be playing on that shame, making him obsessive about it. After all, she had very little to lose. If Ancar was goaded into defeating Valdemar, she won. And if he lost, or was killed during the conflict—she would be there to inherit his kingdom and pick up the pieces. And Hulda would never repeat his mistakes…

It all made hideous sense, a good explanation of otherwise inexplicable behavior. And Elspeth didn’t like the explanation one bit. Ancar as an enemy was bad enough. But the idea of an enemy like Hulda who had been plotting for decades—

It was enough to send a chill down the toughest of spines. It was more than enough to give Elspeth nightmares for three nights running.

* * *

Elspeth closed the book she’d been reading, fighting down a queasy sensation in her stomach.

She had just finished reading the passages in the Chronicles about Tylendel, Vanyel’s first lover; his repudiation and his suicide. It didn’t make for easy reading; it had been written, not by the Chronicler of the time, but by a non-Herald, a Healer, who had been a friend of Tylendel’s mentor. Evidently the Heralds had all been affected so strongly by this incident that they were unable to write about it.

But that was not why she was fighting uneasy feelings.

Tylendel—at seventeen—had evidently been able to construct something called a “Gate” or a “Gate Spell,” which enabled him to literally span distances it would take a Companion days or even weeks to cross.

Her blood ran cold at the idea, and even though the author had hinted that the mage who used this spell had to know precisely where he was going, that fact was no comfort. Hulda had been to Valdemar—and it would not be very difficult to insert other agents into Valdemar simply to learn appropriate destinations.

What if Ancar were to control this spell? What if he were able to get it past the protections? There would be no stopping him; he would be able to place agents anywhere he chose.

In fact—Hulda had been in the Palace. For years. There was probably very little she didn’t know about the Palace.

She could place an agent in the Queen’s very bedroom, if she chose, and all the guards in the world would make no difference.

That might even be how that assassin got onto the Palace grounds. She shuddered. I think I’m going to have nightmares again…

This had not been an easy day for reading. Elspeth was just as disturbed by the Chronicle she had completed before this one, the one describing Vanyel’s last battle.

The Herald-Mage had commanded tremendous power; so tremendous that the author had made an offhand comment to the effect that he could have leveled Haven if he so chose. Granted, Haven was a smaller city then than it was now, but—the power to level a city?

It simply didn’t seem possible; destruction on that kind of scale seemed absurd on the face of it. Yet for the writer, such power seemed to be taken for granted.

At first reading, she had been skeptical of such claims; Chroniclers had been known to indulge in hyperbole before this. She had assumed that the descriptions were the embroideries of a “frustrated Bard,” a Chronicler’s version of poetic license. But on the second reading she had discovered the signature at the end, modestly tucked away in small, neat handwriting that matched the rest of the Chronicle, but not anything else in the book.

Bard Stefen, for Herald-Chronicler Kyndri.

Now there was no reason for Stefen to have invented outrageous powers for his lifebonded. There was every reason for him to have been absolutely factual in his account. He was not a would-be Bard, like many of the Chroniclers; he was a Bard, with all the opportunity to play with words that he wanted, outside of the Chronicles. And everything else in those Chronicles had been simple, direct, without exaggeration.

So it followed that Herald Vanyel had that power, that ability. The ability to level a city.

And if Vanyel had commanded that kind of power, there was no reason to suppose that Ancar could not ally himself to a mage with that same power, sooner or later. There probably weren’t many with that kind of ability, but if there was one with the same kind of lust for conquest that drove Ancar, the King of Hardorn would eventually find him.

Elspeth sat for a moment with her head in her hands, overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness. How could Valdemar possibly stand against the power of a mage like that?

By finding another like him, she finally decided. If there is one, there have to be more. And surely not all of them will find Ancar’s offers attractive. And that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.

She shook back her hair, and pushed her chair away from the book-laden table. She was a little surprised by the bulk of her scattered notes; she’d been so engrossed she hadn’t noticed just how much she’d been writing down.

All right, she decided. I’ve learned all I can from books. Now it’s time to get out there and see how much of it applies to current reality.

She collected her notes into a neat stack, and shoved them into a notebook. Then she rose, stretched, and picked up the books, restoring them to their proper places on the shelves. Finally, though, she had to admit to herself that she wasn’t being considerate of the librarians, she was putting off the moment of departure.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her head, and walked out of the archives with a firm step—showing a confidence she did not feel.

Not that it really mattered. This was her plan, and she was, by the gods, going to see it through. And the first step on that road was to go find Skif and tell him it was time to leave; that she had everything she needed.

If nothing else, she told herself wryly, Skif will be ready. Even if I’m not sure I am.

* * *

Skif was ready; he had wisely refrained from repeating just how ready he was, but he was so visibly impatient that she decided to get on the road immediately, instead of waiting for morning. She headed back to her room at a trot, to throw her personal things into packs, while he had the Companions saddled and loaded with saddlebags. It was, after all, only a little after noon. They could conceivably make quite a bit of progress before they had to stop for the night.

From the look on his face, that was exactly what Skif intended.

She intercepted a young page and sent him around with farewell messages for everyone except her mother and Talia; those farewells she would make in person.

Mother would never forgive me if I just sent a note, she thought ruefully, as she stuffed clothing into a pack. Not that I wouldn’t mind just slipping out of here. She’s bound to raise a fuss…

Selenay still was not resigned to the situation; Elspeth was as sure of that as she was of her own name. She had been so involved in her researches that she hadn’t spent much time in her mother’s company, but the few times she had, she’d been treated to long, reproachful looks. Selenay hadn’t said anything, but Elspeth would have been perfectly happy to avoid any chance of another motherly confrontation.

She fully intended to plead the need for a hasty departure, putting the blame on Skif and his impatience if she had to. If I can just get this over quickly—

Just as she thought that, someone tapped on her door. She started, her heart pounding for a moment, then winced as she forced herself to relax. She hadn’t realized just how keyed up she was.

A second tap sounded a little impatient. Don’t tell me; Mother’s already found out that I’m leaving!

“Come in,” she called, with a certain resignation. But to her surprise, it wasn’t Selenay who answered the invitation, it was Kero.

A second surprise: the Herald-Captain was carrying a sword; Need to be precise. Not wearing it, but carrying it; the blade was sheathed in a brand new scabbard, with an equally new sword-belt, both of blue-gray leather. And before she had a chance to say anything, Kero thrust the sword—sheath, belt, and all—into her hands.

“Here,” she said gruffly, her voice just a little hoarse, as if she was keeping back emotions of some kind. “You’re going to need this. No pun intended.”

Her hands left the sheath reluctantly, and it seemed to Elspeth as if she was wistful—unwillingly so—at parting with the blade.

For her part, Elspeth was so dumbfounded she felt like the village idiot, unable to think at all coherently. I’m going to what—she’s giving me—that’s Need, it’s magic, she can’t mean me to have it! Why—what—

“But—” was all she could say; anything else came out as a sputter. “But—why?”

“Why?” Kero shrugged with an indifference that was obviously feigned. “Right after you and I met, Need spoke for you. I couldn’t do without her, not right then, and she hasn’t said anything since, but there’s never been any doubt in my mind that you’re the one she was supposed to go to.”

“Go to?” Elspeth repeated, dazedly. Now that the blade was in her hands, she felt—something. An odd feeling. A slight disorientation, as if there was someone trying such a delicate mental probe on her that it was at the very edge of her ability to sense it. It was a little like when she’d been Chosen, only not nearly as strong.

“It’s something like being Chosen, I suppose,” Kero said, echoing her thought. “She picks the one she wants to be passed to. Better that than just getting picked up at random, or so I’d guess, though women are the only ones that can use her. Grandmother got her from an old female merc when she left her mage-school; she gave Need to me, and now I’m giving her to you. You’d have gotten her from me in any case eventually, but since you’re going out past the borders, I think it would be a good idea if you take her with you.”

Suddenly, the blade seemed doubly heavy.

“You mean the sword talks to you?” Elspeth replied vaguely, trying to sort out surprise, the odd touches at the back of her mind, and just a touch of apprehension.

“Not exactly talks, no,” Kero chuckled. “Though let me warn you now, she is going to try and exert a lot of pressure on you to do what she wants—which is to rescue women in trouble. Don’t give in to her more than you have to. She’ll try two things—she’ll either try to take over your body, or she’ll give you a headache like you’ve never had in your life. You can block it and her out; I learned to eventually, and I should think with all the training you’ve had in the Gifts you should be able to manage just fine. After all, when I faced her down, I was only half-trained at best. Whatever you do, don’t give in to her, or you’ll set a bad precedent, as bad as giving a troublesome falcon its own way. She manipulated my grandmother, but I never let her manipulate me if I could help it.”

Elspeth regarded the gift dubiously. “If she’s that much trouble—”

“Oh, she’s worth it,” Kero said, with a rueful chuckle. “Especially for somebody like you or me, somebody who doesn’t know beans about magic. For one thing, she’ll Heal you of practically any injury, even on the battlefield in the middle of a fight. That alone is worth every bit of bother she ever gave me. But for the rest of her abilities, if you’re a swordswinger, she’ll protect you against magic—and I mean real protection, as good as any Adept I’ve ever seen. I had some encounters with some mages of Ancar’s that I haven’t talked about—there wasn’t anything any of them threw at me that she couldn’t deflect.” Kero chuckled. “Gave them quite a surprise, too.”

“But your grandmother was a mage,” Elspeth said.

“Right. If you’re a mage, she protects you, too—but she doesn’t do anything for you magically.”

“She takes over your body and makes you a good fighter?” Elspeth supplied.

“Right! But she doesn’t do anything for a fighter in the way of fighting ability.”

“I think I remember something about your grandmother being a fighter in some of the songs, only I knew you said she was a mage,” Elspeth said, looking down at the blade in her hands with a touch of awe. “I never could figure out how the confusion happened. From everything I’ve read, becoming a mage takes up so much of your time you couldn’t possibly learn to fight well.”

Kero shrugged. “Yes and no. It really depends on how much you want to curtail your social life. If you want to be a celibate, you could learn to be both.”

Huh. Like Vanyel…

“Anyway, Need makes you a swordmaster if you’re a mage, protects you from magic if you’re a fighter. And if you aren’t either—”

“Like in ‘Kerowyn’s Ride’?” Elspeth asked, with a sly smile.

Kero groaned. “Yes, gods help me, like in that damned song. If you aren’t either, she takes over and makes you both. Her way, though, which tends to make you almost as big a target as one of your ‘Here I am, shoot me’ uniforms.”

Elspeth chuckled; Kero was, as usual, not wearing Whites. Then she sobered. “But you said I can fight the compulsion, right?”

Kero nodded. “I did it. It takes a little determination, if you don’t know what you’re doing, but it can be done. I had to threaten to drop the damned thing down the nearest well. And I’ve already told it that you’ll do the same if it gives you too much trouble.”

Seeing Elspeth’s hesitation, she added, “If you don’t want it, don’t draw it—it can’t force you to take it, you know. If you don’t draw it, it won’t have any kind of hold on you.”

Elspeth wasn’t entirely sure of that—not after the tentative touches in the back of her mind, but she was certain that the hold the blade had on her could be fought. If she chose to. If Kero could, so could she.

Carefully, she weighed all the factors in her mind. This was not going to be a decision to make lightly.

She’ll have a hold on me—but she’ll protect me from things I not only don’t understand, but might not detect until it’s too late. And the Healing—that’s damned important. If I’m hurt, I may not be able to get to a Healer, but I won’t have to if I have her.

Not such a bad trade, really. And since Elspeth had already been Chosen, perhaps the hold would be that much less. Gwena would surely help fight it; she could be very possessive when she wanted to be.

Another good reason to take the blade suddenly occurred to her. One that Kero might not have thought of. If I don’t find a mage—I’m a woman, and Mother’s a woman. How well would this magic sword work against Ancar, I wonder?

Given that scenario, how could she not, in good conscience, accept the blade?

Without hesitation, she pulled Need from her sheath.

For a moment, nothing at all happened.

Then—

Time stopped; a humming, somehow joyful, gleeful, filled the back of her head. It is just like being Chosen, she thought absently, as the blade glowed for a moment, the fire coalescing into script, runes that writhed, then settled into something she could actually read.

Woman’s Need calls me, as Woman’s Need made me, she read, as her eyes watered from the fiery light. Her Need will I answer, as my Maker bade me.

The runes writhed again—then faded, the moment she had the sense of them. The hum in the back of her mind stilled, and Time hiccupped, then resumed its stately progress.

“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” she demanded, as soon as she could speak again.

Kero shrugged. “Damned if I know,” she admitted. “Only the gods know her history now. Grandmother said that’s what happens when she gets into the hands she wants. But that, my dear, is the first time she’s roused since I brought her inside the borders of Valdemar.”

Elspeth slid the blade gingerly into her sheath.

Her. I doubt I’ll ever call her “it” again…

“What happens when I take her outside Valdemar?” she asked with trepidation. There had been such a feeling of power when Need had responded to her—a feeling of controlled strength, held back, the way a mastiff would handle a newborn chick.

And I’m not sure I like feeling like a newborn chick!

“I don’t know,” Kero admitted. “She hasn’t been outside Valdemar for a long time. Whatever happens, you’re going to require her, of that much I’m certain.”

“But what about you?” Elspeth was forced by her own conscience to ask. “Where does that leave you?”

Kero laughed. “The same as before; I haven’t ever depended on her to bail me out of a tough spot. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m going to be seeing anything worth being protected against.”

“And I am.” Elspeth made that a statement.

“I’d bet on it.” Kero nodded, soberly. “I’ll tell you this much; while she’s given me trouble in the past, she’s always been worth the having. I may not have depended on her, but she’s bailed me out of things I could never have gotten myself out of alone. I feel a lot better knowing you have her.”

“I—” Elspeth stopped, at a loss for words. “Kero, ‘thanks’ just doesn’t seem adequate…”

“Oh, don’t thank me, thank her,” Kero grinned. “She picked you, after all.”

“I’m thanking you anyway.” Elspeth hugged her, sword and all, then bade her a reluctant farewell. It was hard saying good-bye; a lot harder than she thought it would be. She stood with the sheathed sword in her hands for a long time after Kero was gone.

Finally Elspeth buckled the swordbelt over her tunic, and wriggled a little to settle Need’s weight. Once in place, the sword felt right; most swords took some getting used to, they all weighed differently, their balance on the hip or in the hand was different.

But most swords aren’t magic.

The thought was unsettling; this was the stuff of which ballads and stories were made, and although Elspeth had daydreamed herself into a heroine when she was a child, she’d given up those daydreams once she achieved her Whites.

I thought I had, anyway.

That made for another unsettling thought, though; stories all had endings—and she was beginning to feel as if the ending to this one was already written.

As if she had no choice in where she was going, or how she was going to get there; as if everyone knew what her goal was except her.

“Destiny” was one word she had always hated—and now it looked as if it was the one word that applied to her.

And she didn’t like the feeling one bit.

8

DARKWIND

:Stupid,: said Vree, with profound disapproval.

Darkwind’s stomach lurched as Vree made another swooping dive—not quite a stoop—skimming through the pocket valley that held the trapped dyheli bucks.

There were times when the gyre’s viewpoint was a little—unsettling.

The gyre wheeled above the dyheli herd, just above the highest level of the mist, giving Darkwind the loan of his keener eyes and the advantage of wings and height. :Stupid, stupid. We should go.:

Not that Darkwind needed a bird, even a bondbird, to tell him that. The gentle dyheli huddled together in an exhausted, witless knot, too spent by panic to do anything sensible.

Through the gyre’s eyes he looked for anything that might pass as a track out of the valley—and found nothing. The spring dropped from a height five times that of the dyheli to the valley floor, down a sheer rock face. The other two sides of the valley were just as sheer, and sandstone to boot.

Nothing short of a miracle was going to get them out of there.

Vree’s right. We should go. I can’t risk all of k’Sheyna for the sake of a dozen dyheli. I made pledges, I have greater responsibilities.

So why was he here, lying under the cover of a bush, just above the mist-choked passage out of the dead-end valley, searching through his bondbird’s eyes for a way out for the tiny herd? Why was he wasting his time, leaving his section of the border unpatrolled, tearing up his insides with his own helplessness?

Because I’m stupid.

One of the bucks raised a sweat-streaked head to utter a heartbreaking cry of despair. His gut twisted a little more.

And because I can’t stand to see them suffering like that. They’re fellow creatures, as intelligent as we are. They looked to Dawnfire for protection and help, even if they did range outside our boundaries. They acted as her eyes and ears out here. I can’t just abandon them now.

Which was, no doubt, exactly the way Dawnfire felt. There was no difference in what he was doing now, and what she wanted to do.

Except that I’m a little older, a little more experienced. But just as headstrong and stupid.

The mist—whatever it was—rose and fell with an uneasy, wavelike motion, and wherever it lapped up on the rock wall, it left brown and withered vegetation when it receded. And it took quite a bit to kill those tough little rock-plants. So the mist was deadly to the touch as well as deadly to breathe. There was no point in trying to calm the dyheli enough to get them to hold their breath and make a dash for freedom… they’d never survive being in the mist for as long as it would take them to blunder through.

As if to underscore that observation, the mist lapped a little higher just below his hiding place. A wisp of it eddied up, and he got a faint whiff of something that burned his mouth and throat and made his eyes water. He coughed it out as the mist ebbed again.

Poisonous and caustic. First, burns to madden them further, then the poison. They’re horribly susceptible to poisons; they’d probably get fatal doses just through skin contact, through the area of the burn.

No, no hope there.

He rubbed his eyes to clear them, and sent Vree to perch in the tree over his head. Another of the dyheli called mournfully, and the cry cut into his heart. He knuckled his eyes again, blinking through burning eyes, but still could see no way out of the trap.

Even the spring-fed waterfall was not big enough to do more than provide a little water spray and a musical trickle down the rocks. There was no shelter for even one of the dyheli behind it.

I can’t bear this, he decided, finally. All I could do is shoot them and give them a painless death, or leave them, and hope that whatever this poison is, it disperses on its own—or maybe won’t be able to get past the mist that the waterfall is throwing.

Two choices, both bad, the second promising a worse death than the first. His heart smoldered with frustration and anger, and he swore and pounded his fist white on the rock-hard dirt, then wiped the blood off his skinned knuckles. No! Dammit, it’s not fair, they depended on Tayledras to protect them! There has to be someth—

He looked back into the valley, at the tugging of an invisible current, a stirring in the fabrics of power, the rest of his thought forgotten.

A sudden shrilling along his nerves, an etching of ice down his backbone, that was what warned him of magic—magic that he knew, intimately, though he no longer danced to its piping—the movements of energies nearby, and working swiftly.

His fingers moved, silently, in unconscious response. He swung his head a little, trying to pinpoint the source.

There—

The mist below him stirred.

The hair on the back of his neck and arms stood on end, and he found himself on his feet on the floor of the valley before the wall of mist, with no memory of standing, much less climbing down. It didn’t matter; magic coiled and sprang from a point somewhere before him, purposeful, and guided.

Striking against the mage-born wall of poison.

The mist writhed as it was attacked, stubbornly resisting. Magic, a single spell, fought the mist, trying to force it to disperse. The mist fought back with magic and protections of its own. It curdled, thickened, compacted against the sides and floor of the valley, flowing a little farther toward the dyheli.

The spell changed; power speared through the mist, cutting it, lancelike. A clear spot appeared, a kind of tunnel in the cloud. The mist fought again, but not as successfully this time.

Darkwind felt it all, felt the conflicting energies in his nerves and bones. He didn’t have to watch the silent battle, he followed it accurately within himself—the spell-wielder forcing the mist away, the mist curling back into the emptying corridor, being forced away, and oozing back in again. He reached out a hand, involuntarily, to wield power that he had forsaken—

Then pulled his hand back, the conflict within him as silent and devastating as the conflict below him.

But before he could resolve his own battle, the balance of power below him shifted. The magic-wielder won; the mist parted, held firmly away from a clear tunnel down the middle of the valley, with only the thinnest of wisps seeping in.

But he could feel the strain, the pressure of the mist on the walls of that tunnel, threatening to collapse it at any moment.

It can’t hold for long!

But again, before he could move, the balance shifted. The ground trembled under his feet, and for a moment he thought it was another effect of the battle of mist and magic being fought in front of his very eyes. But no—something dark loomed through the enshrouding mist, something that tossed and made the ground shake.

The dyheli!

Now he dared a thought, a Mindspoken call.

It didn’t matter that someone or something might overhear; they had been started, or spooked, but without direction they might hesitate, fatally. :Brothers—hooved brothers! Come, quickly, before the escape-way closes!:

There was no answer except the shaking of the ground. But the darkness within the mist began to resolve into tossing heads and churning legs—and a moment later, the dyheli bucks pounded into sight, a foam of sweat dripping from their flanks, coughing as the fumes hit their lungs. And behind them—something else.

Something that ran on two legs, not four.

It collapsed, just barely within the reach of the mist. And as it collapsed, so did the tunnel of clear air.

He did not even stop to think; he simply acted.

He took a lungful of clean air and plunged into the edge of the roiling, angry mist. His eyes burned and watered, his skin was afire. He could hardly see through the tears, only enough to reach that prone figure, seize one arm, and help it to its feet.

He half-dragged, half-carried it out, aware of it only as lighter than he, and shorter, and still alive, for it tried feebly to help him. There was no telling if it was human or not; here in the borderland between k’Sheyna and the Pelagirs, that was not something to take for granted. But it had saved the dyheli, and that was enough to earn it, in turn, aid.

The mist reached greedily for them; he reached clear air at the edge of it; sucked in a lungful, felt his burden do the same. Both of them shuddered with racking coughs as a wisp of mist reached their throats.

He stumbled into safety at the same moment that the other collapsed completely, nearly carrying Darkwind to the ground with him.

Him?

At that moment, Darkwind realized that this was no male. And as he half-suspected, not human either.

:Run!: Vree screamed from overhead, with mind and voice, and Darkwind glanced behind to see the mist licking forward again, reaching for them, turning darker as if with anger.

From somewhere he found the strength to pick her up, heave her over his shoulder, and stumble away at a clumsy run.

* * *

He ran until exhaustion forced him to stop before he dropped the girl, fell on his face, or both. Vree scouted for him, as he slowed to a weary walk, muscles burning, side aching. He figured he must have run, all out, for furlongs at least; he was well out of sensing range of the evil mist, if that still existed and had not been dissipated. That was all that mattered. By the time he came to a halt, in the lee of a fallen tree, he was sweating as heavily as the dyheli bucks.

He knelt and eased his burden down into the grass beside the bark-stripped trunk of the tree, and didn’t bother to get up. He sat right down beside her, his legs without any strength at all, propping himself against the tree with his back against the trunk.

For a long time he just sat there, his forehead against his bent knees, wrists crossed over his ankles, every muscle weak from the long run, relying on Vree to alert him if anything dangerous came along. Sweat cooled and dried, his back and scalp itched, but he was too tired to scratch them. He was only aware of his burning muscles, his aching lungs, the pain in his side.

After a while, other things began to penetrate to his consciousness as his legs stopped trembling and the pain in his side and lungs ebbed. Birds called and chattered all around; a good sign, since they would have been silent if there had been anything about to disturb them.

He began to think again, slowly. His mind, dull with fatigue, was nevertheless alert enough to encompass this much: as a nonhuman and an Outlander, she was not going to be welcome in k’Sheyna. She was not, as he recalled from the brief glimpse he’d had before he had to pick up and run with her, a member of any of the non-human races k’Sheyna had contact with. And unknown meant “suspect” in the danger-ridden lands beyond the borders of the Vale.

Now what am I going to do with her? he wondered, exhaustion warring with the need to make a quick decision. I’d better take a closer look at her. We aren’t inside the Vale yet. If she isn’t badly hurt, maybe I can just leave her here, keep an eye on her until she comes around, then make sure she takes herself off, away from the Vale.

He raised his head and turned his attention to his silent companion—still unconscious, he saw. As he turned her over to examine her, everything about her set off ripples of aversion.

Not only was she nonhuman, she was only-too-obviously one of the so-called “Changechildren” from the Pelagirs, creatures modified from either human or animal bases—at their own whims, frequently, if the base was human; or that of their creators if they were modified from animals. It was what the Tayledras had done with the bondbirds, and what they had done to horses on behalf of the Shin’a’in, taken to an extreme. An extreme that many Tayledras found bordering on the obscene—perhaps because of the kinds of modifications that had been done at the time of the Mage Wars. It was one thing to modify; it was quite another to force extreme changes for no good reason, be the base human or animal.

His experienced eye told him which it was; there was only so much that could be done with an animal base. You couldn’t grant equal intelligence with humans to an animal, except over the course of many generations. It had taken the hertasi many generations to attain enough intelligence for a rare mage to appear among their ranks, and that event itself had been centuries ago. Human base, modified to cat…

Even unconscious, she oozed sexual attraction, which made him both doubly uneasy and pitying. That attraction—it was a common modification, based on smell and the stimulation of deep, instinctual drives in the onlooker. Whether he decided ultimately on pity or revulsion would depend on whether she’d had it done to her, or done it herself. If herself—

Already he felt a deep, smoldering anger at the idea. I may pitch her back into the damned mist.

Those who modified themselves for sexual attractiveness were generally doing so with intent to use themselves and their bodies as a weapon. And not an honest one, either.

On the other hand, if she’d had it done to her—it was likely with the intent of her master to use her as a kind of sexual pet. That was as revolting to Darkwind as the first, but it was not a revulsion centered on the girl.

For the rest, the overall impression was of a cat, or something catlike. Her hair was a dark, deep sable, and rather short, with a subtle dappled effect in the direct sunlight, like his own dyed hair-camouflage. Her face was triangular, with very little chin; her ears, pointed, with furlike tufts on the ends. Her eyebrows swept upward, her eyes were slanted upward, and when he pulled an eyelid open to see if she really was conscious, he was unsurprised to see that her golden-yellow eyes had slit pupils. Which were dilated in shock; her stunned condition was real.

She wore the absolute minimum for modesty; a scanty tunic of cream-colored leather, and skin-tight breeches that laced up the side, showing a long line of dark golden-brown flesh beneath. Not practical garb for woods running.

Even unconscious, she lay with a boneless grace that echoed the cat theme, and her retractile fingernails were filed to sharp points, like a cat’s claws.

Whatever she had been, she was not even as human now as the Tayledras. The changes had been made to her from birth; possibly even before. In fact, in view of the extensiveness of the changes, it was increasingly unlikely that she’d done them to herself. Unless she was born in one of the contaminated areas, the poison twisted her in this direction, and she decided to continue the shift.

She was barefoot, but the tough soles of her feet convinced him that she had spent most of her life without wearing foot coverings. Again, not practical for woods running, which argued that she had run away from something or someone.

Then he saw the patterns of old and new bruises over much of her body, as if someone had been beating her on a regular basis. Nothing to mar the pert perfection of her face—but everywhere else, she was marked with the signs of frequent blows. The darkness of her skin had hidden it from him at first, but she was covered with the greenish-yellow of old, healing bruises, and the purple-black of fresh ones. Some of them, on her arms, were as big as the palm of his hand. He could only wonder, sickened, about the parts of her hidden under her clothing. The evidence was mounting in her favor.

She was thin—too thin, with bones showing starkly, as if she never had quite enough to eat.

Darkwind sat back on his heels, no longer certain what to think. The Changechild was a bundle of contradictions. If she was, as she seemed, the escaped chattel of an Adept-level mage, how was it she had commanded the power to free the dyheli herd? No mage would have permitted a “pet” to carry the Mage-Gift, much less learn how to use it.

But if she was an enemy, why did she bear the marks of beatings and semistarvation? And why had she freed the herd in the first place?

She represented a puzzle he did not have enough information to solve.

I have to give her the benefit of the doubt, he decided, after pondering the question for a moment. She did save the dyheli. Whatever else she is, or is not, will have to wait. But I can’t make a decision until I know what she is. He thought a moment more. I have to see that she stays safe until she wakes. I do owe her that much, at the very least—and I owe her the protection of a place to recover afterward.

At a guess, she hadn’t breathed enough of the poison to have put a healthy creature into the unconscious stupor she lingered in. But she had not been healthy, and she had depleted her resources considerably in fighting that evil mist. She was not Adept-level; that much was obvious. She was not even a Master; no Master would have exhausted herself in fighting the mist directly. A Master would have transmuted the mist into something else; an Adept would have broken the spell creating it and holding it there. Both would have involved very powerful and difficult spells and would have alerted every mage within two days’ ride that there was another mage plying his powers. That was what Darkwind would have done—before he swore that nothing would ever induce him to wield magic energies again. Before it became too dangerous for him to draw the attentions of other Adepts to the depleted and disrupted Clan of k’Sheyna.

She had not—probably could not—either break or change the spell. She could only fight it. That meant she was Journeyman at best, and that the energy to create the tunnel of safety had come directly from her. It was what made Journeymen so hard to track; since the only disturbances in the energy-flows of mage-energies were those within themselves, they couldn’t be detected unless one was very nearby. And, thank the fourfold Goddess, that was what had kept her magics from attracting anything else. Probably he had been the only creature close enough to detect her meddling.

But that was also what limited a Journeyman’s abilities to affect other magic, and limited his magical “arsenal” as well. When the energy was gone, the mage was exhausted, sometimes to the point of catatonia depending on how far he wanted to push himself, and there was no more until he was rested.

That was what brought the Changechild to this pass; depleting herself, on top of her poor physical condition, then taking one whiff too many of the poison mist. She might be a long time in recovering.

But Darkwind could not, in all conscience, leave her where she was. It wasn’t safe, and he could not spare anyone to protect her. And even if it was safe, she might not recover without help; he didn’t know enough of Healing to tell.

He rested his chin on his knee and thought.

I need someplace and someone willing to watch her and keep her out of mischief But I can’t take her into the Vale; Father would slit her throat just for looking the way she does. I need a neutral safe-haven, temporarily—and then I need a lot of good advice.

He knew where to find the second; it was coming up with the first that was difficult.

Finally with a tentative plan in mind, he hefted her over his shoulder again—with a stern admonition to his body to behave in her proximity, as her sexual attraction redoubled once he was close to her.

His body was not interested in listening.

Finally, in desperation, he shielded—everything. And thought of the least arousing things he could manage—scrubbing the mews, boiling hides, and finally, cleaning his privy. That monthly ordeal of privy-scrubbing was the only thing that ever made him regret his decision to move out of the Vale…

The last worked, and with a sigh of relief, he headed off to the nearest source of aid he could think of.

:Vree!: he called.

The bondbird dove out of the branches of a nearby tree; he felt the gyre’s interest at his burden, but it was purely curiosity. The Changechild—thank the stars—was of the wrong species to affect Vree.

If she’d been tervardi, though—she’d have gotten to both of us. And I don’t think Vree’s as good at self-control as I am. I would truly have had a situation at that point.

:Where?: the bondbird replied, with the inflection that meant “Where are we going?”

:The hertasi, Vree,: he Mindspoke back. :The ones on the edge of k’Sheyna. This one hurt-sleeps.:

:Good.: Vree’s mind-voice was full of satisfaction; the hertasi liked bondbirds and always had tidbits to share with them. He could care less about Darkwind’s burden; only that she was a burden, and Darkwind was hindered in his movements. :I guard.:

Which meant that he would stay within warning distance just ahead of Darkwind, alert at all times, instead of giving in to momentary distractions.

Unlike his bondmate…

Latrines, he thought firmly. Cleaning out latrines.

* * *

Nera looked up at Darkwind—it was hard for the diminutive hertasi to do anything other than “look up” at a human—his expressive eyes full of questions.

:And what if she wakes?: the lizard Mindspoke. He turned his head slightly, and the scales of the subtle diamond pattern on his forehead shifted from metallic brown to a dark gold like old bronze. Nera was the Elder of the hertasi enclave and an old friend; Darkwind had brought his burden—and problem—straight to Nera’s doorstep. Let the mages discount the hertasi if they chose, or ignore them, thinking them no more than children in their understanding and suited only to servants’ work. Darkwind knew better.

:I don’t think she will,: Darkwind told him honestly. :At least not until I’m back. I risked a probe, and she is very deeply exhausted. I expect her to sleep for a day or more.:

Nera considered that, his eyes straying to the paddies below, where his people worked their fields of rice. The hertasi settlement itself was in the hillside above a marsh; carefully hollowed out “holes” shored with timbers, with walls, floors and ceilings finished with water-smoothed stone set into cement, and furnished well, if simply. The swamp was their own domain, one in which their size was not a handicap. They grew rice and bred frogs, hunted and fished there. They knew the swamp better than any of the Tayledras.

That had made it easy for Darkwind to persuade the others to include them within the bounds of the k’Sheyna territory. The marsh itself was a formidable defense, and the hertasi seldom required any aid. A border section guarded by a treacherous swamp full of clever hertasi was something even the most stubborn mage would find a practical resource.

Though they knew how to use their half-size bows and arrows perfectly well, and even the youngest were trained with their wicked little sickle-shaped daggers and fish-spears, the hertasi preferred, when given the choice, to let their home do their fighting for them. Enemies, for the most part, would start out chasing a helpless-looking old lizard-man, only to find themselves suddenly chest-deep and sinking in quicksand or mire.

The hertasi were fond of referring to these unwelcome intruders as “fertilizer.”

Nera was still giving him that inquisitive look. Darkwind groaned, inwardly. There were some definite drawbacks to a friendship dating back to childhood. Old Nera could read him better than his own father.

Thank the gods for that.

The Changechild’s attraction didn’t work on Nera, any more than it did on Vree—but Darkwind had the feeling that the hertasi knew very well the effect it was having on the scout. And he was undoubtedly giving Darkwind that look because he assumed the attraction was affecting his thinking as well as—other things.

Darkwind sighed. :All right,: he said, finally. :If she wakes and gives you trouble, she’s fair game for fertilizer. Does that suit you?:

Nera nodded, and his flexible mouth turned up at the corners in an approximation of a human smile. :Good. I just wanted to be certain that your mind was still working as well as the rest of you.:

Darkwind winced. Nera was so small it was easy to forget that the hertasi was actually older than his father, and was just as inclined to remind him of his relative youth. And hertasi, who only came into season once a year, enjoyed teasing their human friends about their susceptibility to their own passions.

It didn’t help that this time Nera’s arrow hit awfully near the mark.

:I’m still chief scout,: he reminded the lizard. :Anything that comes out of the Pelagirs is suspect—and if it’s helpless and attractive, it’s that much more suspect.:

:Excellent.: Nera bobbed his muzzle in a quick nod. :Then give my best to the Winged Ones. Follow the blue-flag flowers; we changed the safe path since last you were here.:

With that tacit approval, Darkwind again shifted his burden to the ground, this time laying her on a stuffed grass-mat just inside Nera’s doorway. When he turned, the hertasi Elder had already rejoined his fellows, and was knee-deep in muddy water, weeding the rice. He might be old, but he had not lost any of his speed. That was how the hertasi, normally shy, managed to stay out of sight so much of the time in the Vale; they still retained the darting speed of that long-ago reptilian ancestor.

Darkwind pushed aside the bead curtain that served as a door during the day, shaded his eyes, and looked beyond the paddies for the first of the blue-flag flowers. The hertasi periodically changed the safe ways through the swamp, marking them with whatever flowering plants were blooming at the time, or with evergreen plants in the winter. After a moment he spotted what he was looking for, and made his way, dry-shod, along the raised paths separating the rice paddies.

Dry-shod only for the moment. When he reached the end of the cultivated fields, he pulled off his boots, meant mostly for protection against the stones and brambles of the dryland, fastened them to his belt, and substituted a pair of woven rush sandals he kept with Nera.

Rolling up the cuffs of his breeches well above his knees, he waded into the muddy water, trying not to think of what might be lurking under it. The hertasi assured him that the plants they rooted along the paths kept away leeches, special fish they released along the safe paths would eat any that weren’t repelled by the plants, and that he himself would frighten away any poisonous water snakes, if he splashed loudly enough, but he could never quite bring himself to believe that. It was very hard to read hertasi even when someone knew them well, and it was all too like their sense of humor to have told him these things to try and lull him into complacency.

He could have gone around, of course, but this was the shortest way to get to the other side of the swamp, where the marsh drained off down the side of the crater-wall into the Dhorisha Plains. The swamp, barely within k’Sheyna lands, ended at the ruins he sought—and when he had apportioned out the borders, he had made sure that both were within his patrolling area.

One advantage of being in charge: I could assign myself whatever piece I wanted. Dawnfire gets the part facing on the hills that hold her friends, and I get the area that holds mine. Seems fair enough to me…

Normally he didn’t have to get there by wading through the swamp. This was not the route he chose if he had a choice.

The water was warm, unpleasantly so, for so was the heavy, humid air. A thousand scents came to his nostrils, most of them foul; rotting plants, stale water, the odor of fish. He looked back after a while, but the hertasi settlement had completely vanished in waving swamp-plants that stood higher than his head. He thought he felt something slither past his leg, and shuddered, pausing a moment for whatever it was to go by.

Or bite me. Whichever comes first.

But it didn’t bite him, and if there had been something there, it didn’t touch him again. He waded on, watching for the telltale, pale blue of the tiny, odorless flowers on their long stems, poking up among the reeds. As long as he kept them in sight, he would be on the path the hertasi had built of stone and sand amid the mud of the swamp. There were always two plants, one marking each side of the path. The idea was to stop between each pair and look for the next; while the path itself twisted among the reeds and muck, it was a straight line from one pair of plants to the next. And there were false trails laid; it wasn’t a good idea to break away from the set path and take what looked like a more direct route, or a drier one; the direct route generally ended in a bog, and the “dry” one always ended in a patch of quicksand or a sinkhole.

Once again he was sweating like a panicked dyheli, and that attracted other denizens of the swamp. Below the water all might be peaceful, but the hertasi could do nothing about the insects above. Darkwind had rubbed himself with pungent weeds to enhance his race’s natural resistance to insects, but blackflies still buzzed about his eyes, and several nameless, nearly invisible fliers had already feasted on his arms by the time he reached dry land again.

There was no warning; the ruins simply began, and the marsh ended. Darkwind suspected that the marsh had once been a large lake, possibly artificial, and the ruins marked a small settlement or trading village, or even a guard post, built on its shore. If whatever cataclysm had created the Plains had not altered the flow of watercourses hereabouts, he would have been very surprised—and after that, it would have been logical for the lake to silt up and become a swamp. He climbed up on the stones at the edge of the swamp, slapping at persistent insects, vowing silently to take the long way around on his return.

He looked up to make sure of Vree, and found the bondbird soaring overhead, effortlessly, in the cloud-dotted sky.

Not for the first time, he wished for wings of his own.

:And what would you do with them, little one?: asked a humor-filled mind-voice. :How would you hide and creep, and come unseen upon your enemies, hmm?:

:The same way you do, you old myth,: he replied. :From above.:

:Good answer,: replied Treyvan, and the gryphon dove down out of the sun, to land gracefully on a toppled menhir in a thunderous flurry of backwinging, driving up the dust around him and forcing Darkwind to protect his eyes with his hand until the gryphon had alighted.

“Sssso, what brings you to our humble abode?” Treyvan asked genially, somehow managing to do what the tervardi could not, and force human speech from his massive beak.

“I need advice, and maybe help,” Darkwind told him, feeling as small as the hertasi as he looked up at the perching gryphon. Those hand-claws, for instance, were half again as wide and long as his own strong hands, and their tips were sheathed in talons as sharp and black as obsidian. Treyvan jumped down from the stone, and his claws clenched and released reflexively as the gryphon changed its position before him, absentmindedly digging inch-deep furrows into the packed earth.

“Advissse we will alwayss have forrr you, featherlessss sson. Advissse you will take? That iss up to you,” Treyvan smiled, gold-tinged crest raising a little in mirth. “Help we will alwaysss give if we can, wanted orrr not.” Darkwind smiled, and stepped forward to grasp the leading edge of the great gryphon’s folded wing, and leaned in to run a hand through the spicy-scented neck feathers, seemingly unending in their depth. “Thank you. Where is Hydona?”

“Sssearrrching for nessst-lining, I would guess.” Treyvan let a trace of his pride show through, fluffing his chest feathers and raising his tailtip.

“So soon? When… when will you make the flight?”

“Sssoon, sssoon. You will be able to telllll…” Treyvan chuckled at Darkwind’s blush, then half-closed his eyes, and Darkwind felt the wing-muscles under his hand relax.

It was easy—very easy—to fall under the hypnotic aura of the gryphon, a state of dreamy relaxation brought on by the feel of the soft, silky feathers, the faintly sweet scent, the deep-rumble of Treyvan’s faint purr. It was the gryphon himself who broke the spell.

“You have need of usss, Darrrkwind,” he reminded the scout. The muscles in the wing retensed, and he stood, wings tucked to his side under panels of feathers. “Let usss go to Hydonaaa.”

He turned and paced regally on a path winding deeper into the ruins. Darkwind had to hurry to keep up with his companion’s ground-eating strides.

The gryphons had arrived here, in these ruins, literally out of the sky one day, when Darkwind was seven or eight. He’d claimed these ruins—then, well within the safe boundaries of k’Sheyna territory—as his own solitary playground. There was magic here, a half-dozen leylines and a node, but the mages had decreed it safe; tame and unlikely to cause any problems. It was a good place to play, and imagine mysteries to be solved, monsters to conquer, magics to learn.

Watching Treyvan’s switching tail, he recalled that day vividly.

He had rounded a corner, the Great Mage investigating possibly dangerous territory and about to encounter a Fearsome Monster, when he encountered a real one.

He had literally walked into Treyvan, who had been watching his antics with some amusement, he later learned. All he knew at the time was that he had turned a corner to find himself face-to-face with—

Legs. Very large legs, ending in very, very large claws. His stunned gaze had traveled upward; up the furry legs, to the transition between fur and feathers, to the feather-covered neck, to the beak.

The very, very, very large, sharp, and wickedly hooked beak.

The beak had opened; it seemed as large as a cave.

“Grrr,” Treyvan had said.

Darkwind had turned into a small whirlwind of rapidly pumping arms and legs, heading for the safe-haven of the Vale, and certain, with the surety of a terrified eight-year-old, that he was not going to make it.

Somehow he had; somehow he escaped being pounced on and eaten whole. He had burst into the ekele, babbling of monsters, hundreds, thousands of them, in the ruins. Since he had never been known to lie, his mother and father had set up the alarm, and a small army of fighters and mages had descended on a very surprised—and slightly contrite—pair of gryphons.

Fortunately for all concerned, gryphons were on the list of “friendly, though we have never seen one” creatures all Tayledras learned of some time in their teens. Treyvan apologized, and explained that he and Hydona were an advance party, intending to discover if these lands were safe to live and breed in. They offered their help in guarding k’Sheyna in return for the use of the ruins as a nesting ground. The Elders had readily agreed; help as large and formidable as the gryphons was never to be disdained. A bargain was struck, and the party returned home.

But all Darkwind knew was that he was huddling in his parent’s ekele, his knife clutched in his hand, waiting to find out if the monsters were descending on his home.

Until his parents returned: unbattered, unbloody, perfectly calm.

And when he’d demanded to know what had happened, his father had ruffled his hair, chuckled, and said, “I think you have a new friend—and he wants to apologize for frightening you.”

Treyvan had apologized, and that had begun the happiest period of his life; when everything was magical and wondrous, and he had a pair of gryphons to play with.

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but it hadn’t entirely been play. Treyvan and Hydona had taught him a great deal of what he knew about scouting and fighting, playing “monster” for him as they later would for their fledglings, teaching him all about dangers he had not yet seen and how to meet them.

Now he knew, though he had not then, that they had chosen the ruins deliberately, for the magic-sources that lay below them. Magic energies were beneficial for gryphon nestlings, giving them an early source of power, for gryphons were mages, too. A different kind of mage than the Tayledras, or other humans; they were instinctive mages, “earth-mages,” Hydona said; using the powers about them deftly and subtly for defense and in their mating flights, for without a specific spell, a mating would not be fertile.

That was what Treyvan had meant by “you will know;” when he and Hydona flew to mate for their second clutch, any mage nearby would know very well that a spell with sexual potency was being woven.

The last time they’d risen, he’d been fourteen, and just discovering the wonders of girls. Fortunately he had been alone, and there had been no girls within reach…

The offspring of that mating were six or seven years old now, fledged, but not flying yet, and still sub-adult.

Pretty little things, he thought to himself, with a chuckle, though the term “little” was relative. They were bigger and stronger than he was. At fourteen he’d already acquired Vree, and the appearance of the gryphlets hadn’t appalled him the way it might have. Vree had looked much scrawnier and—well—awful, right out of the egg. Lytha and Jerven were born alive, and with a reasonable set of fluff-feathers and fur—and Treyvan hadn’t let him see them until their second or third day, when their eyes were open and they didn’t look quite so unfinished.

The gryphons’ nest was very like an ekele, but on the ground, presumably to keep the flightless gryphlets from breaking their necks. The pair had created quite an impressive shelter from stone blocks, cleverly woven vegetation, and carefully fitted logs.

As Darkwind neared it, he realized that it was bigger than it had been; it wasn’t until he got close enough to measure it by eye that the difference was apparent. From without it looked almost like a tent made of stone and thatch, with a roof quite thick enough to keep out any kind of weather; it looked very much as if the gryphons had dismantled and rebuilt it, keeping the same shape with an increase in size.

He glanced in the door as Treyvan turned, a look of proprietary pride on his expressive face. Obviously he was waiting for a compliment. Inside, there were three chambers now, instead of the two Darkwind remembered; the fledglings’, the adults’, and a barren one, which would probably be the new nursery. The other two were basically large nests, piled deep with fragrant grasses that the pair had gathered down on the Plain, and changed periodically.

Treyvan’s neck curved gracefully, and he faced his human friend eye to golden eye. “Well?” he demanded. “Whaaat do you think?”

“I think it’s magnificent,” Darkwind replied warmly—which was all he had time for, as the gryphlets heard and recognized his voice, and came tumbling out of their chamber in a ball of squealing fur-and-feathers. Darkwind was their favorite playmate—or plaything, sometimes he wasn’t entirely certain which. But he’d used Treyvan and his mate the same way as a child, so turnabout only seemed fair.

Mostly they tried to be careful, but they didn’t always know their own strength—and they were very young. Sometimes they forgot just how long and sharp their claws and beaks were.

They hit him together, Lytha high, Jerven low, and brought him down, both shrieking in the high-pitched whistles that served the gryphons for howls of laughter.

Darkwind tried not to wince, but those whistles were enough to pierce his eardrums. I’ll be glad when their voices deepen. Human children are shrill enough as it is…

Lytha grabbed the front of his tunic in her beak and “worried” it; Jerven “gnawed” his ankle. He struggled; at least they were big enough now that he didn’t have to watch what he did; he could fight against them in earnest and not hurt them, provided he didn’t indulge in any real, killing blows. They seemed to have improved in their “playing” since the last time; he’d needed a new tunic when Jerven got through with him. Treyvan watched them maul him indulgently for a moment, then waded in, gently separating his offspring from his friend, batting at them so that they rolled into the far corners of the chamber, shrieking happily.

Darkwind did wince.

Treyvan whistled something at them; they bounced to their feet and bounded out the door. Darkwind still wasn’t fluent in Gryphon; it was a very tonal language, and hard to master, but he thought it was probably the equivalent of “Go play, Darkwind needs to talk to Mother and Father about things that will bore you to sleep.”

Treyvan shook his head, then turned, and settled himself into a graceful reclining curve, with his serrated, meat-rending bill even with Darkwind’s chin, bare inches away, gazing into the human’s face. “Your indulgenssss, old friend. They aaare veeeery young.”

“I know,” he replied, picking himself up off the floor, and dusting himself off. “I distinctly remember doing the same thing to you.”

Treyvan’s beak opened in a silent laugh. “Aaaah, but I wassss ssstill thissss ssssize, and you were much ssssmaller, yesss? The damagesss were much lessss.”

“I think I’ll survive them,” Darkwind responded. “And I owe you both for more than just being gracious about playing ‘monster’ for me.”

Treyvan shook his head. “Weee do not think of sssssuch,” he said immediately. “Thissss issss what friendssss do.”

Darkwind remained stubbornly silent for a moment. “Whether or not you think of it, I do,” he said. “You two helped me cope with Mother’s death; you’ve been a mother and father to me since. It’s not something I can forget.”

The memory was still painful, but he thought it was healing. It certainly wouldn’t have without their help.

“Sssstill,” Treyvan objected. “You are uncle to the little onesss. At consssiderable perssonal damage.”

He shrugged. “To quote your own words,” he replied wryly, “‘that’s what friends do.’ I think they’re well worth indulging. So, you’ve obviously enlarged the nest—and it’s wonderful; the new chamber doesn’t look tacked-on, it looks like it was built with the original. What else are you planning to do?”

“We thought, perhapsssss, a chamber for the younglingssss to play in foul weather—”

They discussed further improvements for a moment until a shadow passed over Darkwind, and he looked up at the sound of his name whistled in Gryphon.

Then once again, he had to protect his eyes, as Hydona, Treyvan’s mate, landed in the clearing before the nest, driving up a stronger wind with her wings than Treyvan had.

Darkwind rose to his feet to greet her. She was larger than Treyvan, and her dusty-brown coloration was a muted copy of his golden-brown feathers. There was more gray in her markings, and less black. Her eyes were the same warm, lovely gold as Treyvan’s, though, and she was just as pleased to see him as her mate had been.

She nuzzled him and gripped a shoulder gently, purring loud enough to vibrate his very bones. He buried his hands in her neck-feathers and scratched the place at the back of her neck she could never reach herself; the most intimate caress possible to a gryphon, short of mating behavior. She and Treyvan had been extraordinarily open with him, especially after the death of his mother, allowing him glimpses of their personal life that most humans were never allowed to see. They were, all in all, quite private creatures; of all the Tayledras, only Darkwind was considered an intimate friend. They had not even allowed Dawnfire, who was possibly the best of all the k’Sheyna at dealing with nonhumans, to come that close to them.

“Ssssso,” Hydona sighed, after a long and luxurious scratch. “Thisss is your patrol time—it musst be busssinesss that bringsss you. And bussinesss isss ssseriousss. How can we help?”

Darkwind looked into her brilliant, deep eyes. “I want to ask advice, and maybe some favors,” he said. “I seem to have acquired a problem.”

Hydona’s ear-tufts perked up. “Acquired a problem? Interesssting word choicssse. Ssssay on.”

He chose a comfortable rock, as she curled up beside her mate. “Well,” he began. “It happened this way…”

9

ELSPETH

Master Quenten reread the message from his old employer, Captain Kerowyn. Herald Captain Kerowyn, he was going to have to remember that. Not that the new title seemed to have changed her much.

“Quenten, I have a job for you, and a sizable retainer enclosed to make you go along with it. Important Personage coming your way; keep said Personage from notice if possible; official and sensitive business. Will have one escort along, but is capable of taking care of self in a fight. Personage needs either a mage-for-hire, a damn good one, or training. Or both. Use your own judgment, pass Personage on to Uncle if you have to. Thank you for your help. Write if you find a real job. Kerowyn.”

He smiled at the joke; no, Kerowyn hadn’t changed, even since becoming one of the white-clad targets for the Queen of Valdemar—although Quenten also had no doubts that she refused to wear the white uniform without a royal decree. Quenten thanked the courier for the message, and offered him the hospitality of the Post for his recovery-stay. It was graciously accepted, and the young man—one of King Faram’s squires—offered to share gossip of the Rethwellan Court with him in return come dinner. And people wonder how we get our information.

The squire was an affable youngster, fresh from the hill district, with the back-country burr still strong in his speech. He made Quenten quite nostalgic for the old days with the Skybolts; a good half of them came out of the hill district facing Karse, with their tough little ponies and all their worldly goods in a saddle-pack up behind them. What they lacked in possessions, they tended to make up for in marksmanship, tracking, and a tough-minded approach to life; something Kero had called “Attitude.”

He had all of that, with a veneer of gentility that told Quenten he was from one of the noble families that hung on there, after fighting their way to the local high seat and holding it by craft, guile, and sheer, stubborn resilience. His eyes went round at Quenten’s pair of mage-lights over the table, though he never said a word about them. He knew how to use the eating utensils though, which was more than Kero’s hill lasses and lads generally did. He’d gotten that much out of civilization.

But because he was so new to Court, he couldn’t tell Quenten what the mage really wanted to know—just who and what this Personage was.

“There’s two of ’em, about a day behind me, I’d reckon,” the young man said around a mouthful of Quenten’s favorite egg-and-cheese pie. “One man, one girl, done up all in white, with white horses. Fast, they are, the horses I mean. I say about a day ’cause I started out a week ahead, but I reckon they’ve made it up by now, that’s how fast them horses are.”

Well, “done up all in white” in connection with the note from Kero meant they were Heralds out of Valdemar, but what Heralds could possibly want with a mage was beyond him. He recalled quite vividly his encounter with Valdemar’s Border-protections. He didn’t think they’d be able to pay any mage enough to put up with that.

Still, that wasn’t for him to say; maybe there was a way around it. He’d have to wait and see.

But who were these Heralds? They’d have to be important for Kero to exert herself on their behalf—and equally important for King Faram to have sent one of his own squires on ahead with Kero’s message to warn him that they were coming.

He put that question to the youngster over dessert, when the squire had sipped just enough of Quenten’s potent, sweet wine to be a little indiscreet.

Ehrris-wine does it every time.

The young man rolled his wide blue eyes. “Well as to that,” he replied, “no one’s said for sure. But the young lady, I think she must be related. I overheard her call His Majesty ‘Uncle,’ when the King gave me the packet and instructions just before I left. I reckon she’s Daren’s get, though I’d never heard of her before.”

Daren’s child? Quenten snorted to himself with amusement. And a Herald of Valdemar? Not unless the twins are aging a year for every month since they’ve been born. But Selenay’s oldest child, now that’s a possibility, though I wouldn’t have thought they’d let her out of the city, much less the Kingdom. Interesting. Something must be going on in that war with Hardorn that I don’t know about. I’d thought it was back to staring at each other across the Border.

He sat back in his chair while the young man rattled on, and sipped his own wine. Suddenly the stakes were not just Kero asking a favor; not with a princess riding through Rethwellan incognito, looking for mages to hire. This had all the flavor of an intrigue with the backing of the Valdemaran Crown, and it promised both danger and the possibility of rapid and high advancement. Quenten had a good many pupils that would find those prospects attractive enough to chance the protections keeping mages out. Maybe they even found a way to cancel them. That might be why they’re finally coming down here now.

In fact—now that Quenten was Master-Class, and could be a low-level Adept if he ever bothered to take the test—it was possible that it was attractive enough to interest him. It might be worth trying to find a way around those “watchers,” whatever they were, if they hadn’t been countered already.

Court Mage of Valdemar… For a moment visions of fame and fortune danced in his head. Then he recalled why he wasn’t a Court Mage now—the competition, the rivalry, and above all, the restrictions on what he could and could not do or say. He’d been offered the position and more than once. So had Jendar, as far as that went. Both of them had preferred to help friends to the post—friends who would tell them what was going on—and keep up casual ties with the rulers of the time. Sometimes a King preferred to go outside his Court for advice… to a mage, say, with no other (obvious) axes to grind.

He laughed at himself, then, and bent his attention to the amusing stories the young squire brought from Court. And remembered what he had once told Kero.

If I have to choose between freedom to do what’s right, and a comfortable High Court position, I’ll take the freedom.

She had shrugged, but her smile told him that she tacitly agreed with him. Which was probably why she was making a target of herself in Valdemar right now.

We’re both fools, he thought, and chuckled. The squire, who thought the mage was chuckling at one of his jokes, glowed appreciatively.

* * *

Quenten used the same office and suite of rooms that the Captain had, back when Bolthaven was the Skybolts’ winter quarters, and not a mage-school. Placed high up in a multistory tower that overlooked most of the town as well as the former fortress, he had a clear view of the main gate and the road leading to it, the exercise yard, and most of the buildings. Kero might not recognize the place at first sight anymore; the exercise yard had been planted and sodded, and turned into a garden, he’d had trees and bushes brought in and scattered about to provide shade, and most of the buildings had been refaced with brick. The barracks were a dormitory now, and looked it, with clothing drying on the sills, food or drink placed there to cool, kites flying from the rooftop, and youngsters sitting or hanging out of most of the windows. The main stable was a workshop, where anything that was likely to blow the place up could be practiced in relative safety. Only the smaller visitors’ stable remained to house the few horses Bolthaven needed. While he kept the stockade, as a means of defining boundaries beyond which the students were not permitted without permission, the place didn’t look like a fortress anymore, it looked like what it was: a school. And not just any school; the largest White Winds school in Rethwellan. The only one that was larger was the school Kethry had attended, in Jkatha. Her son Jendar, Quenten’s teacher, had founded a school near Petras, the capital of Rethwellan, in a little town called Great Harsey, but it had never been this large.

Then again, mage-schools can be dangerous for the innocent townsfolk. Sometimes things get a little out of hand. Townsfolk can get downright touchy over the occasional earth-elemental in the scullery. Can’t imagine why…

That hadn’t been a problem for Quenten. The town of Bolthaven had been built around the garrison, the folk here depended on it for their custom. They’d been relieved to learn that there would still be custom here, and most of them had been able to turn their trades to suit young mages instead of young mercs. And, all told, an earth-elemental in the scullery did less damage—and was less of a hazard to the problematical virtue of the help—than any drunken merc bent on celebration.

The worst that ever came up from Bolthaven now was an urgent call for one of the teachers, followed by a polite bill for damages.

Quenten’s desk was right beside the window; a necessity, since he spent very little time in doing paperwork—that’s what he had clerks for—and a great deal of time in overseeing the pupils and classes. Some of that “overseeing” was conducted from his desk—an advantage mages had over mercenary captains. He could “look in” on virtually anything he chose, at any time, simply by exercising a little of the power that came with the rank of Master mage.

Just now he was keeping an eye on the road, in between considering the proposed theses of four would-be Journeymen. The messenger had departed early this morning; since then, he’d been waiting for the Personage. Not with impatience—a mage soon learned the futility of impatience—but with growing curiosity.

He wasn’t certain what to expect, really. On rereading the note, he saw that Kero had said that he should give this girl training, something he hadn’t taken a great deal of notice of the first time around. Now that was interesting—Kero herself was not a mage, but she had somehow managed to spot potential mages in the past and send them to either him or her uncle. Had she seen something in this girl?

Or was it simply something the girl herself wanted? Had she absorbed tales of what Kero’s mages had done until she had convinced herself that she, too, could become a mage?

Well, that was possible, but not without the Talent for it. Unless you could See and manipulate the energies mages used, she could fret herself blue without getting anywhere.

Even those who followed the blood-paths had at least a little of the Talent. There were varying degrees in what mages could do, too. Not only did the strength of the Talent vary—thus dictating how much energy a mage could handle—but the kind of Talent varied—thus dictating the kind of energy he could handle. Some never became more than earth-mages and hedge-wizards, using their own life-energies to sense what was going on in the world around them, augmenting the natural attributes of plants and animals to serve them, and Healing. Not that there was anything wrong with that; Quenten himself had seen some very impressive merc work done by hedge-wizards with a firm grasp of their abilities and a determination to make the most of them. The tiniest change at the right moment can down a king… or an army.

But he rather doubted that being told she would never be anything other than a hedge-wizard would satisfy a headstrong princess. Nor would being told she could not be any kind of a mage at all.

He was prepared for just about anything, or so he told himself; from a spoiled brat who thought a white uniform and a coronet entitled her to anything she wanted, to a naive child with no Mage-Talent whatsoever, but many dreams, to someone very like some of his older pupils—

That would be the best scenario in many ways, to have her turn out to be teachable; with Mage-Talent present, but unused, so that he could give her what she wanted, but would not have to force her to unlearn bad habits. Theoretically, the discipline required by the Heralds’ mind-magic would carry over, and give her a head start over Talented youngsters who had yet to learn the value of discipline.

A flash of white on the road just below the gate alerted him, and he paused for a moment to key in his Mage-Sight. That, in particular, had improved out of all recognition since joining the Skybolts and his elevation to Master-class. If this child had any ability at all, he would be able to See it, even from the tower. Then he would know what to tell her if she asked for training. And he’d have some time to think about just how he was going to phrase it, be it good news, or bad.

Two dazzlingly white-clad riders on pure white horses entered the main gate and paused for a moment in the yard beyond before dismounting.

And that was when Quenten got one of the greatest shocks of his life.

Whatever he had been expecting—it wasn’t what he Saw.

The ordinary young woman with the graceful white horse was—not ordinary at all. She was the bearer of an untrained but major Mage-Gift; one so powerful it sheathed her in a closely wrapped, sparkling aura in his Mage-Sight, that briefly touched everyone around her with exploratory fingers she was apparently unaware of. Quenten was astonished, and surprised she hadn’t caused problems with it before this. Surely she must have Seen power-flows, energy-levels, even the nodes that he could See, but could not use. Surely she had wondered what they were, and how could she not have been tempted to try and manipulate them? Then he recalled something; these Heralds, one and all, had mind-magic and were trained in it. If they didn’t know what Mage-Talent was, it could, possibly, be mistaken for something like Sight. And if she was told that this was just another way of viewing things, that she could not actually affect them, she might not have caused any trouble.

They have no idea how close they came. If she had ever been tempted to touch something…

That was not the end of the surprises. She was carrying at her side something that radiated such power that it almost eclipsed her—and only long familiarity with Kero’s sword enabled him to recognize it as Need. The sword had changed, had awakened somehow, and it was totally transformed from the relatively simple blade he had dealt with. Now there was no doubt whatsoever that it was a major magical artifact—and it radiated controlled power that rivaled the Adepts he knew.

It’s a good thing I never tried mucking around with it when it was like this. It probably would have swatted me like a fly.

He wondered how he could have missed it when they were riding in; it must have been like a beacon. And how the mages at Faram’s Court could have missed it—

He had his answer, as it simply—stopped what it was doing. It went back to being the simple sword he had known; magical, yes, if you looked at it closely enough, but you had to look very closely and know what you were looking for.

Did it put on that show for my benefit? he wondered. Somehow that idea was a little chilling. No one he knew could detect Mage-Sight in action; it was a passive spell, not an active one.

No one he knew. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. That notion was even more awe-inspiring than the display of power had been. Need was old; perhaps the ancient ways of magic it was made with harbored spells he couldn’t even dream of.

The creature she was riding—not a horse at all, even if it chose to appear as one—rivaled both the young woman and the sword, but in a way few would have recognized. The aura enveloping it was congruent with the creature’s skin, as if controlled power was actually shining through the skin. Which was very much the case… Although few mages would have known it for what it was, Quenten recognized it as a Guardian Spirit of the highest order. And from the colors of its aura, it was superior even to the Ethereal Spirits he had once, very briefly, had conversation with when some of the Shin’a’in relatives came to Bolthaven for the annual horse-fair—the ones Kero’s other uncle called “spirit-Kal’enedral,” that served the Shin’a’in Goddess. The “veiled ones,” shaman Kra’heera had called them; the unspoken implication being that only the spirit-Kal’enedral went veiled. They were to this “horse” what an eating knife is to a perfectly balanced rapier.

One blow after another, all within a heartbeat. He practically swallowed his tongue with shock and dropped his arms numbly to his sides.

For a moment, he felt like an apprentice again, faced with his Master, and the vision of what that Master had become after years and years of work in developing his Talent to its highest pinnacle placed before him. All that power—all that potential—and he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with it.

His mind completely froze for a moment as he stared at her. I can’t take her on! his thoughts babbled in panic. One slip—and she wouldn’t just blow up the workshop, she could—she could—and that Guardian—and the sword—and—and—

Only years of self-discipline, combined with more years of learning to think on his feet with the Skybolts, enabled him to get his mind working again so that he could stop reacting and start acting like a mage and a competent Master, instead of a dumbfounded apprentice.

And the first thing he did was to turn away from the window. With her out of his sight and Sight, he was able to take a deep breath, run his hand through his sweat-damp hair, and think. Quickly. He had to come up with an answer and a solution.

One thing was certain; it wasn’t a question of whether she could be trained or not; she had to be trained. One day, she might be tempted to try to manipulate some of the energies she could sense all around her, and then—

No telling what would happen. Depends on what she touched, and how hard she pulled.

It could be even worse if she were in a desperate situation and she simply reacted instinctively, trying to save herself or others. With the thrust of fear driving her—

Gods. And the very first thing we are taught is never, ever, act in fear or anger.

She would be easy prey for anyone who saw her, and wanted to use her. There were blood-path Masters and even Adepts out there who wouldn’t hesitate to lure her into their territory with promises of training, and then exploit her ruthlessly, willing or not. Anyone could be broken, and no mage had gotten to the Master level without learning the patience it took to break someone and subvert them, even if it took a year or more.

No, she had to be trained. Now the question was, by whom?

Kero said if I couldn’t handle her to send her on to old Jendar, her uncle. He’s an Adept; hellfires, he taught me, he ought to be able to handle anyone. He can deal with her. I don’t have to.

That burden off his hands, he sighed and relaxed. Gradually the sweat of panic dried, his heart went back to its sedate pace, his muscles unknotted. The problem was solved, but he wasn’t going to have to be the one to solve it. He was glad now that he’d delegated one of the teachers—a very discreet young lady, who was, bless the gods, an Herbalist-Healer earth-witch with no Mage-Sight worth speaking of—to greet them when they arrived, just in case he suddenly found himself with his hands full.

God only knows what I’d have been like if I’d met them at the gate. Babbling, probably. Hardly one to inspire confidence. By the time word reached him that they had arrived, he was back to being the calm, unruffled image of a school-master, completely in control of everything around him.

“Yes?” he said; the child poked his head inside, cautiously. All the apprentices were cautious when the Master was in his office. Quenten had been known to have odd things loose in the room on occasion, just to keep people from interrupting him. The legend of the constable’s scorched backside was told in the dormitory even yet, and that had happened the first year the school had been founded.

“Sir, the people you expected are here. The lady’s name’s Elspeth, the gen’man is Skif, Elrodie says. If you’re able, sir, you should come down, Elrodie says.” The child looked the way he must have a few moments ago; it wasn’t often an apprentice got to see the inside of the Master’s office. Usually he met the youngsters on their own ground, and when he wasn’t actually in the office, he kept it mage-locked, for his office also served as his secondary workroom. There were things in here no apprentice should ever get his hands on.

“I’ll be right there,” he said. The child vanished. He waited a few moments more to be certain his stomach had settled, then turned, and started down the stairs.

By the time he reached the ground he felt close to normal, and was able to absorb the shock of his visitors’ appearance without turning a hair. Outwardly, anyway. The sword was “quiet”—but the girl and her so-called horse weren’t.

So long as they don’t do anything…

He turned first to greet the young lady, as her companion held back a little, diffidently, confirming his guess that she was much higher-ranked than he was. And given her strong family resemblance to King Faram, she was undoubtedly the “Elspeth” that was Heir to the Valdemar throne. She took after the dark side of the family, rather than the blond, but the resemblance was there beyond a doubt.

To all outward appearances, she was no different than any other young, well-born woman of his acquaintance. Wavy brown hair was confined in a braid that trailed down her back, though bits of it escaped to form little tendrils at her ears. Her square face was not beautiful or even conventionally pretty and doll-like—it was a face that was so full of character and personality that beauty would have been superfluous and mere “prettiness” eclipsed. Like Kero, she was handsome and vividly alive. Her brown eyes sparkled when she talked; her generous mouth smiled often. If he hadn’t had Mage-Sight, he would have guessed that she had Mage-Talent in abundance; she had that kind of energy about her.

She’d studied her Rethwellan; that was evident from her lack of accent. “I am very glad to meet you at last,” she said, when she’d been introduced. “I’m Kero’s problem child, Master Quenten. She’s told me a lot about you, and since she’s a pretty rotten correspondent, I guess you’re rather in the dark about me.” Her smile widened. “I know what her letters are like. The last time she was with the Skybolts, there was a flood that got half the town, and all she wrote was, ‘It’s a little wet here, be back when I can.’”

He chuckled. “Well, she neglected to supply me with your name and she kept calling you a Personage. I expect that was for reasons of security? You are the Elspeth I think you are—the one with a mother named Selenay?”

Elspeth nodded, and made a face. “I’m afraid so. That was part of what I meant by being a problem child. Sorry; can’t help who my parents are. Born into it. Oh, this is Skif; he’s also assigned to this job.”

“By which she’s tactfully saying that my chief duty is to play bodyguard,” Skif said, holding out his hand. Quenten released his Mage-Sight just a little, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. This young man was perfectly ordinary. No Magical Artifacts, no Adept-potential.

Except that he was also riding a Guardian Spirit. Not as exalted a Spirit as the girl’s, but—

The mare turned, looked him straight in the eye, and gave him a broad and unmistakable wink.

He stifled a gasp, felt the blood drain from his face, then plastered a pleasant smile on his lips, and managed not to stammer. “Since there is only one Elspeth with a mother by that name that I know of—that Kero would have been so secretive about—I can understand why you are in that role,” he said. “It’s necessary.”

“I know it is,” they both said, and laughed. Quenten noted that they both had hearty, unforced laughs, the laughter of people who did not fear a joke.

Elspeth made a face, and Skif shrugged. “We know it’s necessary,” Skif replied for both of them. “But that doesn’t mean Elspeth much likes it.”

Quenten had not missed the sword calluses on her hands, and the easy way she wore her blade. She had the muscles of a practiced fighter, too, though she didn’t have the toughened, hard-eyed look the female mercs had after their first year in the ranks.

He coughed politely. “Kero did, at least, tell me what brings you here, and I have to be honest with you. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. None of my teachers are interested in anything but teaching, and none of the youngsters ready to go out as Journeymen are up to trying to cross your borders and dealing with the magical guards of that border. I assume you know about that; I couldn’t pass it when Kero first took the Skybolts north, and I don’t know that I could now that I’m a more practiced Master with years in the rank.”

Elspeth’s face fell; Skif simply looked resigned.

“What about you teaching us?” she asked—almost wistfully. “I mean, I don’t suppose either of us are teachable, are we?”

Do I tell her right now? He thought about that quickly; well, it couldn’t do any harm to tell her a little about her abilities right off. It might make her a little more cautious. “I’m afraid Skif isn’t—but, young lady—you are potentially a very good mage. Your potential is so high, in fact, that I simply don’t feel up to teaching you myself. And you have to be taught, there is absolutely no doubt about that.”

Her face was a study in contradictory emotions; surprise warred with disappointment, elation with—was it fear? He hoped so; she would do well to fear that kind of power.

“I don’t have the time,” he said truthfully. “You’re coming to the teaching late in your life, and as strong as you could be—well, it will require very personal teaching. One to one, in fact, with someone who will be able to deal with your mistakes. And I can’t do it; it would take time away from the students I’ve already promised to teach. That wouldn’t be fair to them. And I gather that you’re under some time considerations?”

Both of them nodded, and Elspeth’s “horse” snorted, as if in agreement.

Dearest gods, it’s looking at me the way old Jendar used to when I wasn’t up to doing a particular task and said so. Like it’s telling me, “at least you know when not to be stupid.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to you to give you less attention than you need, especially given that.”

Her shoulders sagged, and her expression turned bleak. “So I’ve come on a fool’s errand, then?”

“Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. “What I can and will do is send you on to my old master, Kero’s uncle, Adept Jendar. He’s no longer teaching in his school—he will, on occasion take on a very talented pupil like yourself. But without my directions, introduction, and safe conduct, you’d never find him. He’s very reclusive.”

“I don’t suppose we could get him to come back with us, could we?” Skif asked hopefully. “That would solve all our problems.”

Quenten shrugged. “I don’t know; he’s very old, but on the other hand, magic tends to preserve mages. I haven’t seen him in years and he may still be just as active as he always was. He’s certainly my superior in ability and knowledge, he’s just as canny and hard to predict as Kero, and I won’t even attempt to second-guess him. The best I can offer is, ask him yourself.”

Skif looked a great deal more cheerful. “Thanks, Master Quenten, we will.”

Quenten felt as if a tremendous burden had just been lifted from his shoulders. There’s nothing quite like being able to legitimately pass the responsibility, he thought wryly. And, feeling a good deal more cheerful himself, he told both of them, “Even if I can’t offer you the dubious benefits of my teaching, I can still offer the hospitality of the school. You will stay for at least the night, won’t you? I’d love to hear what Kero’s been up to lately. You’re right, by the way,” he concluded, turning with a smile for Elspeth. “She’s a terrible correspondent. Her letter about you was less than half a page; the letter I’m going to give you for Jendar is going to be at least five pages long, and I don’t even know you that well!”

The young woman chuckled, and gave him a wink that was the mirror image of the one Skif’s spirit-horse had given him. He racked his brain for the right name for them—Comrades? No, Companions, that was it.

“I can even offer something in the way of suitable housing for your—ah—friends,” he said, bowing a little in their direction. “Your ‘Companions,’ I believe you call them. I don’t know what kind of treatment they’re accustomed to at home, but I can at least arrange something civilized.”

Elspeth looked surprised at that, but the Companions themselves looked gratified. Like queens in exile, who had discovered that someone, at last, was going to give them their proper due.

“We have two loose-boxes, with their own little paddock, and you can fix the latch-string on the inside, so that they can open and shut it themselves,” he said, hastily, trying to look as if he had visits from Guardian Spirits all the time. “Kero always had Shin’a’in warsteeds, you know, and they needed that kind of treatment; they aren’t Companions, of course, but they’re a great deal more intelligent than horses.”

“That’s lovely,” Elspeth said as he fell silent, her gratitude quite genuine. “That really is. I can’t tell you how hard it is even in Valdemar to find someone who doesn’t think they’re just horses.”

“Oh, no, my lady,” he replied fervently, convinced by the lurking humor in both sets of blue eyes that the Companions found him and his reactions to them very amusing. “Oh, no—I promise you—I know only too well that they aren’t horses.”

:And you don’t know the half of it, friend,: whispered a voice in his mind.

For a moment he wasn’t certain he’d actually heard that—then the light of amusement in the nearest one’s eyes convinced him that he had.

I think I should ignore that. If they wanted me to treat them like heavenly visitors, they wouldn’t look like horses, would they? Or would they? Do the Heralds know what they are? If they don’t—no, I don’t think I’d better tell them. If the Companions want them to know, they’ll know. If not—no, it would not be a good idea to go against the wishes of a Guardian Spirit, in fact, it would be a very stupid idea—

He realized that he was babbling to himself now, and decided to delegate the tour of the stables and school to someone else. He was going to need a chance to relax before he dealt with these two again.

* * *

Dinner, held without being under those disturbing blue eyes, was far easier. They exclaimed over his mage-lights, and over the tame little fire-elemental that kept the ham and bread warm, and melted their cheese for them if they chose. They marveled at a few of his other little luxuries, like the stoves instead of fireplaces, which kept his quarters much warmer in winter, even without the aid of more fire-elementals. He exchanged stories with them of what he knew of Kero, and Faram and Daren, from the old days with the Skybolts, and what Kero was up to now, at least, as a Herald. He actually got quite a bit of useful Court gossip from her; she knew what to look and listen for.

But he got even more from Skif, who evidently didn’t miss anything. That young man bore watching; he reminded Quenten of another one of the Shin’a’in, one he knew was trained as an assassin, who’d been one of the Skybolts’ specialist instructors for a while—an instructor in techniques he knew, without being told, that he didn’t want to know anything about.

There was a great deal more to Skif than met the eye. Quenten had the feeling that he was not only very resourceful, he could probably be quite dangerous. He also had the feeling that Skif’s presence had a great deal to do with the reason why Elspeth hadn’t been bothered by mages eager to use her before this.

Elspeth was, he discovered, an extremely well-spoken young lady, but in many ways she was still a girl.

She knew how she was treated inside Valdemar, and how her rank worked within that Kingdom, but had very little notion of how knowledge of her rank would affect people, for good or ill, outside it—or how they could and would exploit her, given the chance.

“You see,” Skif said, after he’d explained some of the ways in which she would have to be careful around local nobility. “I told you it was complicated down here.”

She made a face, and the mage-light picked up golden glints in her eyes as she turned toward her partner. “You told me a lot of things, and some of them I was right about.”

Quenten intervened. “It’s not her fault, Skif; she’s always dealt with very highly ranked nobles. It’s the local lordlings you have to be really careful with around here. I’d say that half of them were never born to their titles—or at least, weren’t the first sons. They didn’t get where they are now by being nice, and most of them want to climb a lot higher before they die. You can’t even count on blood relations to be honest with you. Well, take Kero’s brother, for instance. He’s all right, but the Lady Dierna is pretty much an information-siphon for her relatives. And there are a couple of them that none of us trust, not even the King. Go to Lordan and within half a day every one of Dierna’s relatives will know that something brought Heralds down out of Valdemar. Let Lordan know who and what you are, and I personally wouldn’t vouch for your safety once you got off his lands. Ransom is too tempting a prospect.”

“Huh,” was Skif’s only comment. He reached for another piece of smoked ham, thoughtfully. There were odd markings on his hands; old scars that looked like they might have been left by knife fights.

Interesting, Quenten thought. A strange sort of partner for a princess. For Skif was a partner and not “just a bodyguard;” the body-language of both of them said that. More than a partner, a lover, maybe? That seemed likely at first—

Then again, maybe not. They were both Heralds, and the little he’d managed to pry out of Kero on the subject indicated that Heralds had an even closer brotherhood than the tightest merc company. Emotionally, sexually, whether the two were lovers didn’t bear any thought after that; they were Heralds, and that was a good enough answer for Quenten.

“Even if you were left alone, they’d find a way to use your presence,” he continued. “Believe me, the more you act like common folk, the better off you are.” He waited for understanding to dawn, then said, patiently but forcefully, “Get out of the white outfits.”

Skif snickered; Elspeth simply looked bewildered.

“Look, common people don’t ride around in immaculate white outfits. The horses are bad enough, add the uniforms, and you might as well hire barkers to announce you in every little village. I’ll get you some clothes before you leave; save the white stuff for when you need to impress someone. Your simple presence as someone’s guest could lend weight to some quarrel they have that you know nothing about.”

And I wish there was a way to dye the Companions, too, but I’m afraid the amount of magic energy they have simply by being on this plane is going to bleach them again before they get half a day down the road. That’s assuming dye would take, which I wouldn’t bet on.

Elspeth sighed, and finally nodded a reluctant agreement. “Damn. Being able to pull rank on someone who was being stupid would have been awfully useful. All right. You know more about the way things are around here than we do.”

“That’s why he’s got Bolthaven as a freehold of the King,” Skif put in unexpectedly. “As long as it’s a freehold, none of the locals can try and bully each other by claiming he’s with them.” He turned to Quenten, gesturing with a piece of cheese. “Am I right?”

“Exactly,” he replied, pleased with Skif’s understanding. “Not that anyone who knew anything about magic would ever suspect a White Winds school of being on anyone’s side. We don’t do things that way.”

Skif grinned crookedly. “I kind of got the impression from Kero that you folks were the closest thing there was to Heralds down here.”

“Oh,” he replied lightly, trying to keep away from that subject. The brotherhood of the White Winds mages wasn’t something he wanted to confide to an outsider. There were things about White Winds people that weren’t shared by any other mage-school, and they wanted to keep it that way. “We aren’t that close.”

:I’ll second that,: whispered that voice in his mind. He started involuntarily.

“So what exactly are these ‘mage-schools,’ anyway?” Skif persisted, showing no notice of his momentary startlement. “I mean, some of you are real schools, and some of you seem to be philosophies, if you catch my meaning.”

“We’re—both,” he replied, wondering who, or what, had spoken. Surely not the Companions? Surely he would have detected them “listening in” on the conversation. Wouldn’t he?

“Each method of teaching is a philosophy,” he continued, mind alert for other intrusions. “We differ in how we use our magic and how we are willing to obtain power.”

How much should he tell them, and how much should he leave in Jendar’s hands?

Better stick to the basics. “White Winds takes nothing without permission, and we try to do the least amount of harm we can. We also think that since Mage-Talent is an accident of birth, we have the obligation to use it for the sake of those who were never born with it.” Then he grinned. “But there’s no reason why a mage can’t make a living at the same time, so long as he doesn’t knowingly use his powers to abet repression or aid others who abuse their powers. But that’s why you don’t find many White Winds mages working with mercenary companies. When you’re a merc, you can’t guarantee that you’re going to be working for the right side.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about that,” Elspeth said. Skif simply raised an eyebrow—and Quenten had the distinct feeling that Skif was debating how much to tell him.

“I assume you’ve heard of blood-path mages?” he asked, and was surprised when Skif shook his head. “Oh. Hellfire, I guess I had better tell you, then. They’re mages who take their power from others.” He waited expectantly for them to make the connection, then added, a little impatiently, “By killing them. Usually painfully. And by breaking and using them, if they have the time to spare.”

Elspeth’s eyes widened. “That’s what Ancar is doing—or at least, that’s what some of the people who’ve escaped from Hardorn say he and his mages are doing. I didn’t know there was a name for them.”

Skif scowled. “So, which school teaches people to do that?” he asked, growling a little.

Quenten shrugged. “There are schools, but the moment anyone finds out about them, they’re destroyed. If the mages haven’t scattered first, which is what usually happens. No sane ruler wants that on his soil. But to tell you the truth, that kind of magic usually isn’t taught in a school, it’s usually one-to-one. A blood-path mage who decides to take an apprentice just goes looking for one. They try to find people who have potential but are untrained.”

“And can’t tell one mage from another?” Skif asked, with a hard look at him. Quenten nodded; Skif had already seen what he was driving at.

“Sometimes; sometimes they look for someone who is impatient, who is power-hungry and ruthless. That’s the kind that usually rebels eventually; has a confrontation with his master, and either dies, wins, or has a draw that both walk away from. And that is how they reproduce themselves, basically.” Quenten did not mention what happened in the first example; he decided, all things considered, it was better to wait until Elspeth was gone.

“Now, there’s one thing I have to warn you about, and it’s back to the same old story of ‘you aren’t in Valdemar anymore.’ For every rule there’s an exception—and this is the one to blood-magic. There are perfectly good people that practice a couple of forms of magic that require a blood-sacrifice. The Shin’a’in shamans, for one. Sometimes they spill their own blood, just a little, because any spillage of blood releases a lot of power. And in times of a very dire problem, a shaman or Swordsworn may actually volunteer as a sacrifice, as a kind of messenger to their Goddess that things are very bad, they need help, and they are willing to give up a lot to get it.”

Elspeth’s eyes got very wide at that. “You’re joking—”

Quenten shook his head. “I am not joking. It’s very serious for them. It hasn’t happened in the last three or four generations—and the last time it did, the Plains were in the middle of a drought that had dried even the springs. People and herds were dying. One of the shamans threw himself off the top of the cliffs that ring the Plains. Right down onto an altar he’d set up down there.”

“And?” Skif asked.

“And the drought ended. They say that he roams the skies of the Plains as a spirit-bird now. Some even say he transformed as he fell, that he never actually hit the ground.” It was Quenten’s turn to shrug. “I’m not their Goddess, it’s not my place to make decisions. What’s better; answer every little yelp for help, or make people prove they need it?”

“I don’t know,” Skif admitted. Elspeth just bit her lip and looked distressed. “But I can see what you mean; we really aren’t home, are we?”

“There’s a lot of gray out here, and precious little black and white,” Quenten replied with a hint of a smile. “The Shin’a’in aren’t the only odd ones, either. There’re the Hawkbrothers, what the Shin’a’in call Tale’edras. Nobody except the Shin’a’in shamans knows anything about them, mostly because they tend to kill anybody that ventures into their territories.”

Skif scrutinized him closely for a moment. “If you’re waiting for a gasp of horror, Master Quenten, you aren’t going to get one. There’s a reason you told us this, and it has to do with the situation not being black and white. So? Why do they kill people who walk across their little boundary lines?”

Quenten chuckled. “Caught me, didn’t you? All right, there’s a reason that I think is a perfectly good one—and to be honest, they will try and turn you back; it’s only if you persist that they’ll kill you. The Shin’a’in say that they are the guardians of very destructive magics, that they ‘purify’ a place of these magics, then move on. And that they kill persistent intruders so that those intruders can’t get their hands on that magic. Seems like a good reason to me.”

Skif nodded. “Any evidence to support this?”

Quenten raised an eyebrow. “Well, their territories are all in the Pelagirs, and there are more weird, twisted, and just plain evil things in there than you could ever imagine. And they do periodically vanish from a place and never come back, and once they’re gone, anybody that moves in never has trouble from the oddling things again. So? Your guess is just as valid as mine. I’d believe the Shin’a’in, personally.”

Skif’s eyes were thoughtful, but he didn’t say anything. Elspeth stifled a yawn at that moment, and looked apologetic.

“It isn’t the stories, or the company, Master Quenten,” she said ruefully. “It’s the long ride and the wonderful meal. We started before dawn, and we got here just before sunset. That’s a long day in the saddle; Skif’s used to it, but I’m a lot softer, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I can’t blame you for that,” Quenten chuckled. “The truth is, I’m not up to a day in the saddle myself, anymore. Why don’t you find that bed I showed you? I was thinking of calling it a night, myself.”

“Thanks,” she said, and finished the last of the wine in her glass, then pushed herself away from the table. She gave Skif an opaque look but didn’t say anything.

“Good night, then,” Quenten supplied. “I’ll see you off in the morning, unless you want to stay longer.”

“No, we’re going to have to cover a lot of ground and we’re short on time,” she replied absently, then smiled. “But thank you for the offer. Good night.”

Skif looked after her for a moment after the door had closed, then turned to Quenten. “There’s something else you didn’t want her to hear,” he said. “About those blood-path mages. What is it?”

A little startled by Skif’s directness, Quenten came straight to the point. “It’s about the ones who are looking for an ‘apprentice’—or at least they call it that—who is untrained but powerful. The ones looking for someone who is totally naive about magic. Like your young friend there.”

Skif nodded, his eyes hardening. “Go on.”

“What they’re looking for is the exact opposite of someone like themselves. They have two ways of operating, and both involve subversion.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “The first is to corrupt the innocent.”

“Not possible,” Skif interjected. “Trust me on that one. If you’ve ever heard that Heralds are incorruptible, believe it.”

Well, anyone who rides around on a Guardian Spirit probably is, no matter what people say about everyone having a price. I suppose Heralds do, too, but it’s not the kind of price a blood-path mage could meet. “Well, the other is destruction. Luring the innocent into a place of power, then breaking him. Or her.” Quenten gave Skif a sharp look. “And don’t tell me that you can’t be broken. Anyone can be broken. And a blood-path mage has all the knowledge, patience, and means to do so. Their places of power are usually so well guarded that it would take a small army to get in, usually at a terrible cost, and by the time they do, it’s usually too late. That’s if you can find the place because besides being protected, it will also be well-hidden.”

Skif had the grace to blanch a little. “Nice little kingdom you have here.”

“Oh, there aren’t ever a lot of that kind, but they do exist,” Quenten replied. “And that’s why I’m warning you. You don’t have the ability to see the kind of potential she carries—but I do, and so will anyone else of my rank who happens to see her. That’s Master and above. And there are not only blood-path Masters, there are Adepts, trust me on that. One of those would be able to persuade you that he was your long-lost best friend if you weren’t completely on the alert for someone like that. In fact, the truth is that unless you’ve got introductions like I’m going to give you, I would be very wary of anyone who seems friendly. The friendlier they are, the warier I’d be. There isn’t a mage out here who has to go looking for pupils—they come to him. It’s a matter of the way things work; power calls to power. So if someone is out looking, it usually isn’t for anyone’s purposes but his own. The only people as a group that you can trust without hesitation are the Shin’a’in and whoever they vouch for. Anyone else is suspect.”

Skif’s eyes narrowed. “And you say she looks attractive?”

Quenten nodded soberly. “I hate to send you to bed with a thought guaranteed to create nightmares, but—yes. More than attractive. To put it bluntly, my friend, you are riding out into wolf territory with a young and tender lamb at your side. And the wolves can look convincingly like sheep.”

Skif licked his lips, and the look in his eyes convinced Quenten that he hadn’t been wrong. This man was very dangerous, if he chose to be. And he had just chosen to be.

Quenten could only hope the man was dangerous enough.

10

DARKWIND

Vree dove down out of the sky with no warning whatsoever, coming straight out of the sun so that Darkwind didn’t spot him until the last possible second, seeing only the flash of shadow crossing the ground.

“Treyvan! Look out!” he shouted, interrupting whatever it was Hydona was about to say.

Treyvan ducked and flattened his crest, and Vree skimmed right over his head, his outstretched claws just missing the quill he’d been aiming for.

Then, without faltering in the slightest, he altered his course with a single wingbeat, and shot back up toward the clouds, vanishing to the apparent size of a sparrow in a heartbeat.

That was the single bad habit Darkwind had never been able to break him of. The gyre was endlessly fascinated by Treyvan’s crest feathers, and kept trying to snatch them whenever the gryphon wasn’t careful about watching for him.

“Sorry,” Darkwind said, apologetically. “I don’t know what gets into him, I really don’t…”

Hydona smothered a smirk. Treyvan looked up at the bird—who was now just a dot in the sky, innocently riding a thermal, as if he had never even thought about snatching Treyvan’s feathers—and growled.

“Darrrrkwind, I do love you, but ssssome day I aaam going to sssswat that birrd of yourrrsss.” Hydona made an odd whistling sound, half-choked; Treyvan transferred his glare to his mate.

“Sorry,” Darkwind repeated, feebly. “Ah, Hydona, you were saying?”

“Oh, that therrre ssseems no rrreassson for the Changechild to haave sssaved the dyheli.” Hydona’s eyes still held a spark of mirth as Treyvan flattened his crest as closely to his skull as he could. “Unlessss she trrruly meant to be altrrruissstic. And I sssuppose you could not judge how powerrrful a mage sssshee iss?”

He shook his head. “Not on the basis of a single spell. If I were an Adept trying to worm my way into a Clan, I’d probably try and make myself look as harmless as possible, actually.”

“Shhheee isss Otherrr,” Treyvan said, unexpectedly. Both Darkwind and his mate looked at him in surprise. “It iss the clawsss. Thossse cannot be changed from human bassse, only brrred in. Which meansss that she isss Otherrr, for the clawsss come frrrom the unhuman, and only the Othersss brrreed with them. Ssso ssshe is Otherrr, at least in parrt.”

Hydona nodded, slowly. “That iss trrue. I had forrgotten that.”

Darkwind bit back a curse. That would make her even harder to slip past his father if he had to. A Changechild he might accept, with difficulty—but one who was even in part of the Others, the blood-path mages of the Outlands? Not a chance.

“But if she’s Other, what was she doing that close to k’Sheyna?” he asked.

Treyvan ruffled his feathers in the gryphon equivalent of a shrug. “It ssseemsss obviousss that sshe could haave many motivessss.”

True. Darkwind could think of several. She could be a spy; she could still have been trying to escape a cruel master. She could even be an Adept herself, and have inflicted all those hurts on herself with the intent of lulling their suspicions. “We could,” Hydona offered unexpectedly, “quesstion her for you. We arrre asss effective asss the vrondi at sssensssing falsssehood. It isss insstinct.”

They are? That was news to him—though welcome news. Somehow the gryphons kept pulling these little surprises out of nowhere, keeping him in a perpetual state of astonishment.

“That would be—damned useful,” he replied honestly. “The Truth-Spell is still a spell, and I don’t want to use it. Not this close to the border. I can’t chance attracting things to the hertasi settlement, or to k’Sheyna, either.”

“It isss insstinct with usss,” Treyvan repeated, to reassure him. “Not a ssspell. Perhapsss, though, you ought to be therrre alsso. Ssshe will probably be verrry afrraid of usss.”

He smiled. “Considering that you’re large enough to really bite her head off if you wanted to, you’re probably right,” he said. “And that might not be a bad thing, either. If we keep her frightened, we have a better chance of catching her in a lie, don’t we?”

“Yessss,” Treyvan agreed. “It doesss not affect the trrruth asss we sssensse it, fearr.”

“Good; I’ll be with you, so that she doesn’t try to run, but you two loom a little bit. Be the big, bad monsters, and I’ll be her protector.” But another thought occurred to him, then. He’d been planning on what to do to find out more about her; he still had no idea what to do with her.

“What do I do with her if she seems all right?” he asked. “I can’t possibly take her into the Vale.”

“Worrry about that when—and if—the time comesss,” Treyvan said quietly. “It isss eassy to make a decission about a frrriend. I would worrrry more about how to dissspossse of herrr. If ssshe issss falssse, leave herrr to usss. If you like. We can dissspatch her.”

“No,” he said, quickly. “No, that’s my job.” It made him sick to think of killing in cold blood, but it was his job, and he would not put the burden on someone else. Not them, especially. There’s such an—innocence—about them. I won’t see it stained with a cold-blooded murder, no matter how casually they think of doing it. It would matter to me, even if it doesn’t seem to matter to them.

Treyvan shrugged. “Very well, then,” he said. “Ssshall we meet you therrre?”

“Fine,” he replied. And couldn’t help but grin. “Even if it does mean another trek through the marsh. The things I do for duty!”

Treyvan just laughed, and spread his wings. “Jussst keep that birrrd frrom my crrrest. He beginsss to look tasssty!”

And as Darkwind turned to head back, he was mortally certain that the gryphon was thinking of all those quill-snatching attempts by Vree, and chuckling at the notion of dining on the poor gyre. The gryphons were very catholic in what they considered edible; just as Vree would happily dine on a kestrel, a fellow raptor, the gryphons would probably be just as willing to make a morsel of Vree.

Except that Vree was Darkwind’s. That alone was saving him from becoming Treyvan’s lunch—in reality, if not in thought.

:Featherhead,: he Mindspoke up to the dot in the blue. :You have no notion how close to the cliff you’ve been flying.:

:Cliff ?: responded Vree, puzzled. :What cliff ? Where cliff ?:

I can’t tell if he’s playing coy, or he really doesn’t understand me.

Darkwind sighed, and waded into the murky water. :Never mind. Just stop teasing the gryphons. Leave Treyvan’s feathers alone, you hear me?:

:Yes,: said Vree slyly. “Yes,” that he’d heard Darkwind, not that he’d obey.

Darkwind groaned. No wonder Father doesn’t listen to me. I can’t even get respect from a bird.

* * *

Nera met him at the edge of the swamp, popping up out of nowhere right into his path and scaring a year out of him. He yelped, one foot slipped off the path and into who-knew-how-deep, smelly water, and he teetered precariously for a moment before regaining his balance.

He glared at the hertasi, snarling silently. Nera blithely ignored the glare. :The winged ones are here,: he Mindspoke. :The creature you brought is also awake.:

And with that, he vanished again, melting back into the reeds.

Darkwind closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think charitable thoughts. He let me leave the girl here, and he’s worried because of her, the threat she represents. He was startled to see the gryphons. He’s preoccupied with other things. He forgets that I’m a lot clumsier in the swamp than he is.

He grimaced. Sure he does. And I’m the Shin’a’in Goddess.

Not that it mattered; nothing was going to change Nera; the hertasi was far too fond of playing his little games of “eccentric old creature,” and insisting that if Darkwind really tried, he could move as well as the hertasi could in the swamp. He enjoyed watching Darkwind come out of the reeds covered in muck.

Vree, Nera, Dawnfire, the gryphons… With friends like these, why do I need to look on the border for trouble? All I need to do is sit and wait. They’ll bring trouble to me.

But he did hurry his steps a little, as much as he dared without losing his footing. Nera would not have come looking for him if the hertasi weren’t at least a little worried—truly worried—about the Changechild. And rightly; it was possible the girl was an Adept; she seemed a little young for the rank, but Darkwind had just attained Adept-class when the Heartstone fractured, and he had been younger.

And it didn’t follow that she was as youthful as she looked. One of the commonest changes for a blood-path Adept to make in himself was to remove years. Most of them kept their bodies looking as if they were in their mid-twenties, but some even chose to look like children.

Those were the really nasty ones for Tayledras to cope with; given the Hawkbrothers’ strong reaction to children, it was easy to play on their emotions until the enemy Adept had them in exactly the position he wanted them. K’Vala had been decimated by an Adept using that ploy several hundred years ago, back when their territory was on the eastern shore of the Great Crater Sea, the one the Outlanders called “Lake Eveńdim” now. Their lesson was one no Tayledras could afford to ignore.

He found himself thinking of his options if she was an Adept, and how he might be able to trick her into revealing her abilities.

She’ll have to pull power from the nearest node just to Heal herself, he thought, as he felt his way along the submerged path. Treyvan should be able to sense that if she does; from what he told me, he’s tied his magic into that node. If she’s a Master, she’ll draw from the ley-lines. That’s going to be subtler, and harder to catch. Hmm. If he had someone “trap” the lines, so that any interference would be noted, she might note it as well. What he needed was a Sensitive, someone who was so attuned to the local energy-flows that he would notice any deviation from the norm.

Wait a moment; didn’t Treyvan tell me that the gryphlets are Sensitive to the power-flows in their birth area? That might work—assuming he can convince them to keep their minds on it.

He tried to think of something that would have convinced him to keep a constant watch for something when he was that young, and failed to come up with anything. Children were children, and generally as featherheaded as Vree.

Well, I’ll mention it to the adults, and see what they say.

He emerged from the reeds to the walkways rimming the rice paddies and stopped long enough to dry his feet and put his boots back on. A quick look around showed him nothing amiss, which meant there had been no real need to hurry, only Nera’s impatience.

Old coot. Just likes to see me lose my balance. And he’s not happy unless he’s the one in charge of everything.

He knew Nera was watching him, and he deliberately took his time.

On the hill above Nera’s tunnel, two pairs of huge, waving wings told him that Treyvan and Hydona were waiting, too, but with more patience than the little hertasi. He picked his way across the paddies, taking time to be courteous to the farmers who bent so earnestly over their plants. One of them even stopped him to ask a few questions about one of his kin who lived in the Vale—and he could sense Nera’s impatient glare even from the distant tunnel mouth.

He looked up, and sure enough, there was a shadow, just within the round entrance to the tunnel. He smiled sweetly at it and bent to answer the hertasi’s questions, in detail and with extreme politeness. After all, he was the only Tayledras any of them saw regularly, and he did make a point to keep track of those Vale hertasi with relatives out here. They were so shy that they seldom asked him about their Vale kin, and it was only fair to give them a full answer when they did inquire.

And if Nera says anything, that’s exactly what I’ll tell him.

When he reached the hill and set foot on the carefully gravelled trail leading up the side, he debated on going first to Nera’s tunnel, but Treyvan’s Mindspoken hail decided him in favor of the gryphons instead. It seemed that his charge was not only awake, but moving.

:Featherless son, your prize waits up here. She can walk, slowly, and there is more room for us up here. She did not ask what we were and does not seem particularly frightened.:

Well, that was a little disappointing. :She must have known about you—or else she’s seen gryphons before. So much for you playing monster. I’m on my way up.:

When he reached the top of the sun-gilded bluff, he found his charge reclining on another of the stuffed grass-mats, neatly bracketed between the two gryphons. They were also reclining in the cool, short grass, wings half-open to catch the breeze coming over the top of the hill.

His eyes went back to the Changechild as if pulled there. She seemed even more attractive awake, with sense in those slit-pupiled eyes and life in the supple muscles. He was only too aware of how fascinating she was; her very differences from humankind were somehow more alluring than if she’d been wholly human.

She nodded a greeting to him, then shifted her position a little, so that she could watch him and the gryphons at the same time. He noticed that she moved stiffly, as if more than her muscles were hurt.

“Sssso, your charrge iss awake,” Treyvan said genially. “We have been having interessssting conversation. Nyarrra, thisss iss Darrkwind.”

She fixed him with an odd, unblinking gaze. “I remember you. You saved me,” she said, finally, in a low, husky voice that had many of the qualities of a purr. “From the mist. You helped me get out when I fell.”

“After you saved the dyheli herd,” he pointed out. “It seemed appropriate—though I could not imagine why you aided them.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I assume you had a reason.”

“I was fleeing my own troubles when I saw them.” She shrugged, gracefully. “I am what I am,” she replied. “A Changechild, and not welcome among the Birdkin. When I saw the dyheli trapped, it came to me that it would be good to free them, and also that your folk value them. If I freed them, perhaps the door might be open for one such as I. And also,” she added, looking thoughtful, “I have no love for he who trapped them.”

“And who might that be?” Darkwind asked, without inflection. He could see what Treyvan had set up, even without a Mindspoken prompting; since the girl was not afraid of the gryphons, their planned positions would be reversed. They would be friendly, and he would be menacing.

A little harder to pull off, with her lounging on the ground like an adolescent male dream come to languid life, but certainly a good plan. It seemed that she was perfectly willing to believe that he would be hostile to her, even with her sexual allure turned up to full force.

“My master,” she said, pouting a little at his coldness. “Mornelithe Falconsbane.”

“Not a frrrriendly name,” Hydona said, with a little growl.

“Not a friendly man,” replied Nyara, with a toss of her head and a wince. “Not a man at all, anymore, for all that he is male—or at least, very little human. He has worked more changes upon his own flesh than he has upon mine.”

“An Adept, then,” Treyvan said with cheerful interest. “And one you did not carrre for, I take it? From yourrr hurtss, I would sssay he wasss even less kind than he wasss frriendly.”

Nyara nodded, her supple lips tightened into a bitter line. “Oh, yes. I was the creature upon which he attempted his changes, and if they proved to his liking, he used them also. And he made his mistakes upon me, and often did not bother to correct them. Other things he did, too—beatings, and—”

Her eyes filled with tears and she averted her head. “I—he hurt me, once too often. That is all I would say.”

“So, you ran away from him, is that it?” Darkwind interrupted the attempt to play for sympathy rudely. “How did you get away from someone as powerful as that? I don’t imagine he let you simply walk away. And when you saw the dyheli, then what did you do?”

She blinked away the tears, and rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand, without raising her head. “I have stolen little bits of magic-learning from time to time. I have a small power, you see. When Mornelithe was careless, I watched, I learned. I learned enough to bend the spells of lock and ward and slip free of his hold. Then I went north, where I have heard from Mornelithe’s servants that there were Birdkin, that he hated.” She watched him out of the corner of her eyes. “Do you think less of me, that I thought to use you? You are many, I am one. You have been the cause of some of my hurts, when he was angered with you and could not reach you. I thought with Birdkin between me and him, he would ignore my flight and harry the Birdkin. He might even think I was with the Birdkin, and turn his anger on them. Then I saw the horned ones, and felt his magic upon them, and thought to buy myself sanctuary, or at least safe passage, with their freedom.” Her head came up, and she looked defiantly into his eyes. “You owe me safe passage, at least, Birdkin. Even though I thought to trick Mornelithe and set him on you. You have defeated him many times. I am but a small thing, and could not even defy him, and escaped him only with guile.”

He looked sideways at Treyvan, who nodded ever so slightly. Everything she’d said was the truth, then. It was probably safe enough to give her what she asked for.

“We do owe you that and a place to rest until you can journey again,” he admitted, softening his icy expression a little. He caught the glint of scales out of the corner of his eye, and Mindspoke Nera, watching her closely to see if she detected the thoughts. :Nera, this Changechild seems friendly, and she’s going to need your help; shelter for a week or two at least, maybe more. Have you got any tunnels no one is using?:

The hertasi forgot whatever it was that had brought him, now that Darkwind had invoked his authority again. :Hmm. Yes. The old one at the waterline that belonged to Rellan and Lorn, that flooded this spring. Again. They finally listened to me and moved out. Unless we have three or four weeks of rain, it should stay dry.:

And it was right on the edge of the bluff, with the swamp on one side, a hillside too steep for someone in her condition to climb above, and all the hertasi between herself and freedom. That should do.

:Perfect,: he said.

And Nyara showed no signs of having heard the conversation.

:We will make it ready,: Nera told him, full of self-importance, and content now that he was a major part of whatever was going on. :The creature can walk, but slowly—my Healer says that there are half-healed bones and torn muscles. Send her in a few moments and there will be a bed and food waiting.:

“We can give you a place to stay for as long as you need it,” he told her. “And I will see about getting you safe passage, once you’re fit to journey again. I—don’t think you can hope for sanctuary. The Elders of this Clan hate Changechildren too much.”

“But you do not,” she replied, her voice a caress.

“I—don’t hate anyone,” he said, flushing, and averting his eyes, much to Treyvan’s open amusement. “But I don’t determine what the Elders will say or do. At any rate, Nera and the others are moving some basic things in now, and as soon as you are ready, one of them will come show you where it is.”

“I am grateful, Darkwind,” she said, bowing her head a little and looking up at him from under long, thick lashes. “I am very grateful.”

He felt his blood heating from that half-veiled glance, and wondered if she knew what she was promising him with it. Then he decided that she must know; sex was as much a part of her weaponry as her claws.

“Don’t worry about being grateful,” he said gruffly, while Treyvan hid his amusement. “Just get yourself healed up, so we can get you out of this Mornelithe’s reach. The sooner you’re gone, the safer we’ll all be.”

* * *

They removed themselves to a place farther along the bluff, well out of earshot of the hertasi village, before any of them said anything.

It was a golden afternoon, near enough to nightfall for things to have cooled down, sunlight as thick and sweet as honey pouring over the gold-dusted grass of the bluff, with just enough breeze to keep it from being too warm. The gryphons fanned their wings out to either side of themselves, basking, their eyes half-lidded, and beaks parted slightly. Treyvan’s crest was raised as high as it could go, and his chest feathers were puffed out.

They looked extraordinarily stupid. Darkwind had to fight off gales of laughter every time he looked at them.

Vree, on his good behaviour now that both Darkwind and Treyvan were ready for his tricks, joined them on the grass. He had just taken a bath, and looked even sillier than the gryphons. Even though he was behaving, he kept eyeing the quills of Treyvan’s crest with undisguised longing.

“Will the little ones be all right with you gone so long?” Darkwind asked with concern.

Hydona nodded, slowly and lazily. “The ruinsss are sssafe, temporrrarrrily. We caught the wyrrrsssa. They were wild, masssterless.”

“What about that serpent you thought moved into the ruins this spring?” he asked. “The one I found the sign of. It’s certainly large enough to make a meal of one of you, let alone Lytha or Jerven.”

“It made the missstake of bassssking on the sssame ssstone alwaysss,” Treyvan replied, his voice full of satisfaction. “It wasss delicioussss.”

“The little onesss will be fine,” Hydona assured him. “Their Mindssspeech isss quite sssstrong now, and if they are threatened, they will call. We can be there verrrry quickly.”

Having seen the gryphons flying at full speed once, he could believe that. They were even faster than Vree, and that was saying something, for Vree was faster than any wild bird he had ever seen.

“So, was she lying about anything?” Darkwind asked, as he pulled the hair away from the back of his neck to let the sun bake into his neck and shoulder muscles. “Nyara, I mean.”

“No,” Hydona said. “Orrr—mossstly no.”

“Mostly?” Darkwind said sharply. “Just how much was she lying about?”

“The one ssshe claimed wasss her massster,” Treyvan said, slowly.

“Mornelithe Falconsbane,” Darkwind supplied. “Sounds to me as if he really does hate Tayledras, if he’s taken a use-name like that.” Most Adepts assumed use-names; the Tayledras did it simply to have a name that was more descriptive of what they were, but the blood-path Adepts did so out of fear. Names were power, though not in the sense that the foolish thought, that knowing someone’s “true name” would permit you to command him. No, by knowing the real name, the birth-name, of someone, you could discover everything there was to know about him, if you were thorough and patient enough—you could even see every moment of his past life, if you knew the spell to see into the past. And by knowing that about him, you knew his strengths and weaknesses. And most importantly, you could learn the fears that were the strongest because they were rooted in childhood. It was characteristic of blood-path Adepts that they had many, many weaknesses, for they generally had never faced what they were and conquered those old fears. There had been cases of mere Journeymen besting Adepts, sometimes even by illusions, simply by knowing what those fears were, and playing to them.

But blood-path mage or any other kind, the use-name told the world something about what the mage was now. A name like “Mornelithe Falconsbane” did not call up easy feelings within a Tayledras.

“I do not like that name, Darrrkwind,” Hydona said uneasily. “It does not sssit well in my mind.”

“Nor mine, either,” Darkwind admitted. “I don’t imagine he cares much for anything with wings and feathers. Mornelithe, now, that’s Old Tayledras; it’s actually Kaled’a’in, the language we and the Shin’a’in had when we were the same people—”

“Yesss,” Treyvan said, interrupting him. “We ssspeak Kaled’a’in. Fluently.”

“You do?” he replied, surprised again. That’s something to go into with them later. In detail. Where on earth did they ever learn Kaled’a’in? I thought it was a dead language. “Well, I knew what it was, but what’s it mean?”

“Hatrrred-that-returnsss,” Treyvan said solemnly. “A name that sspeaksss of return over the agesss, not once, but many timesss. It isss not rebirrth, it isss actual returrn, and return looking for rrrevenge. It isss an evil word, Darrrkwind. Asss evil as you find ‘Falconssssbane’ to be.”

The words hung heavy and ill-omened between them, silencing all three of them for a moment, and bringing a chill to the air.

“Typical blood-path intimidation,” Darkwind said in disgust, attempting to make light of it and dispel the gloom. “Trying to frighten people with a portentous name and a fancy costume. Frankly, I’d like to know where they’re finding people willing to make clothing like that, those ridiculous cloaks and headdresses. They look as if they were designed by an apprentice to traveling players with delusions of grandeur. Half the time they can’t even walk or see properly in those outfits.”

Treyvan laughed. “Oh? And who isss it hasss an entire collection of Ravenwing’sss feather masssksss on hisss wallsss?”

“That’s different,” he replied, defending himself. “That’s art. Back to the subject; what was it Nyara lied about in connection with her master? Wasn’t he her master after all?”

“Oh he wasss her massster, yesss. But he wasss more. Sssomething more—intimate.” Treyvan shook his head and looked over at his mate, who nodded.

“Yesss,” said Hydona. “But not intimate, asss in loversss. There isss no love there. It wasss something elsssse.”

Darkwind tried to puzzle that one out, then gave it up. “I’ll think about that for a while; maybe the connection will come to me. She did escape, though, right?”

“Oh, yesss,” Hydona replied emphatically. “Yesss, sshe did essscape, and wass purssued. I would ssay that her sstory isss trrrue—all of it that ssshe told usss, that isss.”

“I wish I’d been able to ask her more questions,” he said, chewing at his lower lip as he thought. “I wish I’d been able to think of more questions.”

“It ssseemss clear enough,” Treyvan said lazily, stretching his forelegs out into the sun a little more. “Ssshe isss exactly what sshe ssseemsss.”

“A Changechild, used to try out the changes her master wanted to perform on his own body—used as a sex toy when he wished.”

“Yesss,” Hydona nodded. “And usssed alssso to rrraissse and hold powerrr for him. You did not ssssee that upon herrr?”

He looked up at the sky in exasperation. “Of course! I missed that aspect completely! I could not imagine why Falconsbane would allow her to keep her Mage-Gift intact, when an Adept should be able to block it or render it useless by burning the channels. But if she didn’t have enough to challenge him—but did have enough to carry power—”

“Ssshe would make the perrrfect vesssel,” Treyvan concluded.

“Exactly,” Hydona replied. “He could ussse herrr to carrrry powerrr from hisss sacrificesss; he could generrrate powerrr frrrom herrr by hurrrting herrr.”

“And best of all,” Darkwind concluded grimly, “he could exhaust her power without touching his own. That made it possible for him to work spells that don’t disturb the energy-flows around here at all, because it’s all internal power. That is how he’s been doing things without my sensing them!”

“Sssensing them?” Treyvan opened one eye. “I thought you had given up yourrr mage-sssskillsss.”

“I have,” he replied firmly. “But I can still sense the power flows and the disturbances when someone tampers with them. As long as I’m not inside the Vale, that is.”

“That Heartssstone isss a problem, Darrrkwind,” Treyvan said, unexpectedly. “It isss distorting everrrything in the area of the Vale, asss if it were a thick, warped pane of glasss. And when thingsss come into thiss area, like the ssserpent, it isss attracting them. I am ssssurprisssed that no one in therre hasss noticed the problemsss.”

Darkwind shook his head, compressing his lips tightly.

“If I say what I’d like to—well, that’s Vale business, and the Elders’ business, and you—”

“Are Outssssidersss,” Treyvan replied, rolling his eye in exasperation. “And if your father dissscovered you had been ssspeaking of Vale busssinesss to Outsssiderssss, what then? Would he cast you out? It might be worth it, Darrkwind. Thisss isss involving more than jussst k’Sssheyna. The broken Heartssstone beginsss to affect the area outssside the Vale.”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “I have a duty to my Clan, and to what the Tayledras are supposed to be. I guess—” he thought for a moment, “I suppose I’m just waiting for the moment that they all bury themselves, and I can find out where k’Vala or k’Treyva are now, and I can go get some help.”

“May that be ssssoon,” Hydona sighed.

“Too true.” He eyed the sun and stood up, then hesitated a moment. “You know my personal reasons for giving up magic—and—well, I wouldn’t admit it to anyone but you, but—I’m beginning to think that may have been, well, a little short-sighted.”

Treyvan tilted his head. “I will not ssay that I told you the ssame.”

“I know you did. But now,” he frowned, “if the Heartstone is attracting uncanny things, it is probably a good idea not to rescind that vow. Look what happened to the one mage who tried casting spells outside the Vale.”

“A good point,” Treyvan acknowledged. “But you ssstill show Adept-potential, do you not? Would that not attract creaturesss asss well ass sspellcasssting?” He tilted his head the other way. “A dissstinct liability to a ssscout, I would sssay.”

He flushed. “Treyvan, I’m not stupid. I thought of that. I swore I wouldn’t spellcast. I never swore I wouldn’t keep my shields.”

Treyvan laughed aloud. “Good. You are asss canny as I could wish, flightless ssson.”

He had to laugh, himself. “Well, Nera has things well in hand for now, you have youngsters to get back to, and I—I guess I’d better finish out my patrol, tell Dawnfire the good news if she doesn’t know already, and figure out how best to phrase Nyara’s request to the Elders.”

Treyvan chuckled. “Ssshe won’t be moving far or fasst for a few dayss, if I’m any judge of human ssshapesss. You’ll have ssome time to think.”

Darkwind sighed. “I hope so,” he replied. “It isn’t going to be easy. Starblade is not going to like this.”

11

ELSPETH

Skif peered through the foggy gloom of near-dawn, wishing he had eyes like a cat. He watched for possible trouble, as Elspeth stood—literally—on her saddle, trying to read the signpost in the middle of the crossroads. Gwena stood like a stone statue; a distinct improvement over a horse in a similar situation.

Before they had left Bolthaven, Elspeth had taken Quenten’s advice quite literally—and very much to heart. For one thing, she’d consulted with him about disguises, in lieu of being able to ask Kerowyn. Now they wore something more in the line of what a pair of prosperous mercenaries would wear. “Mercs would be best,” Quenten had decided, after a long discussion, and taking into consideration the fact that no amount of dye would stain the Companion’s coats. “Tell people who ask you’ve been bodyguards for a rich merchant’s daughter, and that’s where you got the matched horses. If you say you’re mercs, no one will bother you, and you can wear your armor and weapons openly. Just put a coat of paint on those shields, or get a cover for them.”

They’d given him carte blanche, and a heavy pouch of coin. He’d grinned when Skif lifted an eyebrow over the selection of silks and fine leathers Quenten’s agent brought back from the Bolthaven market, clothing that was loose and comfortable, and so did not need to be tailored to them to look elegant.

“We want you two to look prosperous,” he’d said. “First of all, only a prosperous merc would be able to afford horses like yours, even if you did get them in the line of duty. And secondly, a prosperous merc is a good fighter. No bandit is ever going to want to bother a mercenary who looks as well-off as you will. The last place a merc puts his money is in his wardrobe. If you can afford this, you’re not worrying about needing cash for other things.”

“But the jewelry,” Skif had protested. “You’ve turned most of our ready cash into jewelry!”

“A free-lance merc wears his fortune,” Quenten told him. “If you need to buy something, and you don’t want to spend any of those outland gold coins because it might draw attention to you, break off a couple of links of those necklaces, take a plate from the belt, hand over a ring or a bracelet. That’s the way a merc operates, and no one is going to turn a hair. Very few mercs bother with keeping money with a money-changing house, because it won’t be readily accessible. In fact, only about half of even bonded mercs have a running account with the Mercenary’s Guild, for the same reason. Where you’re going, every merchant and most good inns have scales to weigh the gold and silver, and they’ll give you a fair exchange for it.”

Skif thought about what he said, then sent Quenten’s agent back to the bazaar to exchange the rest of their Valdemaren and Rethwellan gold and silver for jewelry. He had to admit that the ornaments he got in exchange, a mixture of brand new and worn with use, were a great deal less traceable than the Valdemaren coin. He felt like a walking target—his old thief instincts acting up again—but he knew very well that when he was a thief, he’d never, ever have tackled two wealthy fighters, especially when they walked with their hands on their hilts and never drank more than one flagon of wine at a sitting. Quenten had been right; a wealthy, cautious fighter was someone that tended not to attract trouble. Still, he’d complained to Elspeth their first night on the road that he felt like a cheap tavern dancer, with his necklaces making more noise than his chain-mail.

Elspeth had giggled, saying she felt like a North-province bride, with all her dowry around her neck, but she had no objections to following Quenten’s advice.

He still resented that, a little. He’d made a similar suggestion—though he had suggested they dress as a pair of landed hill-folk rather than mercs—and she had dismissed the notion out of hand. But when Quenten told them to disguise themselves, she had agreed immediately.

Maybe it was simply that he’d suggested plain, unglamorous hill-folk, and Quenten had suggested the opposite. Skif had the feeling she was beginning to enjoy this; she was picking up the kind of swaggering walk the other well-off mercs they met had adopted, and she had taken to binding up her hair with bright bands of silk, and some of the strands of garnet and amethyst beads Quenten had bought. There were eye-catching silk scarves trailing from the hilt of Need, and binding the helm at her saddlebow. She looked like a barbarian. And he got the distinct impression she liked looking that way. Her eyes sparkled the moment they crossed into a town and found a tavern, and she began grinning when other mercs sought them out to exchange stories and news. One night she’d even taken up with another prosperous female free-lance, Selina Ironthroat, and had made the rounds of every tavern in town.

:The gods only know what they did. I don’t even want to think about it. At least she came back sober, even if she was giggling like a maniac. If half the stories those other mercs told me about Selina are true, her mother would never forgive me.

Not only that, she took the inevitable attempts at assignations with a cheerful good humor that amazed him.

He’d expected her to explode with anger the first time it happened. She had been the center of a gossiping clutch of Guild mercs, but as the evening wore on, one by one, they’d drifted off, leaving her alone for a moment. That was when a merc with almost as much gold around his neck as she wore had tried to get her to go off with him—and presumably into his bed. He readied himself for a brawl. Then she’d shocked the blazes out of him. She’d laughed, but not in a way that would make the man feel she was laughing at him, and said, in a good approximation of Rethwellan hill-country dialect, “Oh, now that is a truly tempting offer, ’tis in very deed, but I misdoubt ye want to make me partner there feel I’ve left ’im alone.”

She’d nodded at Skif, who simply gave the merc The Look. Don’t mess with my partner. And turned back to his beer, with one cautious eye on the proceedings.

“He gets right testy when he thinks he’s gonna be alone, truly he does,” she continued, a friendly grin on her face, her eyes shining as she got into her part. “Ye see, his last partner left ’im all by ’imself one night, and some sorry son of a sow snuck up on ’im when he wasn’t payin’ attention, an’ hit ’im with a bottle.” Her face went thoughtful for a moment. “’Twas sad, that. ’E not only took it out on ’is partner, gods grant th’ puir man heals up quick, ’e took it out on th’ lads as took the puir fellow off. He hates havin’ no one to watch ’is back, he truly do.”

The other merc looked at Skif, who glowered back; gulped, and allowed as how he, too, hated having no one to guard his back.

“Then let’s buy you a drink, lad!” she’d exclaimed, slapping him so hard on the back that he’d staggered. “When times be prosperous, ’tis only right t’ share ’em. No hard feelin’s among mercs, eh? Now, where are ye bound for?”

Oh, yes, indeed, she looked, and acted, the part; a far cry from the competent but quiet princess of Valdemar, who never had seen the inside of a common tavern in her life.

As he waited for her to decipher the sign, he wondered, as he had wondered several times before this, if she wasn’t enjoying it a bit too much.

She dropped down into her saddle by the simple expedient of doing just that, her feet slipping down along the sides as she fell straight down—and he winced. That was one of Kero’s favorite tricks, and it always made men wince.

“We’re on the right road if we go straight ahead,” she said. “That’s ‘Dark Wing Road,’ and we don’t want it; it’s going into the Pelagiris Forest in a couple of leagues, and it doesn’t come out until it hits the edge of the Dhorisha Plains. No towns, no inns, no nothing. We want this one; it’s still the Pelagiris Road, and in a while it’ll meet the High Spur Road, and that takes us to Lythecare.”

On the map, this “Dark Wing Road” had looked to be a very minor track, but it was just as well-maintained in reality as the High Spur Road they expected to take. Of course, now that she’d pointed out what it was, it was obvious that it went in the wrong direction, but with all this dark mist confusing his senses—“I’m all turned around in this fog,” he complained.

“That’s what you get for being a city boy,” she replied, ridiculously cheerful for such an unholy hour. “Get you off of the streets, and you can’t find your way around.” She sent Gwena to join him, then took the lead. His Companion followed after with no prompting on his part, the fog muffling the sounds of hooves and the jingle of harness.

His nose was cold, and the fog had an odd, metallic taste and smell to it. He hated getting up this early at the best of times; the fog made it that much worse.

“You’re just as much city-bred as me,” he countered, resentfully, a harder edge to his voice than he had intended. “Since when did you get to be such an expert on wilderness travel?”

She swiveled quickly and peered back at him, hardly more than a dark shape in the enshrouding fog. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, astonishment and a certain amount of edge in her voice as well.

“Nothing,” he said quickly—then, with more truth—“Well, not much. I hate mornings; I hate fog. And there’s something that’s been bothering me—you’re different. It’s as if you’re turning into Kero.”

Or even Selina Ironthroat.

“So what if I am?” she countered. “Who would you rather have next to you in trouble—Kero, or mousy little princess Elspeth, who would have let you try and figure out where we were going and what we were doing? What’s wrong with turning into Kero? That’s assuming that I am; I happen to think you’re wrong about that.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised. He’d never heard her refer to herself as a “mousy little princess” before. And while she had sometimes railed about things to him, she’d never turned on him before. “Uh—” he replied, cleverly.

“Or is it just that I won’t let you take care of me? Is that the problem?” He heard the annoyance in her voice that meant she was scowling. “You’ve been sulking since we left Bolthaven, and I’m getting damned tired of it. As long as I let you make all the decisions, everything was fine—but this is my trip, and I’m the one with the authority, and you know it. I pull my own weight, Skif. I was perfectly capable of doing this trip by myself, in fact, I was ready to. I admit I didn’t think about disguises—and you were right about that idea. But the fact is, if I’d been able to go on my own, I was intending to travel by night and hide by day. And if anyone saw me, I was going to pretend I was a ghost-rider and scare the blazes out of him.”

“It’s not that you’re making the decisions. It’s just the changes in you. You’re so—hearty,” he said feebly. “You’re kind of loud, actually. Everybody notices us, wherever we go. I thought the point was to keep from drawing attention to ourselves.”

She snorted, and it wasn’t ladylike. “You think these costumes aren’t going to draw attention to us? Come on, Skif, we’re walking advertisements for the life of the merc! Sure, I’m loud. That’s what a woman like Berta would be. Like Selina Ironthroat. I spent that night studying her, I’ll have you know. I’m competing for men’s money in a man’s world, and I’m doing damn well at it, and the more I advertise that fact, the more jobs I’ll be offered. In fact, I’ve been offered jobs, quite a few of them; I turned them down, saying we were going off to take another job with a caravan we were picking up at Kata’shin’a’in.”

“Oh,” he replied, feeling overwhelmed. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought much about the part he was supposedly playing. Certainly not the way she had. She had everything; motives, background, character—even an imaginary job that would give them an excuse to turn down any other offers.

“Don’t cosset me, Skif,” she said, her voice roughened with anger. “I’m sick to death of being cosseted. Kero wouldn’t, and you know it. This is exactly the kind of job she’d love. She’d be right beside me, slapping those drunks on the back—and if she had to, I bet she’d be hauling them off to bed with her, too.”

“Elspeth!” he yelped, before he thought.

“There!” she said triumphantly. “You see? What’s the matter, don’t you think I know about the simple facts of a man and a woman? An ordinary man and woman, not Heralds, the kind of people who are driven by the needs of the moment? Just what, exactly, are you trying to protect me from? The idea that drunk strangers grab each other and hop into strange beds and proceed to form—”

He tried, but he couldn’t help himself. He emitted an inarticulate moan. “—each other’s tails off ?” she finished, right over the top of him. “And I deliberately didn’t use any of the ten or so rude words I know for the act, just to avoid bruising your delicate sensibilities. I can swear with the worst of the mercs if I have to, and I know hundreds of filthy jokes, and furthermore, I know exactly what they mean! I’ve spent lots of time with Kero’s Skybolts, and they treated me just like one of them. Skif, I grew up. I’m not the little sister that you used to leave candy for. And I don’t need you to shelter me from what I already know!” A pause, during which he tried to think of something to say. “Stop treating me like a child, Skif. I’m not a little girl anymore. I haven’t been for a long time.”

And that’s the problem, he thought, unhappily. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and he wasn’t sure how to act around her. It wasn’t that competence in women bothered him—he loved Talia dearly, and he looked up to Kero as to his very own Captain, for she was one of the few at Court to whom his background meant nothing in particular. It was seeing that confidence in Elspeth that bothered him. He couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t confidence, it was a foolish overconfidence, the headiness of freedom.

The warnings Quenten had given him had made him wary to the point of paranoia. Every time someone approached her, he kept examining them for some sign that they weren’t what they seemed, that they were really blood-path mages stalking her, like a cat stalking a baby rabbit.

:She just doesn’t understand,: he confided to his Companion, thinking that she, at least, would sympathize. :There’re all those mages out there Quenten warned us about. She doesn’t even think about them, she doesn’t watch for them, and she’s not trying to hide from them.:

:But you warned her about everything Quenten said,: Cymry said, answering his thought. :You told her everything you knew. She may be right about hiding in plain sight, you know. Why would a mage look for someone like her to have Mage-Gift? Everyone knows mages can’t be fighters. Besides, don’t you think she’s as capable as you are of telling if someone is stalking her?:

:Yes, but—:

:In fact,: she continued, thoughtfully, :it’s entirely possible that she would know sooner than you. She does have mage abilities, even if they aren’t trained. Quenten said that power calls to power, and she’s keeping a watch on the thoughts of everyone around her. Don’t you think she’d know another mage if one came that close to her?:

:Yes, but—: He lapsed into silence. Because that wasn’t all, or even most, of what was bothering him.

She’d grown up, all right. She was no longer anything he could think of as a “girl.” And whether it was the new attitude, or the new clothing, or both—he couldn’t help noticing just how much she had grown up. Certainly the new clothing, far more flamboyant than anything she wore at home, enhanced that perception. It seemed almost as if she had taken on a new life with the new persona.

Maybe it was also, at least in part, the fact that no one was watching them together. There was no one to start rumors, no one to warn him that she was not exactly an appropriate partner for an ex-thief; no one to wink and nod whenever he walked by with her, no one to ask, with arch significance, how she was doing lately. The friends had been as annoying as the opponents.

But now both were gone, far out of distance of any gossip. And he was free to look at her as “Elspeth” instead of The Heir To The Throne.

And he was discovering how much he liked what he saw. She was handsome in the same vibrant way Kero was—and, admit it, he thought to himself, you’re more than half in love with Kero. Clever, witty, with a ready laugh that more than made up for her whiplash temper. Oh, she was a handful, but a handful he wouldn’t mind having by his side…

Dear gods. A sudden realization made him blush so hotly he was very glad that the fog was still thick enough to hide it. It wasn’t outraged sensibilities that made him yelp at the idea of her entertaining one of those mercs in bed—it was jealousy. The very last emotion he’d ever have anticipated entertaining, especially over Elspeth.

He didn’t want her running off with someone else, he wanted her to run off with him.

He must have been giving an ample demonstration of his jealousy over the past few days; surely she had guessed long before he had.

But now that he thought about it, she didn’t seem to notice anything except his increasing protectiveness—“mother-henning,” she called it. This wasn’t the first time she’d complained about it.

But it was the first time she had done so at the top of her lungs. She might not have noticed his attraction, but she had certainly noticed the side effects.

I guess she’s really mad, he thought guiltily. And cleared his throat, hoping to restart the conversation, and get it turned back onto friendlier ground.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t turn around and snap at him, either. The growing light of dawn filtered through the fog, enveloping them both in a glowing, pearly haze—and it was a good thing they were both wearing their barbaric merc outfits; the Companions just faded into the general glow, and if they’d been wearing Whites, they’d have lost each other in a heartbeat. This kind of mist fuddled directions and the apparent location of sound, too. He peered at her fog-enshrouded shape up ahead of him; it looked uncannily as if she was bestriding a wisp of fog itself.

Try something noncommittal. Ask something harmless. “Did Quenten say why Adept Jendar is living in Lythecare, when the school he founded is all the way back up near Petras in Rethwellan?” he asked, trying to sound humble.

“Don’t try to sound humble, Skif,” she replied waspishly. “It doesn’t suit you.” Then she relented and unbent a little; he thought perhaps she turned again to make certain he was still following, and hadn’t halted his Companion in a fit of pique. “Sorry. That wasn’t called for. Ah—he did tell me some. Jendar wants to be down here in Jkatha so he’s somewhere nearer his Shin’a’in relatives, but he doesn’t want to be in Kata’shin’a’in, because it’s really just a trade-city, and it practically dries up and blows away in the fall and winter.”

“What did he mean by that?” Skif asked, puzzled. “I should think a trade-city would have anything he’d want.”

She paused. “Let me see if I can do a good imitation of Quenten imitating Jendar.”

Her voice shifted to that of a powerful old man’s, with none of the querulousness Skif expected.

“‘I want fabulous food! Carpets! Hot bathhouses and decent shops! Beautiful women to make a fool of me in my old age! Servants to pamper me outrageously, and merchants to suck up to me when I’m in the mood to buy something!’”

Skif chuckled; Elspeth did an excellent imitation when she was in a good mood—and from the sound of it, she had shaken her foul humor. I have the feeling I’m going to like Kero’s uncle as much as I do her.

“I think I’m going to like the old man,” she said, echoing his thought. “Quenten also said that there were two reasons Jendar didn’t retire in Great Harsey, even though the school and the village begged him to. The first was that Great Harsey is a real backwater, too far for a man his age to travel to get to Petras, even if it is less than a day’s ride away. The other is that he said that if he stayed, the new head would never be a head, he’d always be ‘consulting’ with Jendar and never making any decisions for himself. He thought that would be a pretty stupid arrangement.” Her voice shifted again. “‘Let the youngster make his own mistakes, the way I did. You certainly haven’t been hanging on my coattails, Quenten, and you’re doing just fine.’”

She paused again, and said, significantly, “Jendar obviously believes in letting people grow up.”

“I get the point,” Skif muttered. “I get the point.”

* * *

It wasn’t far now to the turnoff, but Elspeth was beginning to wonder if she’d make it that far. And she wondered also what happened to a Herald who murdered his Companion… Once in a while, she wished there was such a thing as repudiation by the Herald, and this was one of those times. The summer heat was bad down here; it was worse, without trees to give some shade. The Pelagiris Forest lay somewhere to their right, but there wasn’t a sign of it along this road way, except for the occasional faint, fugitive hint of pine.

:Well, you’re certainly smug today,: Elspeth finally said to Gwena, when, for the fourth time, a sensation as of someone humming invaded the back of her mind. She pushed her hat up on her forehead and wiped away the sweat that kept trickling into her eyes.

:What?: Gwena replied, her ears flicking backwards. :What on earth do you mean?:

:You were humming to yourself,: Elspeth told her crossly. :If you were human, you’d have been whistling. Tunelessly, might I add. It’s damned annoying when someone is humming in your head; it’s not something a person can just ignore, you know.:

:I’m just feeling very good,: Gwena replied defensively, picking up her pace a little, to the surprise of Cymry, who hurried to match her, hooves kicking up little clouds of dust. :Is there anything wrong with that? It’s a lovely summer day.:

Oh, really? :A candlemark ago you were complaining about the heat.:

:Well, maybe I’m getting used to it.: Gwena tossed her head, her mane lashing Elspeth’s wrist, and added, :Maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re just being testy.: Her mind-voice took on a conciliating tone. :Is it the wrong moon-time, dear?:

:No it’s not, as you very well know. Besides, that has nothing to do with it!: Elspeth snapped, without thinking. :Skif is being a pain in the tail.:

:Skif is falling in love with you,: Gwena replied, dropping the conciliating tone. :You could do worse.:

:I know he is, and I couldn’t do worse,: she said, conscious only of her annoyance. :I’m not talking about differences in rank or background, either. And don’t you start playing matchmaker. He’s a very nice young man, and I’m not the least bit interested in him, all right?:

:All right, all right,: Gwena said, sounding surprised at her vehemence. :Forget I said anything.: Gwena closed her mind to her Chosen, and Elspeth sighed. It wasn’t just Skif and his problem that was bothering her—or even primarily Skif. It was something else entirely.

It was a feeling. One that had been increasing, every step she rode toward Lythecare. The feeling that she was being herded toward something, some destiny, like a complacent cow to the altar of sacrifice.

As if she were doing what she “should” be doing.

And she didn’t like it, not one tiny bit.

Everything had fallen into place so very neatly; she could almost tally up the events on her fingers. First, Kero showed up, with a magic sword. Then, Elspeth, having seen real magic at work, firsthand, just happened to get the idea that Valdemar needed mages. Then, Kero just happened to back that up, having had to deal with mages herself in her career.

All that could have been mere coincidence. But not the rest. Why was it that within a month, she was attacked by an assassin who may have been infiltrated into Haven magically, there was a magic attack on a major Border post—manned by Kero’s people, so an accurate report got back, and the Council, for some totally unknown reason, seemed to be forced into letting her go look for mages?

And lo, as if in a book, Kero just happened to have kept up contact with her old mage, who happened to have kept up contact with his old teacher, who happened to be Kero’s uncle and doubly likely to cooperate. No one had stopped them on this trek, no one had even recognized them as far as Elspeth knew. Everyone was so helpful and friendly it was sickening. Even the mercs seemed to take her stories at face value. There was no sign of Ancar or his meddling. Everything was ticking along quietly, just like it was supposed to occur.

They were barely a candlemark away from the turnoff for Lythecare. And the Companions were so smug about something she could taste it.

Gwena was humming again.

And suddenly she decided that she had had enough.

That is it.

She yanked so hard on her reins that Gwena tripped, went to her knees, and scrambled back up again with a mental yelp—and Cymry very nearly ran into her from behind.

She turned to look at Skif; he stared stupidly back at her, as if wondering if she had gone mad.

“That’s it,” she said. “That is it. I am not playing this game anymore.”

“What?” Now Skif looked at her as if certain she had gone mad.

“I am being herded to something, and I don’t like it,” she snapped, as much for Gwena’s ears as his. “I did want to do this, and Valdemar certainly needs mages, but I am not going to be guided by an invisible hand, as if I were a character in a badly written book! This is not a foreordained Quest, I am not in a Prophecy, and I am not playing this game anymore.”

With that, she dismounted and stalked off the side of the road to a rough clearing. Like seemingly all wayside clearings in this part of Jkatha, it was a bit of grass, surrounded by fenced fields of grain, with a couple of dusty, tall bushes, and a very small well. She sat down beside the well defiantly and crossed her arms.

Skif dismounted, his expression not the puzzled one she had expected but something she couldn’t read. He walked slowly over to her, the Companions following with their reins trailing on the ground.

“Well?” she said, staring up at him.

He shrugged, but the conflicting emotions on his face convinced her that he knew something she didn’t.

“I am not moving,” she said, firmly, suppressing the urge to cough as road dust went down her throat. “I am not moving, until you tell me what you know about what’s going on.”

He looked helplessly from side to side; then his Companion whickered, and looked him in the eyes, nodding, as if to say, “You might as well tell her.”

I thought so. She glared at Gwena, who flattened her ears. :You should have told me in the first place.:

“It—was the Companions,” Skif said, faintly. “They, well, they sort of—ganged up on their Heralds, when you first wanted to go looking for mages. The Heralds that didn’t want to let you go, like your mother—well, they kind of got bullied.”

“They what?” she exclaimed, and turned to Gwena, surprise warring with other emotions she couldn’t even name.

:It had to be done,: Gwena replied firmly. :You had to go. It was important.:

“That’s not all,” Skif said, looking particularly hangdog. “For one thing, they absolutely forbid you to be told what they were doing. For another, they’re the ones that suggested Quenten in the first place. They said he was the only way to an important mage that they could trust.”

“I knew it!” she said, fiercely. “I knew it, I knew it! I knew they were hock-deep in whatever was going on! I knew I was being herded like some stupid sheep!”

She turned to Skif, ignoring the Companions. “Did they say anything about the Shin’a’in?” she demanded. “If I’m going to do this, I am by damn going to do it my way.”

“Well,” he said, slowly, “No. Not that I know of.”

:We don’t know anything about the Shin’a’in Goddess,: Gwena said, alarm evident in her mind-voice. :She’s not something Valdemar has ever dealt with. We’re not sure we trust Her.:

“You can’t manipulate Her, you mean,” she replied flatly.

:No. She could be like Iftel’s God; She could care only for the welfare of Her own people. That’s all. We know some of what She is and does—but it’s not something we want to stake the future of Valdemar on.: Gwena’s mind-voice rose with anxiety. Elspeth cut her off.

“What do you have to say about this?” she asked Skif. “You, I mean. Not the Companions.”

“I—uh—” he flushed, and looked horribly uncomfortable. “I—don’t know really what the Companions think of it.”

He’s lying. His Companion is giving him an earful.

“But I—uh, from everything Kero’s said, the Shin’a’in probably could give you the teaching, and if they couldn’t, they would know someone who could.” He gulped, and wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Kero trusts them—not just her relatives, I mean—and so does her Companion, I know that much.”

Gwena snorted. :Of course Sayvil says she trusts them. Contrary old beast, she’d say that just to be contrary.:

Elspeth ignored the waspish comment. “Fine.” She turned to stare into Gwena’s blue eyes. “I am going to Kata’shin’a’in, and I am going to see if the Shin’a’in know someone to train me.” She turned the stare into a glare. “That is where I am going, and you are not going to stop me. I’ll walk if I have to. I’ll buy a plowhorse in the next village. But I am not going to Lythecare. And that is my final word on the subject.” She raised her chin and stared defiantly at all of them. “Now, are you with me, or do I go on alone?”

Less than a candlemark later, they passed the turnoff to Lythecare, heading straight south, to Kata’shin’a’in.

And Gwena was giving her the most uncomfortable ride of her life, in revenge.

But every bruise was a badge of victory—

And I hope I’ll still believe that in the morning when I can’t move…

12

DARKWIND

This patrol—like all the others lately—had been completely uneventful. This is almost too easy, Darkwind thought, making frequent checks of the underbrush beside the path for signs of disturbance. A week now, that Nyara’s been hiding with us, and there’s nothing from the other side. Nothing hunting her, except that couple of wyrsa I caught on her trail, no magic probes, nothing.

The very quietude set all his nerves on edge. Of course, her shielding is really outstanding. Falconsbane might not know she’s here, or even that she headed this way when she ran. He could be hunting for her in another direction altogether.

That was what Treyvan said; Hydona was of the opinion that Falconsbane knew very well she’d come this way but assumed she was in the Vale. She pointed out that in all the time Falconsbane had been on their border—and everything Nyara said indicated that he had been there for a very long time—he’d never directly challenged k’Sheyna. He was only one Adept, after all, and there were at least five Adepts and ten times that many Masters in k’Sheyna. And even though none of them were operating at full strength, the mages of k’Sheyna could still be more than he cared to meet in conflict. Especially when the conflict was over the relatively minor matter of the loss of a single Changechild.

“He can alwaysss make anotherrr,” Hydona had said, callously. “It isss unussual for one like himssself to keep a pet forrr longerrr than a few yearsss.”

And oddly enough, Nyara agreed with Hydona’s analysis.

“If he was angered at all, his anger would have been for a loss; not for the loss of me,” she’d said, more than a little piqued at having to admit that she was worth so little to her former master. “As an individual, I mean very little to him. He has threatened many times to create another, to then see how I fared among his lesser servants as their plaything. All that would goad him into action was that he had lost a possession. If something distracted him from that anger, he would have made only a token attempt to find me, more to appease his pride than to get me back.”

So it seemed, for other than the pair of wyrsa, there had been nothing in the way of activity—not along Darkwind’s section, nor Dawnfire’s—not, for that matter, anyone else’s. Except for Moonmist; she ran into a basilisk who’d decided her little patrol area was a good one to nest in. Prying that thing out had taken five scouts and three days. They didn’t want to kill it if they didn’t have to; basilisks were stupid, incredibly dangerous, and ravenous carnivores who would eat anything that couldn’t run away from them—but they weren’t evil. They had their place in the scheme of things; they dined with equal indifference on their own kills or carrion, and there were few things other than a basilisk that would scavenge the carcasses of cold-drakes or wyrsa.

But no one wanted a basilisk for a near neighbor, not even the most ardent animal lover. Not even Earthsong, who had once unsuccessfully tried to breed a vulture for a bondbird.

But that was the only excitement there had been for days, and there was no way that incident could have been related. No one could herd a basilisk. The best you could do was to make things so unpleasant for it that it chose to move elsewhere. No one, in all the history of the Tayledras, had ever been able to even touch what passed for one’s mind, much less control it. The histories said they were a failed and abandoned experiment, like so many other creatures of the twisted lands; a construction of one of the blood-path mages at the time of the Mage Wars. But perversely, once abandoned, the basilisk continued to persist on its own.

It’s just a good thing they only lay two or three fertile eggs in a lifetime, he thought wryly, or we’d be up to our necks in them.

A broken swath of vegetation caught his attention, and he looked closer, only to discover the spoor of a running deer and the tracks of its pursuer, an ordinary enough wolf pair. From the small hooves, it was probably a weanling, separated from its mother; it wouldn’t have broken down the bushes if it had been an adult.

This is ridiculous, he thought. I might as well be a forester in the cleansed lands. There hasn’t been anything worth talking about out here for the past week.

That was the way the area around a Vale was supposed to look, just before a Clan moved to a new spot. No magic-warped creatures like the giant serpent, no mage-made things like the basilisk; just normal animals, relatively normal plant life.

Maybe Father’s been right about sitting and waiting for the Heartstone to settle…

Up ahead, the forest thinned a little, the sunlight actually reaching the ground in thick shafts. These golden lances penetrated the emerald leaf canopy, bringing life to the forest floor, for the undergrowth was thicker here, and there was even thin grass among the wild plum bushes. He looked up at the hot blue eye of the sky as he reached a patch of clearing; framed by tree branches, Vree soared overhead, calmly. He hadn’t seen anything either; in fact, he’d been so bored he’d taken a rock-dove and eaten it while waiting for Darkwind to catch up. It had been a long time since he’d been able to hunt and eat while out on scout.

Starblade’s answer to the fracture of the Heartstone had been to wait and see what would happen. He’d insisted that the great well of power would drain itself, slowly—Heal itself, in fact—until it was safe to tap into it, drain the last of its energies, construct a Gate, and leave.

Darkwind had disagreed with his father on that, as he had seemingly on everything else. And up until the past week, it certainly hadn’t looked as if the Heartstone was following his father’s predictions. In fact, if anything, the opposite was true. There had been more uncanny creatures; more Misborn attracted, more actually trying to penetrate the borders. And recently, there had been the other developments; the fact that the mages within the Vale had been unable to sense the changes in energy flows outside it, the fact that now most of the scouts’ bondbirds refused to enter the Vale itself, the perturbations that Treyvan sensed.

But maybe that was all kind of the last gasp—maybe things have settled down. Maybe Father’s right.

But when he considered that possibility, all his instincts revolted.

Yes, but what if I just feel that way because if Father is right, it means that I am wrong? What if I am wrong, what does it matter? Other than if I’m wrong, Father will never let me forget it…

He stopped for a moment, hearing a thudding sound—then realized it was only a hare drumming alarm, hind foot beating against the ground to alert the rest of his warren—probably at the sight of Vree.

Is it just that I can’t admit that sometimes he might be right?

On the other hand, there was a feeling deep inside, connected, he now realized, with the mage-senses he seldom used, that Starblade was wrong, dead wrong. A Heartstone that badly damaged could not Heal itself, it could only get worse. And this calm they were experiencing was just a pause before things degenerated to another level.

I guess I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, and stay out of the Vale as much as possible.

He sent another inquiring thought at Vree, but the gyre had no more to report than the last time.

It was very tempting to cut everything short and go to see how Nyara was doing. So tempting, that he fought against the impulse stubbornly, determined to see his patrol properly done. It might make up for the other days he had neglected it.

Not really neglected it—there were the dyheli, and then Nyara.

His efforts at appeasing his conscience came to nothing. It still wasn’t done. And if I hadn’t been very lucky, things could easily have slipped in.

He no longer worried that these temptations were caused by anything other than his own selfish desire to spend more time with the Changechild. Nyara was good company, in a peculiar way. She was interested in what he had to say and just as interesting to listen to.

At least I can appease my conscience with the fact that I’m learning something about our enemy.

She was also as incredibly attractive as she had been the first time he’d seen her. If he had been a less honorable man, her problematic virtue wouldn’t have stood a chance. Which led him to revise his earlier assumptions; to think that she wasn’t in control of that part of herself. She might even be completely unaware of it.

That would fit the profile of her master.

Mornelithe Falconsbane would not have wanted her in control of anything having to do with sexual attraction; he would have wanted to pull the strings there. Which was one reason why Darkwind had continued to resist letting her lure him to her bed. He had no prejudice against her, but he was not sure what would happen, what little traps had been set up in her makeup that a sexual encounter would trigger.

That would fit Falconsbane’s profile, too. Make her a kind of walking, breathing trap that only he could disarm. So anyone meddling with the master’s toy would find himself punished by the thing he thought to enjoy.

With a set of claws—and sharp, pointed teeth—like she had, he didn’t think he was in any hurry to find out if his speculations were true, either. Darkwind was not about to risk laceration or worse in a passionate embrace with her.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost missed the boundary marker, the blaze that marked the end of his patrol range and the beginning of Dawnfire’s. He glanced at the sun, piercing through the trees, but near the horizon; it was time for Thundersnow to take over for him. And if he hurried, he would have a chance to chat with Nyara before he went to the council meeting.

He was already on the path to the hertasi village before the thought was half finished.

* * *

“I think this is the best chance I’m going to have; things have been so quiet, they can’t blame disturbances on your presence. So I’m going to tell the Council about you, and put your request to them,” he told her as they both soaked up the last of the afternoon’s heat on the top of the bluff.

She didn’t answer at first; just turned on her back and stretched, lithe and sensuous—and seemed just as innocent of the effect it had on him as a kitten. She wasn’t even watching him, she was watching a butterfly a few feet away from them.

That didn’t stop his loins from tightening, or keep a surge of pure, unmixed lust from washing over him, making it difficult to think clearly for a moment.

He sought relief in analyzing the effect. That sexual impact she has can’t be under conscious control. She couldn’t fake the kind of nonchalance she’s got right now.

“When?” she asked, yawning delicately. “Is it tonight, this meeting?”

He nodded; he’d explained to her the need to wait until a regular meeting so that her appearance would seem a little more routine. She’d agreed—both to his reasons and to the need to wait.

But in fact, his real reasons were just a little different. He’d put off explaining what had happened in its entirety until he wouldn’t have to face his father alone. Starblade in the presence of the rest of the Elders was a little easier to deal with than Starblade in the privacy of his own ekele, where he could rant and shout and ignore anything Darkwind said—and he tended not to take quite so much of his son’s hide in public, where there were witnesses both to his behavior and to what Darkwind told him.

“It is well,” Nyara purred, satisfaction brimming in her tone. She blinked sleepily at Darkwind, her eyes heavy-lidded, the pupils the merest slits. “Though I still cannot travel, should they grant me leave. You will say that, yes?”

“Don’t worry,” he replied, “I’m going to make that very clear.”

In fact, that was one of the points he figured he had in his favor; Nyara obviously could not move far or fast, and he wanted to have a reason for why he had left her with the hertasi, instead of putting her under a different guardian. “More competent,” Starblade would undoubtedly say. “Less sympathetic,” was what he would mean.

And if worse came to worst, he wanted to have a reason for continuing to leave her here, instead of putting her with a watcher of Starblade’s choice.

“You still seem fairly weak to me,” he continued, “and Nera’s Healer seems to think it’s a very good idea for you to stay with us until those cracked bones of yours have a chance to heal a bit more. And that reminds me; have you had any problems with the hertasi?”

“Have they complained of me?” she snapped sharply, twisting her head around, to cast him a look full of suspicion.

He was taken a little aback. “Why, no—it’s just that I wanted to make certain you were getting along all right. If there was any friction, I could move you—maybe to the ruins where the gryphons are. It’s pretty quiet there—”

“No, no!” she interrupted, her voice rising, as if she were alarmed. Then, before he could react, she smiled. “Your pardon, I did not mean that the way it may have sounded. Treyvan and Hydona are wonderful, and I like them a great deal—as I expected to like anything Mornelithe hated. I learned early that whatever thwarted him he hated—and that what he hated, I should be prepared to find good.”

“He knows about Treyvan and Hydona—”

“No, no, no,” she interrupted again, hastily. “I am saying things badly today. No, it is only gryphons in general that he hates. As he hates Birdkin, so I was prepared to like you. He never told me why.” She shrugged indifferently, and by now Darkwind knew he’d get nothing more out of her on the subject. She had all the ability of a ferret to squirm her way out of anything she didn’t want to talk about.

But if she likes them, why wouldn’t she want to stay near them?

“It is the little ones,” she sighed, pensively, as if answering his unspoken suspicion. “I am very sorry, for I am going to say something that will revolt you, Birdkin, but I cannot bear little ones. No matter the species.” She shuddered. “Giggling in voices to pierce the ears, running about like mad things, shrieking enough to startle the dead—I cannot bear little ones.” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “I have,” she announced, “no motherly instinct. I do not want motherly instinct. I do not want to see little ones for more than a short time, at long intervals.”

He laughed at her long face. “I can see your point,” he replied. “They are a handful—”

“And soon there will be two more, this time the very little ones, who cry and cry all night, and will not be comforted; who become ill for mysterious reasons and make messes at both ends. No,” she finished, firmly. “I care much for Treyvan and Hydona, but I will not abide living with the little ones.”

“You’ve been getting along all right with the hertasi, though?” he asked anxiously. If he had to leave her here for any length of time, it would be a good idea to make sure both parties were willing. Nera had indicated that he had seen no trouble with her, but Darkwind wanted to be sure of that. Sometimes the hertasi were a little too polite.

“As well as one gets along with one’s shadow.” She shrugged. “They are quiet, they bring me food and drink, they are polite when I speak to them, but mostly they are not there—to speak to, that is.” A wry smile touched the corners of her mouth, and the tips of her sharp little canine teeth showed briefly. “I am well aware that they watch me, but in their place, I would watch me, so all is well. I pretend to ignore the watchers, the watchers pretend they are most busy counting grass stems, we both know it is pretense, and politeness is preserved.”

Darkwind laughed; she smiled broadly. Now I know why Nera called her “a very polite young creature.”

“As long as you’re doing all right here—” he glanced at the setting sun. “I have to get back for that meeting. I expect to have some trouble with it.”

Nyara’s smile faded to a wistful ghost. “I wish I could tell you it would be otherwise, but I doubt it will be so. I only hope you do not come to regret being my champion.”

He sighed, and got to his feet. “I hope so, too.”

* * *

The windows of the ekele shook as his father pounded the table with his fist. “By all the gods of our fathers,” Starblade stormed, “I never thought my own son would be so much of a fool!”

Darkwind stared at a patch of the exposed bark of the parent-tree, just past his father’s shoulder, and kept his face completely expressionless. At least it sounded like most of the tirade was over. This was mild compared to the insults Starblade had hurled at him at the beginning of the session.

Then again, it might simply be that Starblade had run out of insults.

Starblade shook his fist in the air, not actually threatening Darkwind but the implication was there. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I couldn’t be your father! I’ve never—”

“That’s enough, Starblade,” interrupted old Rainlance tiredly. “That is quite enough.”

The quiet words were so unexpected, especially coming from Rainlance, that both Starblade and his son turned to stare in surprise at the oldest of the four Elders. Rainlance never interrupted anyone or raised his voice. Except that he had just done both.

“By now we all know that you think your s—hmm, Darkwind—is the greatest fool ever born. We also know precisely why you think that.” Rainlance leveled a penetrating stare at Starblade that froze him where he sat. “The fact is, I’ve known you a great deal longer than Darkwind, and I think there are times when you allow some of your opinions to unbalance your judgment. This is one of them. It just so happens I’ve never shared your peculiar prejudice against the Changechildren. I won’t go into why, right now, but I have several good reasons, strong ones, to disagree with you on that. And I also do not share your view of Darkwind’s incompetence.” He coughed, and shook his head. “In point of fact, I think Elder Darkwind has done a fine job up until now, a very fine job. His peers trust him, he has never let his private opinions interfere with his judgment, and I don’t see any reason to make a snap decision about this Other of his. I don’t see any reason, in fact, why we shouldn’t continue to help her.”

Rainlance looked pointedly at the other Elder, Iceshadow, who shrugged, the crystals braided into his hair tinkling like tiny wind chimes. “She’s not a danger where she is,” Iceshadow said. “She hasn’t caused any trouble—”

“That we know of,” snapped Starblade.

Iceshadow gave Starblade a look of disapproval, and Darkwind knew he’d scored at least one point. Iceshadow hated to be interrupted. “Very well. If you insist on that phrasing. That we know of. Frankly, I see no harm in letting her stay where she is until she’s healthy, and considering her request for safe passage then.”

Rainlance nodded. Starblade frowned angrily, then pounced. “Under strict watch. Darkwind may be a gullible boy being led by a pair of come-hither eyes and a sweet voice, but I’m not so sure this Other may not be playing a deeper game. I say she stays under strict watch, with careful observers.”

“You can’t get more careful than hertasi,” Iceshadow remarked to the ceiling of his ekele. “And if she’s leading Darkwind around by his urges, that ploy won’t work on hertasi. Even stubborn, pigheaded old—ah—mages will admit to that.”

It was Iceshadow’s turn to receive a glare, but the Elder ignored it, winking broadly at Darkwind when Starblade turned away in disgust.

“I think the hertasi will do as watchers,” Rainlance said smoothly, soothingly, as he sought to heal the split in the Council. “They are certainly quite competent. But I do agree she should be kept as far from the Vale itself as possible. And if she causes any trouble—”

“If she even looks like she’s causing any trouble,” Starblade growled.

Rainlance raised his voice a little, and annoyance crept into it. “—she’ll have to be dealt with.”

“She’ll find herself bound and staked, and you can tell her so!” Starblade shouted.

“Are you quite finished?” Rainlance shouted back, his temper frayed to the snapping point. “I’d like to get on with this if I may!”

Starblade sank back into his seat with an inarticulate mumble, confining himself to angry glares at anyone who happened to glance at him. Rainlance closed his eyes for a moment and visibly forced himself to calm down. Darkwind had no sympathy to spare for him; he’d been on the receiving end of his father’s tempers too often to feel sorry for anyone else.

“Really, Darkwind,” Rainlance continued, opening his eyes, his voice oozing reason and conciliation. “You must see this in the perspective of the Vale and Clan as a whole. We really can’t take her into the Vale. We can’t take the chance, however slim, that she might be some kind of infiltrator.”

“I’m not asking for her to be brought into the Vale,” Darkwind replied, echoing Rainlance’s tone as much as he was able. “I’m just asking that she be allowed nearer. Right now she’s in jeopardy; she’s hurt, and she can’t run the way the hertasi can. I doubt she’d be able to get away if something comes over the border, especially if it’s something that’s come hunting especially for her. She can’t run, she can’t hide, and Mage-Gifted or not, she probably can’t protect herself from any kind of trained mage.”

Iceshadow shook his head regretfully; Darkwind got the feeling that if this hadn’t been so serious an issue, he was so annoyed with Starblade right now that he would have been glad to agree with Darkwind just for a chance to spite his father. “No. It’s just not possible. And I’m sure she realizes that, even if you don’t. After all, look at what she is and what we are—we’re enemies. Or at least, she’s been on the enemy side. And yet she came to us, supposedly for help. She admitted she was going to use us as a kind of stalking horse. No, she stays where she is, and that’s the end of it.”

“Well,” said Starblade, his voice penetrating the silence that followed Iceshadow’s speech like a set of sharp talons, his eyes narrowed, and a tight little smile on his lips. “Since you seem so worried about her, since you brought her into our boundaries in the first place—and since she is in your territory—I think it’s only fair that you be the one to undertake her protection. Even if it means you have to fall back on magery.” He looked around at the other Elders. “Isn’t that fair?”

“I don’t know—” Rainlance began.

“I’d say it is,” Iceshadow said firmly. “I’ve never been happy that when Songwind left us, his magic did as well, Darkwind. I understand your feelings, but I’ve never been happy about it. You could be quite a mage if you’d give it another try.”

Rainlance shrugged. Starblade cast his son a look of triumph. “It seems there’s a consensus,” he said smugly.

Darkwind managed not to jump up and hit him, scream at the top of his lungs, or do anything else equally stupid and adolescent. In fact, his reaction, so completely under control, seemed to disappoint his father. He thought quickly, and realized that, unwittingly, his father had not only left him an out, he’d given the scout a chance to do something he’d been campaigning for all along. He’d have to phrase this very carefully.

“Very well, Elders,” he replied, nodding to each of them in turn. “I am overruled. Nyara may stay, under the eyes of the hertasi. I will undertake to keep the Changechild protected—using all the resources at my disposal. Is that your will?”

Rainlance nodded. “That’s fine,” Iceshadow said. Starblade looked suspicious, but finally gave his consent.

“Done,” said Rainlance. “You have the Council’s permission, as stated.”

“Good,” Darkwind said. “Then if that is the consensus, I will have the other scouts keep an eye out for her and stand by for trouble, I will recruit whatever dyheli I can find to stand guard, and I have no doubt there will be plenty of volunteers, since she helped save one of their herds—I will ask Dawnfire to look for help among the tervardi, and I will see if the gryphons are willing to work some of their protective magics.”

He managed not to grin at Starblade’s expression. For once, he’d managed to outmaneuver his father.

But there was no feeling of triumph as he left the meeting; the fight had been too hard for that. Instead, he was weary and emotionally bruised.

Like someone’s been beating me with wild plum branches.

He climbed down out of the ekele before anyone else. It would have been a courtesy to wait for the eldest to descend first, but he wasn’t feeling particularly courteous right now—and he really didn’t want to chance his father ambushing him for a little more emotional abuse. It was dark enough around here that he should be able to escape, provided he did the unexpected. And he was getting rather good at doing that…

So he hurried off into the cover of the thick undergrowth, taking exactly the wrong path—one leading to the waterfall at the head of the Vale, instead of the exit. It passed the Heartstone, though not near enough to see the damaged pillar of stone, its cracked and crazed exterior only hinting at the damage echoed across the five planes, and visible to anyone with even a hint of Mage-sight.

He felt it, though, as he passed; an ache like a bruised bone, a sense of impending illness, a disharmony. If he’d had any doubts about it Healing itself earlier, they were dispelled now. It hadn’t Healed itself, it had only gotten worse. Now it left a kind of bitter, lingering aftertaste in the back of his mind; if it had been a berry he’d tasted, he would have labeled it “poisonous” without hesitation.

So he did something he had never thought he would do in his lifetime. He shielded himself against it.

The air immediately seemed cleaner, and the sour sense of sickness left him. There was only the hint of incenselike smoke from the memorial brazier at its foot, the flame that commemorated the lives lost when the Heartstone fractured. Now all he had to contend with was the bad taste the meeting had left in his mouth.

He started to look for a way to double back to the path he wanted to take, when he remembered that there was another hot spring at the foot of the waterfall. It wasn’t a big waterfall, but it was a very attractive one; it had been sculpted by Iceshadow himself, back when the Vale had first been constructed, and the cool water of a tiny stream fell into a series of shallow rock basins to end in the hot pool of the spring below. Each of the basins had been tuned, although Darkwind had no idea how something like that was done. The music of the falls was incredibly soothing.

Just what I need right now.

That decided him; instead of retracing his steps, he took the path all the way to the end. And as if to confirm that he had made the right decision, as he entered the clearing containing the pool, the moon rose above the tree level, touching the waterfall, and turning it into a shower of flowing silver and diamond droplets. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear there was nothing wrong here in the Vale, it’s that peaceful.

And no one, absolutely no one, was there.

Of course, that might have been because this particular pool had once been a popular trysting spot, and there was not a great deal of romance going on in the Vale anymore. Most of the young Tayledras were scouts, and they seldom came this far in now. As for the rest—Darkwind suspected the mages were suffering, perhaps without realizing it, from the same, sickened feeling the Heartstone induced in him. That was not the sort of sensation likely to make anyone think of lovemaking…

He wondered how many of them had thought to cut themselves off from the Stone. Not many, he decided, shedding his clothes and leaving them in a heap beside the pool. It’s their power, their lifeblood. They’d rather feel ill than lose their connection to it. They wouldn’t be able to draw on it if they shielded themselves against it.

Idiots.

Then he left all thought of them behind, as he plunged in a long, flat dive into the hot water of the pool.

He came to the surface, and floated on his back, letting it soothe the aches in his muscles as it forced him into a state of relaxation. Only then did he realize how tightly he had been holding himself, and how many of those aches were due to tension.

He drifted for a while, losing himself deliberately in the sound of the falling water, the changing patterns of the sparkling droplets, the silence.

“Turning merman?” said a shadow at the entrance.

He swam lazily to the edge, rested his arms on the sculpted rim, and looked up into Dawnfire’s amused eyes. She looked down on him, a faint smile playing on her lips, her hair loose, her boots in her hand. “Not that I’m aware of,” he said lightly. “Unless you saw something I didn’t know about.”

“Probably not.” She knelt down beside him, put her boots down beside her, then unexpectedly seized his head in both her hands, leaned down to water-level, and presented him with the most enthusiastic—and expert—kiss he’d ever had from her. His mouth opened under her questing tongue, and he clutched the rim with both hands, convulsively.

What—she never gets aggressive— He became aware that not all the heat coursing through his veins was due to the temperature of the water. He closed his eyes, went passive, and let her lips and tongue play with his, until he was breathless. Her hair fell around him, enveloping him in her own silken waterfall.

She released him, and he nearly slid under.

“That was for going back and saving my dyheli,” she said, sitting back on her heels, balancing there as if she had no weight at all.

“I didn’t—exactly—” He regretted having to confess that he had very little to do with it, if that was what she had in mind for a reward.

She dismissed everything he was going to say with a wave of her hand. “I know, there’s that Changechild involved in it, and it did the magic—but you stayed with them, and you Mindcalled them. They’d never have found their way out without that.”

“It” did the magic. She doesn’t know Nyara is female… His attention was captured and held, as she began removing her clothing in the most provocative way, slowly, teasingly. He found himself watching her with parted lips. First the tunic—lacings loosened, then pulling the garment slowly over her head. Then the breeches, inching them down over her hips, sliding them a little at a time down her long, lithe legs—all the while maneuvering so that the shirt covered all the strategically important parts of her. Then the shirt followed the tunic at the same tantalizingly slow speed.

At that moment she seemed just as exotic as Nyara, and just as desirable.

Nyara—If she doesn’t know Nyara’s a female, there’s no harm in not telling her—

She was down to a short chemise now, and she winked, once, then vanished into the shadows, reappearing before he had time to think why she had left.

“I put the ‘in use’ marker at the entrance,” she said. “Not that there’s anyone likely to be here tonight. I knew you were at the meeting, and I waited to catch you to thank you properly. But you didn’t go the way I thought you would. I had to chase you, loverhawk.”

She stood in an unconscious pose at the rim, moonlight softening the hard muscles, and turning her into something as soft and quicksilver as a Changechild.

“I wanted to avoid Father,” he said, filling his eyes with her.

“I thought so,” she said, and laughed. “I figured, knowing you, that as long as you were here you’d probably decide to soak him out of your thoughts. I’ve been checking every pool between here and Rainlance’s ekele.”

“I’m glad you found me,” he said softly.

She sat on the rim, slid out of the chemise, and into his arms. “So am I,” she whispered, and buried her hands in his damp hair, her lips and tongue devouring him, teasing him, doing things no woman had ever done to him before.

His hands slid down her back, to cup her buttocks and hold her against him. She strained into the embrace, as if she wanted to reach past his skin, to merge with him. Her kiss took on a fiercer quality, and she worked her mouth around to his neck, biting him softly just beneath his ear, while he ran his hands over every inch of her, re-exploring what had become new again, and making her shiver despite the heat of the pool. He gasped as she nuzzled the soft skin behind his ear, then worked her way back to the hollow of his throat, and gasped again when she untangled her fingers from his hair, and slid them down his chest, slowly—teasingly.

“Not in here—” he managed to whisper, as he grew a little light-headed from the combined heat of the water and his blood.

She laughed, low and throatily. “All right.” She began to back up, one tiny step at a time, rewarding him for following her with her clever fingers, which were now hard at work well below the waterline and threatening to make his knees go to jelly at any moment.

They reached the edge of the pool, right beside the waterfall, where some kind soul had left a pile of waterproof cushions and mats. She turned away from him to hoist herself up on the rim. He caught her by the waist, lifted her up, and held her there, nibbling his way up the inside of her thighs until it was her turn to gasp. She buried her hands in his wet hair and her fingers flexed in time with her breathing.

Then she clutched two fistfuls of hair, pulled him away, and swore at him, half laughing. “Get up here, you oaf !” she hissed, “Or I’ll get back in the water and do the same to you! You just might drown!”

“We can’t have that,” he chuckled, and joined her; tumbling her into the cushions, nibbling and touching, making her squeal with laughter and surprise.

He only had the upper hand for a moment. Then she somehow squirmed out from beneath him, and pulled a wrestler’s trick on him. Then she had him on his back, bestriding him, a wicked smile on her face as she lowered herself down, a teasing hair’s breadth at a time.

He arched to meet her, his hands full of her breasts, catching her unawares. She cried out and arched her back, driving herself down onto him.

Their minds met as their bodies met, and the shared pleasures enhanced their own, as she felt his passion and he experienced every touch of his fingers on her flesh.

She roused him almost to the climax, again and again, building the passion higher and higher, until he thought he would not be able to bear another heartbeat—

Then she loosed the jesses, and they soared together.

“Dear—gods,” he whispered, as they lay together in a trembling symmetry of arms and legs.

She giggled. “The reward of virtue.”

“I think I shall strive to be virtuous,” he mumbled, then exhaustion took him down into sleep before he could hear her reply. If she even made one. Verbally.

* * *

When he woke, she had moved away from him to lie in a careless sprawl an arm’s length away. He’d expected as much; he’d learned over the past few months that she was a restless sleeper—after more than once finding himself crowded onto a tiny sliver of sleeping pad. The moon was just retreating behind the rock of the waterfall. He slipped into the pool for a moment, to rinse himself off after his exertions, warm up his muscles, and to cross to the other side without rustling the undergrowth. That would surely wake her, as the sound of someone swimming would not. On the other side of the pool, he used his shirt to dry himself and pulled on the rest of his clothing. He hated to leave her like that.

But she is as curious as two cats, and I am not certain I want to answer all the questions she is likely to have when she wakes.

She would ask about the rescue, and she would also want to know about the Changechild. And when she found out that Nyara was female—

I am not ready to fend off fits of jealousy, he thought, wearily. Father’s accusations are bad enough. Hers would be worse. And there is no reason for them.

Yet. Not that he hadn’t entertained a fantasy or two.

But they are only fantasies and will remain so, he told his conscience firmly. Still, they are things I would rather she did not know about. She is not old enough to accept them calmly, for the simple daydreams that they are. However satisfying. Or accept that sometimes the fantasy can be as fulfilling as the reality.

He moved quickly and quietly along the paths of the Vale, pausing now and then to take his bearings. Once outside, he went on alert. Although this was where the scouts had their ekeles, they did not equip them with retractable ladders for nothing.

But the night lay over the forest as quietly as a blanket on a sleeping babe. Only twice did he pause at an unusual sight or sound. The first time, it was a pair of bondbirds, huge, snow-winged owls, chasing each other playfully. He recognized them as K’Tathi and Corwith, and relaxed a little. If they were up, it meant the trail was under watch. The second time he stopped was to hail his older half brother, Wintermoon, the bondmate of those owls, who knelt beside the trail, dressing out a young buck deer. Wintermoon, one of two children of Starblade’s contracted liaison with a mage of k’Treva, had none of either parent’s Mage-Talents, and only enough of Mind-magic to enable him to speak with his bondbird. The other child, a girl, had apparently inherited it all, but she was with k’Treva and out of Starblade’s reach. The Adept had never forgiven his eldest son for his lack of magery, and Wintermoon had responded by putting as much distance between himself and his father as Clan and Vale would permit. He had no wish to leave k’Sheyna; he had an amazing number of friends and lovers for so taciturn and elusive an individual—it was simply that he also had no wish to deal with a father who had nothing but scorn for him.

“Good hunting,” Darkwind said with admiration, eyeing the size of the buck’s rack. “Wish I could do that well in the daylight!” He had no fear that Wintermoon had taken anything other than a bachelor; his brother was too wise in the stewardship of the forest to make a stupid mistake in his choice of prey.

Wintermoon laughed; part of his attempt to put distance between himself and Starblade had been to bond exclusively to owls. He had become completely nocturnal, and was one of the night-hunters and night-scouts, and encountered his father perhaps twice in a moon, if that often. “It becomes easier as time goes on. And K’Tathi there lends me his eyes; that’s most of it.”

“How does—” Darkwind began, puzzled.

Wintermoon followed the thought with quicksilver logic. “He perches above my head. I simply have to adjust my aim to match. Practice enough against trees, and it’s not so bad. So, little brother, do you want any of this?”

Darkwind shook his head. “No, I’m fine for the next few days. Dawnfire could use some, though. She was telling me her larder was a little bare.”

That should make up for my leaving her like that.

“I’ll see she gets it. All’s clear the way back to your place. Fair skies—”

That was a clear dismissal—and really, about as social as Wintermoon ever got outside of the walls of his ekele. “Wind to thy wings,” Darkwind responded, and continued up the trail. He didn’t entirely release his hold on caution, but he did relax it a little. Wintermoon was completely reliable; if he said it was clear, he didn’t mean just the trail, he meant for furlongs on either side.

Once at his ekele, he woke Vree up to let down the ladder-strap for him. There was still enough moon for the gyre to see, though he complained every heartbeat, and went back to sleep immediately, without waiting for Darkwind to climb up. Even though he was relaxed and utterly weary, he couldn’t help thinking about Nyara, as he drifted off to sleep. He found himself thinking of her suspiciously, the way his father would.

Or Wintermoon, for that matter. He’s more like Father than he knows. Or will admit.

He wished he’d been able to persuade the Elders to allow her closer. And not just for her protection. No, it would have been much easier to keep a watchful eye on her, if she’d been, say, in one of the dead scouts’ abandoned ekeles.

Of course, Starblade would have opposed that out of its sheer symbolism.

Still, she was within reach. The hertasi were clever and conscientious. There were the gryphons, three or four tervardi, several dyheli herds, and Dawnfire between here and the Vale, and her only other escape routes lay across the border, into the Outlands.

I can’t see her going back that way, he yawned, finally giving in to sleep. She was running away. Why in the name of the gods would she ever run back?