Starblade turned away from the little knot of Tayledras Adepts and Healers surrounding Dawnfire’s ekele in despair, and sought the sanctuary of his own ekele. The fools were trying to thrash out what could have killed Dawnfire, and why—when it was obvious, as obvious a taint on the girl’s body as the taint on his own soul, and the contamination that had cracked the Heartstone.
He knew it the moment he saw it. And he could not say a single word.
He felt old, old—burdened with secrets too terrible to hide that he could not confess to anyone, weary with the weight of them, sick to his bones of what he had done. As he had so many times, he climbed the stairs to his ekele, then sought the chamber at the top, and stood looking down on the Vale, wondering if this time he could find the strength to open the window and hurl himself to the ground.
But the crow on his shoulder flapped to its perch as soon as he entered the room, and sat there watching him with cold, derisive eyes. And he knew, even as he fought the compulsion to turn away from the window and suicide, that Mornelithe Falconsbane still had his soul in a fist of steel, and there was nothing he had that he could call his own. Not his thoughts, not his will, not his mind.
He flung himself down on the sleeping pad, hoping to lose himself in that dark oblivion—but sleep eluded him, and Falconsbane evidently decided to remind him of what he was.
The memory-spell seized him—
* * *
Smoke wreathed through the trees as he paused in an area he had thought safe, and the acrid fumes made him cough. The fire was spreading, far faster than it should have. For a moment, Starblade wondered if perhaps he should go back for help. But other emergencies had emptied the Vale of all but apprentices and children, and he had a reputation to maintain. He was an Adept, after all, and a simple thing like a forest fire shouldn’t prove too hard to handle. He sought shelter from the smoke down in a little hollow, a cup among some hills, and closed his eyes to concentrate on his first task.
No, you fool, Starblade cried at his younger self. Go back! Get help! Nothing trivial would frighten that many firebirds!
But this was a vision of the past, and his younger self did not heed the silent screaming in his own mind.
He reached out with his mind, seeking the panic-stricken firebirds first of all. Until he could get them calmed and sent away, he would never be able to put the flames out. One by one he touched their minds; turned their helpless panic into a need for escape instead of defense, and sent them winging back to the Vale. One of the beast-tenders, the Tayledras who spoke easily to the minds of animals, would take care of them. He had a fire to quench.
There were more firebirds than he had expected, and they were in a complete state of mindlessness. It took time to calm them.
But while he had stood there like a fool, the fire had jumped the tiny pocket of greenery where he worked, and ringed him. He opened his eyes, weary with the effort of controlling the birds, to find himself surrounded by a wall of flame and heat. The leaves were withering even as he watched, the vegetation wilting beneath the heat of the hungry flames. Fear chilled him, even as the heat made him break into a sweat. That was when he realized, when he reached for the power to quench it, that he had exhausted himself in calming the birds—
—and that he was cut off from the node and the nearest ley-lines. Something had sprung up while he worked; something had arisen to fence him away from the power he needed, not only to quell the fire, but even to save himself. He was enveloped in a wall of shielding as dangerous as the wall of flame.
Smoke poured into the hollow; something brushed against his leg, and he glanced down to see that a rabbit, blind with panic, had taken shelter behind his ankle. The heat increased with every passing moment; it wouldn’t be long before this little valley was afire, like the rest of the forest here. He was not clothed for a fire; he had run out in his ordinary gear, a light vest and breeches. He had nothing to protect him from the flames, nothing to breathe through. There was only one thing he could do—wrap the remains of his power about him in as strong a shield as he could muster, and run—
As the nearest flames licked toward him, he sent his bird up into the safety of the skies, and sprinted for what he hoped was the easiest way out. Straight into hell.
On the sleeping pad, his body writhed in remembered agony, his mouth shaping screams of pain he was not permitted to voice.
Flames licked his body, hungry tongues reaching out from burning scrub, a tree trunk. There was no pain at first—just a kind of warm pressure, a caress as he ran past. Then came the pain, after the flame had touched—red heat that blossomed into agony. Sparks fell on him as he dashed under a falling, blazing branch. He wrapped his hair around his mouth, and still the air he breathed scorched his lungs. Within moments, there was nothing but pain—and the fear of a horrible death that drove his legs.
Then—cool, smokeless air. He burst out past the fireline, into the unburned forest. Freedom.
But not from pain. He fell into a stream, moaning, extinguishing his smoldering leather clothing and hair. The stream cooled him but did nothing for the pain, for the horrible burns where the skin was blackened and crisped on his arms. How long he lay there, he did not know. Smoke wreathed over him, but the flames did not grow nearer. He could not tell if it was the smoke that darkened his sight—or his pain. Only that after a dark, breathless time of agony, salvation loomed out of the smoke, a spirit of mercy—vague and ghostlike.
NO! he screamed. NO! Don’t believe him! Kill yourself, draw your knife, kill yourself while you have the chance!
He reached out toward the mist-wreathed shape, who seemed to be someone he knew, yet could not identify. Hazy with an intimation of power, the stranger’s white hair was a beacon that drew his eyes. White hair—a Tayledras Adept, surely. Yes, he knew this one; he must. Rainwing? Frostfire? Both were recluses. No matter—he managed a croak, and the other started and turned his steps in Starblade’s direction.
No—he moaned. No—
“I thought I heard someone Call,” said the other, stooping over him in concern. “I see I was right.”
His lips shaped words he could not speak for lack of breath. “Help me—”
Silver hair wove a web of light that dazzled his eyes. The Adept’s own eyes, gilded-silver, held his. “I will have to take you to my home,” the other said worriedly. “The fire has cut us off from Tayledras Vale. But I can tend you there, never fear. Will that be all right?”
Starblade nodded, giving consent, and as a consequence of that consent, relaxed all of his defenses. And as the other bent closer over him, to lift him in amazingly strong arms, he thought he saw a peculiar gleam in the other’s eyes…
He awoke again, resting on something soft, his arms thrown over his head, with a tawny silken coverlet swathing him from chest to feet. He still hurt, but he was no longer covered with angry, blackened burns, and he took a deep, experimental breath to find his lungs clear again.
Then he tried to move his arms—and couldn’t.
He tried harder, struggling against silk rope that bound him hand and foot—with no better success. A deep chuckle answered his efforts.
He twisted his head to face the source of the sound.
“So eager to take leave of my hospitality?” said the tall, catlike Changechild, smiling as he paced toward the couch on which Starblade lay tethered. The creature had modeled himself on a lynx; was clothed mostly in his own tawny-silk hair, but wearing a supple, elaborately tooled and beaded leather loincloth. “How—uncivilized of you.”
It—he—smiled, with sensuously parted lips. Starblade wrestled furiously against his bonds. “My Clan will know where I am,” he warned. “Even if you kill me, they will know where I am, and they will—”
“They will do nothing,” the Changechild yawned, examining the flex of his own fingers for a moment, admiring his needle-sharp talons. “You accepted my offer of help, consented to come away with me. You will leave no trail of distress for them to follow—and you are behind my walls and shields now. Call all you like, they will not hear you.”
Starblade snarled his defiance. “You forget, Misborn—I am Tayledras. My bird will bring them here!”
He sought for Karry’s mind with his own, even as the Changechild moved slightly aside and gestured. “If you mean that—it tried foolishly to attack me.”
Starblade followed the gesture to a shadow-shrouded corner, where something thin and almost-human looked up with wild, unfocused eyes, its hands and mouth full of feathers.
Perlin falcon feathers.
Karry’s feathers.
Silent tears ran into his hair; silent sobs shook his body. None of it brought Karry back.
The crow cawed; it sounded like scornful laughter.
The Changechild sat on the edge of the couch, and flicked away the covering, leaving him naked and unprotected, even by a thin layer of silk. He shrank away, involuntarily. “I am called Mornelithe, rash birdman,” the creature said, idly gliding a talon along Starblade’s side.
“I think I shall take another name, now. Falconsbane.” He glanced sharply at Starblade, who continued to fight his bonds, though his eyes blurred with the tears for Karry he would not—yet—shed. “And believe me, my captive. In a shorter time than you dream possible, you will have another name for me.” He paused, and a slow, lascivious smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Master,” he said, savoring the word.
Then he bent over his captive and transfixed him with a pair of green, slit-pupiled eyes, that grew and grew until they filled Starblade’s entire field of vision. “I think we shall begin the lessoning now.”
Mercifully, he could no longer remember that lessoning, not even under the goad of Mornelithe’s spell. It involved pain; it also involved pleasure. Both hovered at the edge of endurance. Mornelithe was a past master at the manipulation of either, of combining the two. When it was over, Mornelithe had the keys to his soul.
He knelt before the Changechild, abasing himself as fully as he could; worshiping his Master, and detesting himself for doing so. All that was in his line of sight at the moment was the golden marble of the floor, and Mornelithe’s clawed feet. Thankfully, he had not yet been required to kiss them this time.
“Ah, birdman,” Mornelithe chuckled. “You grovel so charmingly, so gracefully. It is almost a pity to let you up.”
Starblade felt himself flush with shame, then chill with fear. Too many times in the past, such seemingly casual words had led to another “lesson.”
“You have learned your place in the scheme of things quite thoroughly, I think,” Mornelithe continued. “It is time to let you return to your lovely home.”
Instead of elation, the words brought a rush of sickness. Bad enough, what he had become—but to return to the Vale, bringing this contamination with him—
He wanted to refuse. He wanted to rise, take the dagger at his belt, and slay his tormentor. He wanted to take that same dagger and slay himself.
He tried to assert his will; he closed his eyes and concentrated on placing his hand on the hilt of that dagger. He was an Adept—he had training, experience, his own personal powers. His will had been honed to an instrument like the Starblade of his use-name. Surely he could reclaim himself again. Yes… yes, he could. He could feel his will stirring, and opened his mouth to denounce his captor.
“Yes, Master,” he heard himself say softly. “If it is your will.”
He felt his lips stretching in an adoring smile; his head lifted to meet Mornelithe’s unwinking eyes. His hand did not move from the floor.
There were two Starblades inside his mind. One worshiped Mornelithe and looked to his Master for all direction. That was the one that was in control, and there was no unseating it. But buried deep inside, away from all control, bound and gagged and able only to feel, was the real Starblade.
Mornelithe could have destroyed even this remnant; he had not, only because it amused him to see his victim continue to suffer, long after the contest of wills had ended.
“I do not entirely trust you, dear friend,” Mornelithe said, softly, as he reached down and touched Starblade’s cheek. “You were a stubborn creature, and I do not entirely trust you away from my sight. So, I shall send you a watcher, also—one that the rest will take for your new bondbird. Here—”
He snapped his fingers, and held out his hand—and a huge crow, identical in every way to those the Tayledras bonded with, flapped out of the shadows beside Mornelithe’s chair to land on the outstretched arm. The Changechild gestured with a lifted finger that Starblade should rise from his crouch to a simple kneeling position; the Tayledras’ body obeyed instantly, even while his helpless mind screamed a protest.
The crow lifted silently from Mornelithe’s wrist, and dropped down onto his shoulder.
And what little remained of Starblade’s will was frozen with paralysis.
“There,” Mornelithe said with satisfaction. “That should take care of any little problems we may have, hmm?”
The crow cawed mockingly, joining Mornelithe’s laughter…
* * *
The memory-spell released him, leaving him limp and shaking, with the echo of that laughter in his ears.
From the moment he had left Mornelithe’s stronghold—which leavetaking he did not remember—he had been completely under the Adept’s control. And Mornelithe was an Adept; there was no doubt of that. All that he lacked to make him a major power was control of a node. The only two for any distance around lay in the hands of the Tayledras.
Mornelithe intended to change that. And at the time of his release, that was all that Starblade had known; he had no idea what Mornelithe planned.
Nor, when he was found wandering in the heart of the burned area, did he even remember that he had been taken.
Instead, he had false memories of being overcome with smoke, of losing Karry somewhere in the heart of the fire—of taking a blow to the head from a falling tree. Then vague and confused recollections of crawling off and hiding in a wolverine’s hole until the fire passed, of smoke-sickness that pinned him in the area for several days, of bonding to a huge crow who brought him fruit to feed him and supply his fevered body with liquids, and his final desperate attempt to get back to the Vale.
And the false memories passed muster. The crow was unremarked-upon. He had only an unusually touchy temper that caused his friends and son to give him some distance until he should regain his normal calm. Any changes in him, they—and he—ascribed to the trauma he had endured, and they all felt that those changes would pass in time.
All else seemed well, until the ritual to move the Heartstone.
Only then, after the disaster, did his true memories return. And it was then that the rest of his hidden memories emerged—
Memories of going to the Heartstone every night, and creating a flaw in it, leeching the power away from a place deep inside, and creating an instability that would not be revealed until the entire power of the Vale had been loaded into it, preparatory to bridging the distance between the old Heartstone and the new.
That was the first night he had tried to fling himself from the top of his ekele.
Once again, Mornelithe exerted his power over him, through the compulsions planted as deeply within him as he had planted the flaw in the stone. The crow was the intermediary of those compulsions, and since it never left his side, Mornelithe’s hand was always upon him.
And when he tried to confess his pollution, he found his tongue uttering simple pleasantries. When he tried to open his mind to let others see the traitor within their ranks, he found himself completely unable to lower his own shields. As he had been in Mornelithe’s stronghold, he was bound, gagged, and paralyzed, a prisoner within his own mind, still toyed with and controlled for Falconsbane’s pleasures and purposes. At least half of the time, that tiny portion of himself that was still free was buried so deeply that it was not even aware of what passed, what Mornelithe made him do, and say.
All he could do, in the moments he was free to speak and act, however circumspectly, was to alienate his son, in the barren hope that, once made into an enemy, anything Starblade supported, Darkwind would work against. It looked as if the ploy was working.
At least, it had until the death—no, murder—of Dawnfire. Once again the hand of Mornelithe Falconsbane had reached out to take what he wanted, and again Starblade had been helpless to prevent it.
There was only one further hope. Darkwind had withdrawn from the company of mages after the disaster. Darkwind lived outside the influence of the flawed and shattered Heartstone. So Darkwind’s powers should be uncontaminated by Mornelithe’s covert influence. If he could just get Darkwind to take up his powers again—Darkwind would call for help from the nearest Clan. The deceptions that had held for so long would shatter under close examination, and Mornelithe would find himself locked out, once again.
But how to get Darkwind to resume his powers, after all that Starblade had done to keep him from doing just that?
Starblade groaned, and threw his arm over his eyes. There seemed no way out; not for him, nor for anyone else.
K’Sheyna was doomed, and his was the hand that had doomed it. The only way out was death, and even that had been denied him.
Damn you, Falconsbane! he shrieked inside his own mind. And it seemed to him that he caught a far-off echo of derisive laughter.
* * *
Darkwind felt torn in a hundred pieces, divided within himself by conflicting emotions, responsibilities, and loyalties. Treyvan had kindled a mage-light; a dim orange glow in the center of the ceiling of the lair. Yet another surprise to Darkwind; he hadn’t known the gryphon could do that, either.
He slumped in one corner of the gryphons’ lair with his head buried in his hands and his mind going in circles. Hydona curled protectively around her youngsters, trying to minimize whatever harm Falconsbane had already done them. Her shields were up at full strength, with Treyvan’s augmenting them. Darkwind’s shields augmented both of theirs; he had never renounced that part of his magecraft, and he squandered his own energies recklessly to stave off any more disaster that might befall his friends.
Nyara sat curled into a ball in the opposite corner of the lair, with as much distance between herself and the rest of them as she could manage.
After his initial outburst of rage—during which he had come very close to breaking her neck with his bare hands—Darkwind’s anger toward the Changechild faded. After all, none of this was of Nyara’s plotting. He should have known better than to leave her with the hertasi, who were mostly creatures of daylight, to keep her watched at a distance by tervardi and dyheli who also moved mostly by day.
I should have found a night-scout willing to watch her, he thought distractedly. Hindsight is always perfect.
“All right,” he said, breaking the silence, and making everyone jump. He turned to Nyara, who shrank farther back into her corner, her eyes wide and frightened. “Stop that,” he snapped, his tightly strung nerves making him lash out at her as the only available target. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Yet,” Treyvan rumbled. He had taken Nyara’s news much worse than Hydona. His mate tended to ignore the past as beyond change, and was interested only in what she could do to fix what had been done to her younglings. Treyvan felt doubly guilty; because he had failed to protect Hydona, and because he had failed to protect his offspring.
Darkwind knew exactly how he felt.
Nyara tried to melt into the rock behind her, her eyes now wide and focused on Treyvan.
Darkwind recaptured her attention. “I want to know everything that you know about us, and what he knows that you’re sure of. I mean not only what you’ve told your f—Falconsbane, but what he knew before this.”
Nyara shivered but looked as if she didn’t quite understand his question.
He stood up, walked over to her, and towered over her. “What does he know about the Vale?” he asked, speaking every word carefully. “Begin from the very first thing you knew.”
Nyara began, stuttering, to tell them fairly simple bits of intelligence that anyone could have figured out for himself. That the only nodes Falconsbane could possibly access were in Tayledras hands. That he had made several attempts to get at one or the other of the nodes. She identified each attempt that she knew of, going back to long before the arrival of the gryphons. Most of these trials had been low-key, tentative feints. And as she spoke, she gained confidence, until she was no longer stuttering with fear, and no longer speaking in short, choppy sentences.
Most of the feints she described, Darkwind had already been aware of. But then she took him by surprise.
“Then F-father decided to take the Vale from within, I think,” she said, her hands crooking into claws, as her eyes glazed a little. “This was when he was angry with me, and he was—he was—he was angry with me.” Her expressive face was as still as stone, and Darkwind sensed that this had been one of those periods when Falconsbane had “trained” her, using methods it made him ill even to contemplate.
But this was important. She had said that Falconsbane meant to “take the Vale from within.” He had to know what that meant, and what had happened.
“What did he mean by that?” he prompted. She gave him a frightened, startled look, as if she had forgotten he was there.
“He set a trap,” she replied tightly. “He set a very clever trap. He sent many of his servants to create diversions—emptying the Vale of all but one of the Adepts.”
This was beginning to sound chillingly familiar—but she was continuing.
“When that one was alone—he knew that there was but one Adept still present by the level of power within the Vale—he created a disturbance that required an Adept.” She licked her lips nervously and gave him a pleading glance. “I truly do not know what that was,” she said, “I was not in favor. He did not grant me information.”
“I understand that,” he said quickly. “Go on.”
“When the Adept came to deal with the disturbance, Mornelithe sprung the trap and closed him off from the Vale. He was hurt—and that was when Mornelithe cast illusions to make him appear to be of the Birdkin, so that the Adept would accept him as rescuer. The bird, Father slew. It was not deceived, and attacked him. But by then the Adept’s hurts were such that he was unconscious, and did not know. Father took him to the stronghold and imprisoned him to break him to Father’s will.”
“And you know who this Adept is?” Darkwind felt himself trembling on the brink of a chasm. If it was his father—it would explain so much. And yet he dreaded the truth—
She looked directly up at Darkwind, and said, clearly and forcefully, “I did not know until Father called me on the night of moon-dark who that man was. It was your father, Darkwind. It was he that is called Starblade.” She licked her lips, and raised one hand in a pleading gesture. “He wanted you, as well, the son as well as the father—he wanted me to—entice you. I told him ‘yes,’ but I told myself ‘no,’ and I kept myself from working his will, as he worked it upon your father.”
There it was, the blow had fallen. He surprised himself with his steady, cold calm. “So Falconsbane succeeded?”
She nodded, dropping her eyes, her voice full of quiet misery. “When he sets out to break one to his will, he does not fail. I was—present—for much of it. It was part of my t-t-training. That this could be happening to me. Both the pleasuring, and the punishment. I can tell you some of what he did, what he ordered Starblade to do when he returned to the Vale. You do not want to know… what was done to control him.”
Darkwind tried to speak and could not. Treyvan spoke for him, in a booming, angry rumble. “Continue! All that you know.”
“He was, firstly, to forget what had happened to him. Mornelithe gave him false memories to replace what had truly occurred—until Mornelithe chose otherwise. Then he was to creep in secret to the heart of the Vale.” She gave Darkwind a look of entreaty. “I have not the words—”
“The Heartstone,” Darkwind supplied, at her prompting, feeling sick.
“The Heartstone,” she said. “Yes. He was to go to it in secret, and change it—he was one who created it, so he would know best its secrets. Father did not know that his trap would ensnare someone of that quality, but he was so pleased that he had, he forgot, often, to mete out punishment to me.”
“Return to the subject, Changechild,” Treyvan growled. She wilted, losing some of the confidence she had regained.
“What was it Starblade was supposed to do to the Heartstone?” Darkwind prompted her, with a bit more gentleness. She turned gratefully to him.
“He was to make a flaw in it, a weakness, one that would not appear until the Birdkin prepared to move. Then he called back all his creatures, to make it appear that all was made safe here. He even sent his creatures to guard beyond your borders, so that you would be prepared to shift your power elsewhere.”
Darkwind held up his hand. “How much does he know—how can he continue to control Starblade, and does he know our strength?”
She shrugged. “I do not know what he knows, but he has long patience and is willing to move slowly, so that each move he makes is sure. But as to how he controls Starblade, it is with a crow.”
“His bondbird.” Somehow that was simply the crowning obscenity. To take the closest tie possible to a Tayledras other than a lifebond, and pervert it into an instrument of manipulation—
“He cannot speak, move, or let his thoughts be known. All that is under Father’s control, from compulsions planted when he was broken, and held in place by the crow.” She hesitated a moment. “There is little, I think, that he can learn unless Starblade goes to him, and that, he has not done. The barriers still in place about the Vale prevent that. But there is much that he can do with the compulsions already in place.”
“Not for long,” Darkwind said, with grim certainty, heading for the door of the lair. “Hydona, forgive me—I can’t do anything about the younglings yet. But I can do something about this.”
“Go,” she replied. “Frrree thisss placsse of the viperrr, then perrrhapsss we can frrree the little onesss asss well.”
“I will guard the Changechild,” Treyvan said, before Darkwind even thought of it.
And before Darkwind could think to ask “how?” the gryphon turned to face Nyara, his eyes flashing. She looked surprised—
And then she slumped over, unconscious.
Darkwind returned to Nyara’s side. She was asleep, deeply asleep, but otherwise unharmed.
Treyvan sighed. “I have not hurrrt herrr, Darrrkwind. But it isss better to have the enemy underrr yourrr eye.”
“She isn’t exactly the enemy,” Darkwind said, uncertainly.
“She isss not exactly a frrriend,” Treyvan replied. “Ssshe isss at bessst, a weaknesss. I will watch herrr, for my magic isss ssstronger than hersss. Go.”
Darkwind did not have to be told twice. He was out the door of the lair and running for the Vale before the last sibilant “s” had left Treyvan’s beak. Dawn’s first light flushed the eastern horizon, and Vree shot into the sky from his perch on a stone beside the lair crying greeting to his bondmate, projecting an inquiry. While running, Darkwind tried, as best he could, to give Vree an idea of what He had learned, in simple terms the bird could understand.
He conveyed enough of it that Vree screamed defiance as he swooped among the forest branches, preceding Darkwind and making sure the way ahead was clear of hazard. The bird was angered, but he had not lost his head or his sense of responsibility.
:Where?: Vree demanded, his thoughts hot with rage.
:The Vale,: Darkwind replied, as he leapt a bush, and took to the game trail that led most directly to the k’Sheyna stronghold.
:I go,: the bird said. :I go in, with you.:
Once again, Darkwind was surprised, but this time pleasantly. :I go,: Vree repeated firmly.
That took one worry off his mind. It would be a great deal easier to handle that thrice-damned crow with Vree around.
Now he concentrated on running; as hard and as fast as he could, keeping his attention fixed on the ground ahead and leaving his safety in Vree’s capable talons.
Where would Starblade be at this moment? He was an early riser, as a rule. By the time the sun was but a sliver above the horizon, he was generally in conference with one or more of the Adepts. There was a kind of informal ceremony there, as the memorial fire at the foot of the Heartstone was fed with fragrant hardwoods and resinous cedar. Those Adepts remaining—even the most reclusive—generally attended at least one of these meetings; they remembered those who had been lost, and monitored the Heartstone very carefully, looking for changes in it morning and night.
With Father carefully making sure they accomplish nothing, he thought with nausea. Now I know why he never misses a meeting.
Now he was on safer ground; he passed his own ekele, and that of his brother; passed night-scouts coming in and day-scouts going out, both of whom stared at him in equal surprise. He ignored the ache of his lungs and his legs, dredged up extra reserves of energy and ran on, long hair streaming out behind him. He caught sight of other bondbirds flying beside him, peering down at him curiously, and guessed that their bondmates were somewhere behind. He ignored them; he would take no chances that a carelessly shielded thought would warn Starblade—or more importantly, the thing that controlled him in the guise of a black bird.
Up hills, and down again; he took the easiest way, not the scouts’ way—using game trails when he could find them. Finally he came out onto a real path, one that led to the border with the Dhorisha Plains, and had, in better days, been used by visitors from both peoples. It terminated at the entrance to the Vale, and Darkwind took deeper breaths, forcing air into his sobbing lungs. It would not be long now…
The shimmer marking the shields that guarded the entrance flickered between the hills. This was where Vree usually left him.
A cry from above alerted him, and Vree swept in from behind in a stoop that ended with the forestgyre hitting him hard enough to stagger him, and sinking his talons into the padded shoulder of Darkwind’s jerkin. A fraction of a heartbeat later, he was through the shields, a tingle of pure power passing through him as the shields recognized him and let him by.
He was inside the Vale, but this was no time to slow down. He flung himself down a side path, bursting through the overgrown vegetation, and leaving broken branches and a flurry of torn leaves in his wake.
He was nearing the Heartstone; he heard voices ahead, and he felt its broken rhythms and discordant song shrilling nauseatingly along his nerves. Vree tightened his talons in protest but voiced no other complaint.
He staggered, winded, into the clearing holding the Heartstone, taking the occupants by complete surprise.
Vree did not wait for orders; he had an agenda of his own. Before Darkwind could say a word, the forestgyre launched himself from Darkwind’s shoulder, straight at the crow that sat like an evil black shadow on his father’s shoulder, as if it was whispering into Starblade’s ear.
The crow squawked in panic and surprise, and leapt into the air—heading for the shelter of the undergrowth, no doubt counting on the fact that falcons never followed their prey into cover. But the evil creature did not know Vree; his speed, or his spirit. The gyre hit the crow just as he penetrated the cover of the lower branches; hit him with an impact audible all over the clearing. Rather than taking a chance that his stunned victim might escape, instead of letting it fall, Vree bound on with both sets of talons, and screamed his victory as he brought his prey to the ground. And Starblade collapsed.
The action of Darkwind’s bird stunned the Adepts, all but Stormcloud, who shouted something unintelligible, and flung out his hand in Darkwind’s direction. The scout found himself unable to move or speak, and fell hard on his side—
Vree bent and bit through the thrashing crow’s spine, ending its struggles.
Darkwind fought against his invisible bonds as the outraged Adepts converged on him—but as they started to move, an entirely unexpected sound made them freeze where they stood.
“Free—” Starblade moaned, the relief so plain in his voice that it cut to the heart. “Oh, gods, at last, at last—”
The Adepts turned to stare at their leader, and Darkwind took the momentary distraction to snap his invisible bonds.
He stumbled to his father’s side and reached for his hands. Starblade took them; his mouth trembled, but he was unable to say anything. It seemed as if he was struggling himself, fighting against a horrible control that even now held him in thrall.
“He’s been under compulsion! Put a damn shield on him!” Darkwind shouted, throwing his own around his father, and startling the others so much they followed suit. And just in time; Darkwind felt a furious blow shuddering against his protections as the others added their strength to his. Another followed—then another. A half dozen in all, before the enemy outside gave up, at least for the time being.
And now I know your name and face, Darkwind thought with grim satisfaction. I know who you are. Now it’s just a matter of hunting you down.
Starblade groaned, still fighting the binding that kept him silent. “I know, Father,” Darkwind said, urgently, as the other Adepts gathered around them. “I know at least some of it. That’s why Vree killed that damn crow. We’ll help you, Father. I swear it, we’ll help you.”
Starblade nodded slightly, and closed his eyes, silent, painful tears forming slowly at the corner of his eyes and trickling down his ghost-pale cheeks as Darkwind explained what he had learned from Nyara as succinctly as possible. The others wasted no time in argument; Starblade’s own reactions told the truth of Darkwind’s words.
“Let me tend to him,” Iceshadow said, when Darkwind had finished. The scout moved over enough for the older Adept to take a place cradling Starblade’s head in both his hands. Iceshadow stared intently into Starblade’s eyes, but spoke to the son, not the father. “Tell me in detail everything you know.”
Darkwind obeyed, detailing Nyara’s explanations of how Falconsbane had caught Starblade, and how he had broken the Adept and set the compulsions. Iceshadow nodded through all of it.
“I think I have enough,” he said, then looked down into Starblade’s eyes. “But first, old friend, I must bring down your shields. He has trained you to respond only to pleasure, or pain. And since I do not have time for pleasure—forgive me, but it must be pain.”
As Starblade nodded understanding, Iceshadow caught Darkwind’s attention. “Take his left hand,” the Adept said. “Spread it flat upon the ground.”
As Darkwind obeyed, mystified, Starblade closed his eyes and visibly braced himself.
“Take your dagger and pierce his hand,” Iceshadow ordered. And when Darkwind stared at him, aghast, the older Tayledras frowned fiercely. “Do it now, young one,” he snarled. “That evil beast has tied his obedience to pain, and I cannot break his shields to free his mind without driving him insane. Now do what I tell you if you wish to help him!”
Darkwind did not even allow himself to think; he simply obeyed.
Starblade’s scream of agony sent him lurching to his feet and away, tears of his own burning his eyes and blurring his sight.
When he could see again, he found Vree standing an angry and silent guardian over his victim, the crow that Mornelithe Falconsbane had used to control Starblade and shatter the lives of everyone in k’Sheyna. Showing a sophistication that Darkwind had not expected of him, Vree had neither eaten his victim, nor abandoned it. The first might have left him open to Falconsbane’s contamination—the second might have given Falconsbane a chance to recover his servant, perhaps even to revive it. Almost anything was possible to an Adept of Falconsbane’s power. It only depended on whether or not he was willing to expend that power.
Even if they buried the crow, it was possible that Falconsbane could work through it, to a limited extent. There was only one way to end such a linkage.
Destroy it completely.
There was always a fire burning beside the Heartstone; that memorial flame to the lives of those who had died in its explosion. Darkwind picked up the bird carefully by one wing, and took it to the stone basin containing the fire of cedar and other fragrant woods long considered sacred by both the Shin’a’in and the Tayledras.
He raised his eyes to the shattered Heartstone, truly facing it for the first time since the disaster.
The surface of the great pillar of stone was cracked and crazed, reflecting the damage beneath. The invisible damage was much, much worse.
And none of it—none—was his fault. The personal burden he had carried for so long, the ghost of guilt that had haunted his days, was gone.
Darkwind bent over the basin’s edge and closed his eyes in a prayer to the spirits of the woods and an apology to the spirits of the Tayledras that had died when the Heartstone sundered.
Mornelithe Falconsbane, you have a great deal to answer for.
He drew back and hurled the body of the crow into the fire pit—so hard that something shattered with a splintering crunch as it hit—perhaps the bird’s bones, perhaps the branches of the fire…
The Adepts were so intent on Starblade that they didn’t even look up, but a sudden heavy weight on his shoulder, and the soft trill in his ear, told him that Vree approved.
The feathers caught fire quickly; the rest took longer to burn—but the flames from the resin-laden branches were hot, and eventually the flesh crisped and blackened, then burst into flame. He watched until the last vestige of the bird was ash and glowing coals, and only then turned back to the rest.
Iceshadow still cradled Starblade’s head in both his hands. A pool of blood had seeped out around Starblade’s hand, with Darkwind’s knife laid to the side. The expression on Iceshadow’s face was just as intent, but Starblade’s expression had changed entirely.
Darkwind wondered now how he could ever have mistaken the changes in his father for anything other than a terrible alteration in his personality. Here was the father he had loved as a child—despite the pain, the grief, and the suffering etched into his face.
Starblade opened his eyes for a moment and saw him; he smiled, and tried to speak.
And couldn’t. Once again, he came up against a terrible compulsion. His face twisted as he strove to shape words that would not come.
“Keep trying,” Iceshadow urged, in a low, compelling voice. “Keep trying, I’m tracking it down.”
Iceshadow was seeking the root of the compulsion, and reversing it; since Falconsbane had changed his father’s will rather than placing a simpler block, it was not a matter of removing a wall. Instead, Starblade’s mind had to be altered, set back to normal bit by bit as each compulsion was found and changed, so he could regain the use of all of his mind.
The internal struggle, mirrored in Starblade’s face, ceased as Iceshadow found the series of problems, and corrected them one by one.
Darkwind dropped to his knees beside his father, and took the poor, wounded hand in his own. Blood leaked through an improvised bandage, but Starblade managed a faint ghost of a smile, fleeting, and full of pain.
“I made you my enemy,” he whispered. “I made you hate me, so that anything I told you to do, you would do the opposite. Then, when M-M—” his face twisted with effort.
“Mornelithe,” Darkwind supplied.
Starblade sighed. “When he twisted my thoughts, so that they were no longer my own, I knew that he would want you to take up magic again. If you did, eventually he would find a way to take you, too, through me. And blood of my blood, you would have been vulnerable.”
“He almost had what he wanted,” Darkwind replied grimly, thinking of all Nyara had told him.
Starblade nodded. “The only way I could think of to protect you was to drive you away from me. So that the more I tried, beneath his compulsion, to bring you back to magic, the more you would fight it. Then… when my mind was not my own… you were safe.” He looked up tearfully, entreatingly, at his son. “Can you… ever forgive me?”
Darkwind blinked away tears. “Of course I can forgive you,” he said quickly, and took a deep breath to calm himself. He looked up at Iceshadow. “How clear is he?” he asked.
Iceshadow shook his head. “I’ve only begun,” the Adept replied, exhaustion blurring his words a little. “It’s going to be a long process. The bastard set the compulsions in a few days, but they’ve had all this time to work and develop. We’ll have to keep him under shield the whole time.”
“Put him in the work area,” Darkwind suggested. “It has strong shields, and there aren’t any apprentices who need it right now. Those shields are the best we have.”
“Which is why I was not—permitted—to go there,” Starblade whispered. “The bird would not let me.”
“Then that is a good indicator that the shields will hold, don’t you think?” Darkwind responded. He started to let go of Starblade’s hand, but his father clutched it despite the pain that must have caused.
“Wait,” he coughed. “Dawnfire—”
Darkwind froze. Iceshadow asked the question he could not manage to get out.
“What about Dawnfire?” the Adept asked. “She’s dead.”
“No,” Starblade said urgently. “The bird was never found, but M-M—his sign was on her body. I think he has her—trapped in her bird. Still alive, but helpless. A—another toy.” Starblade’s face was twisted, but this time with what he remembered. “It would—please him—very much.”
The sky burned blue, but eight hooves pounded their own frantic thunder on the earth of the Plains; grass stems lashed their legs and the barrels of the Companions as they fled. Elspeth risked a look back, her hair whipping into her face and making her eyes water. The pack of fluid brown shapes streaming through the grasses behind them seemed a little closer. It was hard to tell for certain; they were visible only as a flowing darkness in the grasses, and the movement of the vegetation as they disturbed it. Then the lead beast leapt up, showing its head, and she was sure of it.
“They’re gaining on us!” she shouted at Skif. He looked back, then bent farther down over Cymry’s neck like a jockey. She did the same, trying to cut her wind resistance.
The Companions were running as fast as they could—which was very fast, indeed. The ground flowed beneath their hooves at such a rate that after one look that made her dizzy, she kept her eyes fixed ahead. She could not imagine how any creature could be capable of keeping up with them. It seemed impossible that they could be moving this fast.
:What are these things?: she asked Gwena, who flattened her ears a little more and rolled her eyes back at her rider.
:I don’t know,: the Companion replied, bewildered. :I’ve never heard of anything like them.: Sweat streamed down her outstretched neck, and the ends of her mane lashed Elspeth’s face and got into her mouth.
:I have,: the sword cut in gruffly. :Damn things are magical constructs; beasts put together by an Adept. Probably all they’re good for is running.:
Elspeth looked back again, nervously. The pack leader gave another of those jumps; that took it briefly above the level of the grass stalks, this time showing its head clearly. Its mouth was open, its tongue out like a dog’s. All she really saw were the jaws, a mouth full of thumb-length fangs.
:Well—running and killing,: Need amended. :Whatever, they’re not of a type I’ve seen before. That makes them twice as dangerous; I can’t tell you what they’re capable of.:
“Thanks,” Elspeth muttered under her breath. She peered ahead, wishing there was any way she could use her distance-viewer. Somewhere on the cliff ahead of them—hopefully somewhere near—was a path like the one they had descended. This trail was next to a waterfall, and she strained her eyes for a glimpse of water streaming down the side of the cliff into the Plains. If they could reach that path, they could probably hold the things off. They might be able to climb it faster than the beasts could; certainly they would be able to hold the narrow trail against their pursuers if they turned to stand at bay.
At the top of that path lay the place circled on the map. Whether or not there was any help for them there—
The Companions were getting tired. How long could they keep this pace up?
Her nose caught the scent of water as they topped a rise, just as she saw the line of green, a line of verdant trees and bushes, at the edge of a long slope, down below them. There was a glint of reflected light from the cliff; she assumed that was the promised waterfall.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and set loose her FarSight, looking for a place to make a stand. There wasn’t much else she could do at the moment, other than make certain she was in no danger of being tossed off if Gwena had to make a sudden move.
Nothing at the bottom of the cliff; no, that was definitely no place to make a stand. The waterfall splashed down onto rocks right beside the beginning of the trail; the rocks were wet and slippery, marginal for booted feet, treacherous for hooves. In fact, the entire path was like that, winding beneath the waterfall at times, skirting the edge of it at others. This was not a straight fall; the water dropped through a series of basins and down many tumbles of rocks, keeping spray to a minimum. It might almost have been sculpted that way, and the path appeared to be an afterthought, cut into the stone around the fall as best as could be.
The path was narrow, too narrow to allow more than one rider at a time. She scanned the entire length of it, and found no place wide enough for the four of them to hold off their followers. If they made a stand, it would have to be at the top.
So she turned her FarSight to the top—and there, at last, was the shelter she had been searching for.
There were ruins up there; tumbles of massive rocks, identifiable only as ruins because of the regular size and shape of the stones, and the general shapes of what might once have been walls. Right where the path reached the top, there was a good place to hole up.
:There’s magic there,: Need said suddenly, looking through Elspeth’s “eyes.” :Do you see that kind of shimmer? That’s magic energy. With luck I can use it to help with defense.:
:I don’t intend to get close enough to those things to have to use a blade,: Elspeth retorted.
:Dunce. I didn’t mean for you to fight. I mean to channel my magic through you.
I was a fairly good mage. You may even learn something.:
Elspeth felt stunned. :I thought you only protected—:
:That was when I asleep,: the sword said shortly. :Why don’t you see what you can do about picking off some of those beasts? Maybe if you kill one, the others will stop to eat it.:
Well, it was worth trying. The long slope gave the Companions some relief; though tiring, they were running with a bit less strain. Gwena’s coat was still sweat-foamed, but her breathing beneath Elspeth’s legs was easier.
Elspeth pulled her bow from the saddle sheath; freed an arrow from the quiver at her knee. She clamped her legs tight around Gwena’s barrel, and turned, sitting up a little higher in her saddle as she did so.
The leader of the pack had a peculiar bounding rhythm to his chase; it was, she discovered, rather like sighting on a leaping hare. And she had done that so many times she had lost count; hunting had been one of the few ways she could escape the Palace and her rank and position.
Although I wish I had a hawk right now to set on them. A big hawk. With long, long talons…
The leader’s bound carried him below the grass; she nocked and loosed—and he leapt right into the arrow’s path.
Soundless they were on the chase, soundlessly he fell, and he fell right under the feet of his pack. Whether or not they would—as Need had so gruesomely suggested—stop to eat him, it didn’t matter. At least not at the moment, not while at least half the pack tumbled over the body of the leader, and the rest stopped their headlong chase to mill aimlessly around the dead and the fallen.
She nocked and loosed another arrow, and a third, both finding targets, before Gwena carried her out of range. Never once did any of those she hit utter a single sound.
:Good work,: the Companion said, without slowing. :That should buy us some time.:
:Assuming something else doesn’t take their place, or join them,: the sword pointed out grimly. :I hate to say this, but I do sense things stirring; energies being disturbed, and some kind of communication going on that I can’t read. I’m afraid we’re going to have something else on our trail before long.:
She didn’t say what she was thinking; it wasn’t as if Need had willfully called these things up. :Will we have a chance to get up on that path first?:
:I think we’ll make it up to the top. But there’s more trouble up there. It’s at the border of a bad area, and it has its own energies that are reacting to the changes elsewhere. I think you should know that disturbance brings predators and scavengers alike.:
Well, that was no more than the law of nature. She sheathed the bow again and looked back down their trail. There was nothing immediately in sight.
But there was a dark golden clot of something on the horizon, something tall enough to be visible above the grass, and it was coming closer. She rather doubted it was a herd of Shin’a’in goats.
The scent of water was stronger; she turned to face forward. The belt of greenery was near enough now to make out individual trees and bushes, and the waterfall dashed down the side of the cliff with a careless gaiety she wished she shared.
She knew what awaited them and held Gwena back a little to let Skif shoot ahead of her. Cymry’s headlong pace slowed as she met the slippery rocks of the trail. Gwena’s shoulders bunched beneath Elspeth’s knees as she prepared to make the climb.
The scramble up the trail was purest nightmare. If it had not been that the Companions were far more surefooted than the Heralds were, and far, far faster even on footing this treacherous, she would have stopped to dismount. As it was, she clung to the saddle with legs and both hands, drenched with water spray and her own sweat of fear. If she dared, she would have closed her eyes. Gwena skidded and slipped on the spray-slick rocks; she went to her knees at least once for every switchback, and there seemed to be hundreds of those. Every time Gwena lurched sideways, Elspeth lurched with her—further unbalancing the Companion and hindering her recovery. The only good thing was that the slower pace enabled Gwena to catch her breath again.
Ahead, Cymry and Skif were in no better shape. That presented a second danger, that they might lose their balance and careen into Gwena and Elspeth, sending all four of them to their deaths.
Gwena might have read her mind; the Companion stopped for a moment, sides heaving, to let Cymry put a little more distance between them. She stood with her head hanging, breathing deeply, extracting everything she could from the brief rest.
Elspeth used the respite to peer through the spray, down to the foot of the trail.
The entire trail was visible from this vantage point, and there was nothing on it except them. Yet. But peering up at her—at least, she presumed they were peering up at her—were several creatures of a dark-gold color that would have blended imperceptibly into the grasslands. They stood out now, only because of the brilliant green of the vegetation below the waterfall. Milling around them were some dark-brown slender beasts, whose fluid movements told her that the pack that had pursued them had recovered from the loss of its leader. In fact, there seemed to be more of them.
I think I know what that blot on the horizon was now. I wonder where the other “hounds” came from, though…
And mingling with those creatures was something else; black, small animals that hopped rather than walked.
She guessed from their behavior that there was some kind of consultation going on. The black creatures seemed to be the ones in charge, or conveying some kind of orders. As she watched, the thin creatures arrayed themselves below the cliff, providing a kind of rear guard. The golden-brown forms lined up in an orderly fashion, and started up the path with a sinister purposefulness. And the black dots sprouted wings and rose into the air.
Crows—she realized. Then, as they drew nearer—Dearest gods—they’re so big!
They were heading straight for the Heralds. And they could do a great deal of damage with those long, sharp bills, those fierce claws.
Without being prompted by the sword, she pulled her bow again, hoping that dampness hadn’t gotten to the string. She nocked and sighted, and released; and repeated the action, filling the air below her with half a dozen arrows.
Only three reached their mark, and one of those was by accident, as a crow flew into the path of one of the arrows while trying to avoid another. Of those three, one was only a wound; it passed through the nearest crow’s wing, and the bird spiraled down to the earth, cawing its pain, and keeping itself aloft with frantic flaps of its good wing.
Poor as the marksmanship had been, it was enough to deter the rest of the birds. They kited off sideways, out of her arrow range, caught a thermal, and rowed through the air as fast as their wings could flap to vanish over the top of the cliff.
Gwena lurched back into motion, and Elspeth was forced to put her bow away and resume her two-handed clutch on the saddle pommel. They were barely a third of the way to the top of the cliff and the shelter of the ruins.
She hoped they would see that shelter—and that what awaited them at the top was not a further nest of foes.
* * *
Wherever the crows had gone, they had not managed to herd another clutch of magically constructed creatures to the ruins to meet them. And they didn’t return to harass the Heralds themselves.
Elspeth heaved a sigh of relief that was echoed by Gwena as they approached the edge of the cliff without seeing any further opposition to their progress. They reached the end of the path without meeting any other dangers than the treacherous path itself—though the last third, so high above the floor of the Plains, had put Elspeth’s heart in her throat for the entire journey. She tried to use her FarSight to spy out the land ahead, but either her fear or something outside of herself interfered with her ability to See. She thought the way was clear, but she drew her bow—again—just in case it wasn’t.
They scrambled up the final switchback, with Elspeth praying that there wasn’t anything lying in ambush, and found themselves on a smooth apron of masonry, uneven and weathered, with weeds growing through the cracks.
But there was no time to marvel. A new threat climbed the trail behind them—a threat that was surefooted enough to have closed the gap between them. Elspeth had not had any chance to shoot at these new followers, but they were much bigger than the first creatures that had pursued them across the Plain as well as being armored with horny plates, and she was not terribly confident that their arrows would make much of an impression on these beasts. And they were barely two switchbacks behind the Heralds.
She and Gwena pushed past Skif and scrambled for the shelter of that ruined towerlike edifice she had Seen. He followed right on Gwena’s crupper; the Companions’ hooves rang on the stone in perfect rhythm, sounding like one single horse.
They reached the shelter of the stones just barely ahead of their pursuers; the first of the creatures came over the edge of the cliff as they whisked into a narrow cleft between two standing walls, a cleft just wide enough for the two of them, or one of them and a Companion, but deep enough for several to work unhindered behind whoever held the front.
Skif and Cymry reached the cleft last, which put them in the position of initial defenders. As Elspeth threw herself from the saddle, she reached for bow-case and quiver. As she fumbled with the straps that held both in place on the saddle-skirt, the sword at her side uncoiled its power, and struck.
At her.
Her hand closed on the hilt of the blade before she was quite aware of what was happening. But as Need moved to take over the rest of her body, she fought back.
It was a brief, sharp struggle; it ended in the blade’s surprised capitulation.
:What in hell is wrong with you, girl?: Need shrilled in her mental “ear.” :I thought you were going to let me work magic against those things!:
:Through me, not using me,: she snarled back. :That’s my body you’re trying to take over. You didn’t ask, you just tried to take.:
Need seemed very much taken aback. While the blade pondered, Elspeth retrieved her bow and quiver, and counted out her shots. There were depressingly few arrows left; what she had, she would have to use carefully.
:You’ve got a mothering-strong Mage-Gift,: the blade said, as Elspeth positioned herself behind Skif, with one arrow nocked to her bowstring. :I think if I guide you through it, we ought to be able to fend these things off long enough to give us a breathing space. Relax a little, will you?:
Elspeth let down her guard, reluctantly. :That’s all I need,: Need said. :This will be like learning how to shoot. My hands on yours, guiding. That’s all. Now look, with your FarSight, below us.:
Elspeth obeyed, wondering if this was a waste of time. But to her amazement, there was something down there.
A kind of web of light, with a bright glow where the lines all met.
:Those are ley-lines; the thing in the middle is a node. Reach out and touch it. I’ll help you.:
There was an odd sensation that was similar to that of having hands on hers; she followed the guidance of those invisible “hands,” reaching out to touch—just barely touch—that bright glow.
Although her physical hands merely pointed off into the heart of the ruins, those other “hands” penetrated deeply beneath the ground—deeper, she sensed, than the Plains below them. It was not effortless. She was sweating and trembling by the time she made contact; weak-kneed with the effort, as if she had run up a second cliff trail as long as the one they had just traversed.
Then she touched this “node”—and was hit with a blast of power, as if she stood in the path of an onrushing torrent. If she could have cried out, she would have. She had never felt so entirely helpless in her life.
:Dammit—: Those invisible hands caught her, steadied her. She saw how they were holding her against the power, and altered her “stance,” opening to it instead of resisting it. Opening what, she didn’t know; in point of fact it “felt” like opening a door that she hadn’t been aware existed.
Now instead of being swept away by the flood of power, she had become a conduit for it. It filled her, rather than overwhelming her.
:Good,: the sword said, with grudging admiration. :I wasn’t that quick even when I was your age. And I never could handle nodes, only local energy, shallow lines, and power-pools. I think I’m jealous.:
Elspeth opened her eyes to discover that the creatures that had followed them were only now lining up in front of their shelter. Amazingly, hardly any time at all had passed.
:Well, child,: Need said, with grim satisfaction. :Let’s show these beasts that the mice they thought they trapped have fangs.:
Elspeth followed the blade’s direction, raising her hands above her head and clasping them together for a moment while the power built within her, flooding channels she discovered as they were being filled, then letting it loose with a gesture of throwing.
:You won’t need to do that forever,: Need told her, as a lance of energy, like a lightning bolt, leapt from her hand to impact squarely in the chest of one of the creatures. :Eventually, you’ll be able to send power without making those stupid gestures. And you’ll be able to use it less—crudely. But this will do for now.:
Even as the blade spoke, she guided Elspeth through another three such displays. Skif and the Companions had been taken entirely by surprise; they stood looking at Elspeth as if she had suddenly grown an extra head, staring despite the danger outside the cleft, as if they did not recognize her.
For that matter, she wasn’t entirely sure she recognized herself. Here she was, flinging lightning bolts about as if they were children’s balls—Elspeth, protected Heir, who had never been outside of Valdemar. Elspeth, otherwise very ordinary Herald, who had never been thought to have a particularly strong Gift, much less something like this. The power sang through her mind, light coalescing at her fingers and striking out in showers of sparks.
Unfortunately, when the dazzle cleared from her eyes, it was apparent that her fiery attacks had not impressed the hunters that much.
:Damn,: the sword swore. :They’ve been given some protection against magic attack. I didn’t know that could be done with constructs.: And, as if to herself, :I wonder what else has changed…
As the exhilaration of power and the impetus of fear both faded, Elspeth leaned against the rock wall and blinked to clear her eyes. For the first time Elspeth got a good look at their foes, as they huddled at a respectful distance from the opening of the cleft, their heads together as if they were discussing something. Perhaps they were…
They were shaped rather like cattle, with horny plates instead of hair, and all of that uniform golden-brown that resembled the color of the parched grasslands of the Plains. They were not as clumsy, however, and were as tall at the shoulder as any of the Ashkevron warhorses. Nor were their heads or legs at all bovine; they bore resemblance to no animal that Elspeth recognized. From sharp, backswept horns, to wide, slitted eyes, to fanged mouths, their heads were alien and as purposeful as the pack of beasts that had chased the Heralds across the Plains. And there were odd feet on those legs, a kind of claw-hoof; the front legs more like a dog’s than a cow’s.
The consultation ended, and half of the beasts trotted out of sight. Elspeth had no fear that they would come in from behind; those hooves were never made for climbing rock, and the tumble of stones behind them was beyond the capability of anything lacking humanlike hands and feet. What they were undoubtedly doing was making sure that the Heralds did not escape by climbing the rocks and slipping away.
The remainder of the creatures settled down, as if perfectly prepared for a long wait.
:I hate to tell you this,: Need said gloomily, :but if these things have defenses to magical attacks, they have probably been constructed very well. They might not need to eat, drink, or even sleep.:
She sighed, and pulled her damp hair behind her ears. “Well, that was just what I needed to hear,” she muttered.
“What was?” Skif asked, and she realized that the blade had left him out of the conversation again. Probably deliberately.
Elspeth explained, as she and Cymry traded places.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned. “We’re safe for now, I guess, but how are we going to get out of here? Poison the damn things?”
“They have to have a weakness somewhere,” she replied absently, studying the beasts with narrowed eyes. “If they’re protected in one area, that probably means they’ve given up protection somewhere else.”
Suddenly, one of the beasts, which had been utterly silent up until then, let out a bloodcurdling shriek. The one nearest the opening reared up to its full height, pawing at something in its throat, its head and neck extended as far as they could reach while it shrieked again. As it reared, they saw what had hit it.
An arrow, buried to the fletchings in its throat.
The underbody was covered with soft skin, unlike the horny hide-plates. The area of weakness Elspeth had been hoping for. Her heart surged with elation, and her energy returned redoubled.
A second arrow whirred past and thudded into the creature’s chest as it teetered on its hind legs. It bellowed again, then collapsed, and did not move.
While its fellows began to look about confusedly, Skif darted out of cover before Elspeth could stop him. As a third arrow skimmed past him, just beyond his shoulder, and bounced off the hide of the nearest beast, distracting it, he flung one of his throwing knives at the beast’s eye. It hit squarely; the tiny knives were razor-sharp and heavy for their tiny size. The second beast threw up its head and collapsed like its brother.
Skif darted back into cover.
Before he had done more than reach the shelter of the cleft, a huge shadow passed overhead.
They both looked up, as a second shadow followed the first, and a cry, like that of an eagle, but a hundred times louder, rang out.
Dear gods—
Elspeth gasped, and for one moment she could not even think.
:What—the hell—are those?: the sword asked.
Elspeth shook with nerves and fear, as the huge gryphons stooped on their pursuers. She had known, intellectually, that gryphons existed; Heralds had seen them in the sky north of Valdemar, but no one she knew had ever seen one this close.
Or at least, if they had, they’d not lived to report the fact.
For one panicked moment, she thought they had come to join the other beasts against them—and these creatures would not have the limitations of the hooved ones in prying the Heralds out of their shelter.
But they attacked the strange creatures with talons and beaks, knocking one of them entirely off the cliff, and killing another before Elspeth could react, shrieking defiance as they shredded flesh and flew off again.
Well, whatever they are, even if they aren’t on our side, they aren’t on their side either.
The rest of the beasts turned to defend themselves, forming a heads-out circle, and it was clear that there would be no more easy kills.
It was also clear that the gryphons were not going to give up. Nor, from the carefully placed arrows, was their still-unseen ally.
And damn if I’m going to let them do this alone. Maybe they’ve heard the old saying about how “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
She ran out, nocking another arrow to her bow, before Skif could grab her and haul her back to safety.
“Come on!” she shouted back at him, allowing a hint of mockery to enter her voice. “What are you waiting for? Winter?”
* * *
Elspeth rested her back against a rock, and slid down it. Skif slumped nearby, with his head hanging, his forearms propped on his bent knees, and his hands dangling limply. There was a long shallow gash in her leg that she didn’t remember getting, and another wound (a bite) on her arm that she only recalled vaguely. It was a good thing she had more clothing with her; all Whites, though, the merc outfits were filthy. She’d taken both hits after she’d run out of arrows and knives, and the damned sword had insisted on getting in close to fight hand-to—tooth, horn, whatever.
Neither wound was bleeding, and neither one hurt…
:I told you. That’s my doing.: That was Need, still unsheathed and in her hand. It was covered in dark, sticky blood, and she had not yet regained the energy to clean it. She had the feeling that the sword wouldn’t care—but if she ever put any blade in its sheath without cleaning it, she knew in her soul that Kero and Alberich would walk on air to beat her black and blue. The smug satisfaction in the sword’s tone would have been annoying if she hadn’t been so tired. :I let ’em bleed enough to clean ’em out, then I took care of ’em.:
:Well, you were the one that was responsible for my getting hurt in the first place,: she retorted, watching the gash and bitemarks Heal before her eyes. :I should think you’d take care of them!:
The sword muttered something about ingratitude; Elspeth ignored it. The gryphons—and presumably the archer—had gone in pursuit of the enemy creatures once their combined attack had broken the beasts’ circle and forced them into flight. Neither the Heralds nor their Companions had been in any shape to join the chase.
Gwena plodded over to Elspeth’s side and nosed her arm. :At least that piece of tin is useful as a Healer,: the Companion observed. :Are we going to find somewhere safe to rest, do you think? Someplace secure? I’d really like to go sleep for a week or so.:
“Unless those gryphons saved us just to eat us themselves, I think we are,” Elspeth responded, unable to muster much concern over the prospect of becoming gryphon-fodder. She had just learned the truth of something Quenten had warned her about. It took energy to use energy—and hers was spent, and overspent. Right now she was just about ready to pass out, safe or not.
But the sound of a falcon’s cry made her look up; there was an enormous raptor skimming along, barely clearing the tops of the stones, winging his way out of the forest. An omen? That would be all they needed now; something more to wonder about.
For a moment, she thought it was her weary, blurring eyes that made the vegetation behind him seem to move, as if part of the forest had separated and was walking toward her. But then, the “vegetation” stepped a little farther out into the open and became a man.
Her hiss of warning brought Skif’s head up, and they both struggled to their feet to meet the stranger standing, their Companions moving a little into the shadows out of immediate sight as they rose. She stood so that Need was not so obviously still in her hand; no point in looking belligerent.
He was a somber-looking young man, tall, taller than Skif, and slender. And handsome, strikingly handsome, with a sculptured face and tough, graceful body. He’d already slung his bow across his back; a longbow, much more finely crafted than anything Elspeth had ever seen in use before. His green, gray, and brown clothing blended so well with the forest that he faded into the background every time he paused. His long hair was an odd, mottled brown that helped with the camouflage-effect considerably. As he neared, Elspeth saw that he had the same piercing, ice-blue eyes and bone structure of the Shin’a’in she had seen, though his complexion was a paler gold than theirs. As the man drew nearer, the falcon wheeled and returned. Without looking, the stranger held out his gauntleted wrist, and the falcon—much larger, she realized, than any bird she had ever seen, other than, say, an eagle—dropped down gracefully to his fist, and settled itself with a flip of its wings.
That was when she finally made the connection. Dear gods—he must be one of the Hawkbrothers. She felt as if she really had stepped into the pages of a legend; first she was visited by a Shin’a’in Kal’enedral, then chased by monsters, then rescued by gryphons—and now here was a Hawkbrother, a creature out of legends so remote that she had only found references to them in Vanyel’s chronicles. Moondance and Starwind, Vanyel’s friends—Mages, Adepts in fact, from the Clan of k’Treva.
The man paused at a polite distance from the Heralds, and frowned, as if he wasn’t certain how to address them, or which of them to speak to first. She wondered if she should solve his quandary.
But before she could speak, he made up his mind. “Who are you?” he demanded arrogantly in trade-tongue. “What are you doing in Tayledras lands? Why are you here?”
And who are you to ask? I didn’t see any boundary markers! She drew herself up, answering his arrogance with pride of her own. “Herald Elspeth and Herald Skif, out of Valdemar. And we were chased here by monsters, as you likely noticed,” she replied stiffly, in the same language. “We didn’t exactly plan on it, and we didn’t stop to ask directions. Any more questions?”
To her surprise, he actually started to smile, at least a little. But that was when Gwena poked her nose from behind her Chosen, and looked at him with a combination of inquiry and tentative approval. His eyes widened and, to Elspeth’s amazement, he paled.
She took an involuntary step backward, and that brought Need into view. He glanced down, took a second, very surprised look, and went a little whiter.
He mumbled something under his breath that sounded like Shin’a’in, but was different enough that she couldn’t make out what he was saying. It seemed to have something to do with bodily functions.
Well, as long as he’d seen the damned sword and hadn’t interpreted it as hostility, she might as well put it away properly. She turned a little, fished a cleaning rag out of Gwena’s saddlebag as he watched her warily, and began wiping the blade clean.
It practically cleaned itself. Then again, maybe that wasn’t surprising, all things considered. The Hawkbrother mumbled something again, and she looked up as she sheathed her sword properly, and wiped off her filthy hand. “What did you say?” she asked politely, but with a touch of the same arrogance he had been showing them.
He shook his head, but he did seem to be unbending just a little. “Never mind,” he said, “It matters not. It would seem that I am to add you to the colony of Outlanders I am collecting.”
“And what if we don’t want to go?” she retorted, taken aback by his assumption that she would obey him without a second thought. “There are four of us and only one of you.”
“This is our land you trespass on. There are four of us,” he corrected mildly, as the gryphons swooped in from behind her to land at his side, the wind created by their wings as they landed making a tiny tempest that blew dust into her face and made her squint. “And I think two of us are bigger than all of you.”
She tightened her jaw, refusing to be intimidated. “Is that a threat?” she snapped. “I think we might surprise you, if it is.”
He sighed. “No, it is not a threat; if you wish to descend to the Plains, you are free to do so. But I must tell you, there are four of us that stand guard here, I will not permit you to pass through Tayledras lands, and your escort still awaits you below the cliff. Our Shin’a’in brethren have not chosen to disperse them, and we above do not trespass upon the Plains without invitation.”
“Oh,” she said, deflated. :What do you know about these people?: she asked the sword.
:Not a damn thing,: Need replied. :Never heard of them, and I don’t recognize the language. They’re either something I never ran into, or they sprang up after my time.:
The young man cleared his throat, delicately, recalling her attention. “I feel as if I must point out that you would not be safe from anything with that at your side.”
He pointed to the sword with his chin.
She raised an eyebrow and looked back at Skif. He shrugged. “I don’t think we have much choice,” he said quietly.
“Your friend speaks wisely,” the Hawkbrother put in. “It may be your escort was attracted by you, or by the weapon you carry. It is magic, and such things are drawn by magic. I think that you would be safer in the company of two mages.”
“Two mages?” boomed out a new voice. Elspeth’s heart leapt right out of her body, and only Gwena’s shoulder behind her kept her on her feet as her knees dissolved from a combination of startlement and fear.
“Two mages?” repeated the smaller of the gryphons. “Darrrkwind, do my earrssss decssseive me?”
It talks, Elspeth thought, faintly.
The Hawkbrother—Darkwind, if the gryphon had called him by his correct name—shrugged again. “This is neither the time nor place to speak of my decisions,” he replied, and turned to the Heralds. “I phrased myself poorly. I think that you have no real choice. I think you must accept my hospitality, for your own safety and the safekeeping of that which you carry. Though what the Council will say of this,” he added, looking at the gryphon who had spoken, and shaking his head ruefully, “I do not care to contemplate.”
The arrogance was back, an imperious quality more suited to a prince of some exotic realm than this—whatever he was. She wanted to angrily deny the fact that they needed protection of any kind, much less his. But much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t want to have to face any more bizarre monsters. Not right away, anyway.
:I think we’d better go along with him, Elspeth,: Skif Mindspoke tentatively, as if he expected her to turn on him and lash him with her anger for such a suggestion. :I don’t know about you, but we can’t face any more without some rest. And I really would like to know a little more about what’s going on around here before we go charging off on our own.:
He’s some kind of Border Guard, she thought, though not without some resentment. It is his land. I could do with a little less of an attitude, though… She would have preferred to tell him exactly what he could do with his so-called “protection”—to tell him that she would be perfectly fine—to inform him in no uncertain terms, that whatever he thought, she had been sent here, to this very place, by those “Shin’a’in brethren” of his, and that she intended to wait here for them.
On the other hand, she had no idea why the Shin’a’in had sent her here, nor if they themselves intended to meet her. Maybe all they had meant was to put her in the hands of these Hawkbrothers…
:What do you think?: she asked Gwena.
:That he is right, we have no choice,: came the Companion’s prompt reply. :It is not necessarily a bad thing; you were in search of mages. He is a mage, so is the gryphon. And according to the chronicles, many of the Hawkbrothers are mages. They taught Vanyel, did they not, when the Herald-Mages could not?:
:Let’s see if someone’s willing to come with us, or teach me, first,: she replied sourly. So, it was fairly well unanimous.
“He’s right,” she told Skif shortly, in their tongue, much to the older Herald’s relief. “And so are you. We’re all tired, and as long as this isn’t an imprisonment—”
“I don’t think it is,” Skif replied. “I think he’d let us go if we really wanted to. I’ve got the feeling that we’re kind of an annoyance to him, not something he’d keep around if he had the choice.”
That didn’t make her feel any better. “All right,” she told the Hawkbrother, trying to conceal her annoyance. “Where is it you want us to go?”
Instead of replying, he gestured curtly for them to follow; she seethed a little at the implied discourtesy. As the gryphons lofted themselves into the air, she stood aside for Skif and Cymry to get by her. She did not want to follow him too closely just now; she was afraid she would lose what was left of her temper.
She had gotten used to being the one making the decisions. Now she was again following someone else’s orders. That galled her as much as this Darkwind fellow’s arrogance.
In fact, she decided somewhat guiltily as she led Gwena in Cymry’s wake, it probably galled her more…
Darkwind led the way for this strange parade of Outlanders, winding through the piles of stone on the weed-grown path that led from this end of the ruins to the gryphons’ lair. It was a good thing that they had enlarged it; between two Outlanders, their spirit-horses, and Nyara, it would have been crowded otherwise. He wished strongly for something to ease his aching head, or to make him able to forget everything that had happened for the past several days. Or both.
Well, perhaps not everything.
I have my father back again. That was no small gain, even when weighed against all the grief and pain.
He concentrated on staying on his feet, glad beyond telling that this incursion would likely mean there would be nothing more today. If only he were in his ekele—he had begun this day wearied and emptied of all strength, or so he thought. He had not found anyone able to take his patrol for him, so he had taken to the border, resigned to another stretch without rest. It had been two days without sleep, now.
But it had been quiet, amazingly so—until, when (of course) he was at the very opposite end of his patrol, he sensed magic, powerful magic, being used somewhere near the gryphons’ lair.
He’d thought it might have been Treyvan, doing something to free the gryphlets from Falconsbane’s control. But any hope he’d had of that had been shattered by Treyvan’s Mindcall.
There was a massing of Misborn beasts, Falconsbane’s creatures, in pursuit of two humans—and one of those humans was using magic to try and drive them off. Without success, as it happened. The gryphons were going to their aid. It was his territory; so must he.
He, and they, had arrived on the spot simultaneously, to play rescuer to Outlanders. That had irritated him beyond reason; he was tired, and he saw no reason to save ignorant fools from the consequences of their own folly. He had intended to send them back where they came from, whether they were still in danger or not—until he actually saw who, or rather, what, he had rescued.
He glanced back over his shoulder at them, trying not to look as if he was doing so. “Unsettled” was the mildest term for the way he felt right now. “Shaken” probably came closer; profoundly shaken.
Well, it is not every day that a pair of Guardian Spirits and a pre-Mage-War Artifact fold wings on your doorstep…
And when one added the fact that the person bearing the Artifact—and in the charge of the more potent of the Guardian Spirits—was a completely untutored mage of Adept potential—
If this is a trial of my abilities—the gods have no sense of proportion.
He was exhausted, bewildered, and one step short of collapsing. All he could think of was to take these Outlanders to the gryphons’ lair, where they had left Nyara. Treyvan agreed; and concurred with his judgment that they did not dare let these two—four—five—wander about with things as unsettled as they were. If Falconsbane got his hands on them, as he was so obviously trying to do, Darkwind was not willing to think about what uses he might make of them.
With any luck, the Elders were so concerned with Starblade that they would not find out about these “visitors” until they were long gone.
And meanwhile, perhaps he could find somewhere safe to send them. To the Shin’a’in? No, they had forsworn magic…
Could these two have stolen that sword from the soil of the Plains? That horrifying thought nearly stopped him in his tracks, until he remembered that the blade did not have the air of disuse about it that something of that nature would—and that it did have the air of something that was alien to the kind of magics that lay buried in the Plains. Woman’s magic; that was it. No, this was nothing that had been created by the thoroughly masculine Mage of Silence—and it did not have the look or feel of anything forged by the Shin’a’in. Weapons made for the servants of the Star-Eyed were as sexless as the Kal’enedral; this artifact was as female in its way as—as Nyara.
He staggered a little as he neared the lair; recovered himself before the Outlanders noticed. Above all, he had to present a strong front to them. There was no telling what kind of unwitting havoc they could cause if they thought he was less than vigilant, ineffectual—he was certain now that they meant no harm, not with Guardian Spirits hanging about them, but they could cause a great deal of trouble if they chose to meddle without knowing what they were about.
I could wish they were Shin’a’in; then we would have two more useful allies at this moment…
Hydona was already in the lair when they reached it; Treyvan waited outside. “In there,” he said, shortly, wishing he dared shake his head to clear his eyes. “If you have gear, Hydona will tell you the chamber you may use.”
When the young man looked from him to the spirit-horse doubtfully, he added, “The white ones, too. We will find them food if you do not have it.” He bowed a little to the mare. “Zhai’helleva, lady. You honor k’Sheyna with your presence.”
The spirit-mare looked flattered and surprised—so did the young man.
:You do not look well,: Treyvan noted.
:I do not feel well, but I shall survive,: he replied. He gave Vree a toss to send him to a perch above the lair “doorway” and stood, leaning (he hoped) casually, against the doorpost. The young man entered with his spirit-horse. The young woman’s spirit-horse started to follow, and he averted his eyes with discomfort—
Then he found himself sliding dizzily toward the ground, clinging not-so-casually to the rock as his knees buckled.
Quickly, the young woman knelt beside him and unsheathed her sword.
:Peace, brother, she means no harm,: Treyvan said calmly.
Darkwind wasn’t so sure. He tried to get up a hand to fend her off—but instead, she put the hilt of the thing in his hand.
And he heard a strange, gravelly voice in his mind—
:She says if I don’t Heal you she’s going to drop me down the nearest well,: the sword told him, annoyance warring with amusement in the overtones of its—her—mind-voice. :I think she must have been taking lessons in rudeness from her predecessor. And knowing Her Highness, she probably would.:
He nearly dropped the thing in shock, and only long training—never, never, never drop a blade—kept his numb fingers clutched to the hilt.
:Huh. Nothing too bad—overwork, under-rest. And—: He Felt the thing probing him and his memory, then suddenly pulling back. :Oh, youngling,: the sword said, dropping all cynicism. :You’ve had more heartbreak than anyone should ever face in a lifetime, and that much I can’t Heal. But I’ll do my best for you. Open your shields to me.:
She sounded so much like one of his teachers, an old, old Adept who had ordered him about as if she had been his mother, that he obeyed without thinking twice. She took instant action; in the next moment a gentle warmth stole over him, making him relax still further. He closed his eyes gratefully and let it in. Healers had worked on him before, but that had been for a major injury, not for general exhaustion.
First came the warmth and relaxation; then came new energy, new strength. It rose in him like a tide, rather than a flood; a rising tide of warmth and golden-green light that touched him within and without, folding him in great wings of brilliance, sheltering him as he had not been protected since he was a child. But the blade not only filled him with renewed physical energy, she also reopened his long-unused mage-channels, replenishing him with magical power as well.
He was vaguely offended at first, but then practicality took hold. He had said he was a mage. Any reasons for renouncing powers were gone. There was, in fact, every reason why he should take up magecraft again.
:Thank you,: he told the blade.
:Thank the girl,: Need responded. :Oh, I was an Adept, but never with the ability she has. She and her teacher were the first in I don’t know how long that fought me and won. And all this power—it’s coming through her. So save your thanks for her. I’ll be done soon.:
The blade was as good as its word; the dizziness and weakness were gone, and shortly after that, he felt as refreshed as if he had never endured the stresses of the past five days.
He stood up and gingerly passed the sword back to its bearer. “That was kindly done,” he said, with all the courtesy he could muster, embarrassed by the awareness that his dealings with her had been woefully short of courtesy up until this moment. “Thanks is not adequate, but it is all I can offer.”
She seemed first surprised, then pleased, then blushed, averting her eyes. “That’s all right,” she said, “I mean, you looked like you needed help. She doesn’t like men much, but I figured I could convince her to do something for you.”
He looked to the young lady and spirit-mare, nodding gravely. “There have been troubles here,” he told her. “There still are troubles—evil ones—and you have tumbled unwitting into the midst of them. My time is short, my powers are strained, and my patience, alas, never was particularly good. Please, even if I offend you, never hesitate to follow my orders or Treyvan’s. It may well mean not only your life but ours.”
She looked back up at him, resentment warring with respect in her eyes. Respect won.
“I will,” she said, a little grudgingly, and he sensed that she was not often minded to follow anyone’s orders, much less a stranger’s. “You’re right, I suppose. We’re not from around here; we can’t possibly know what’s going on.”
Imperious, he noted thoughtfully. Used to giving the orders, not taking them. The sword called her “Highness.” That may well be truth, rather than sarcasm.
“I am Darkwind k’Sheyna,” he told her. “This ruin is nominally part of k’Sheyna territory; Treyvan and Hydona are the actual guardians here. There are few who would care to dispute boundaries with them.”
He meant that as a subtle warning, but she cocked her head to one side, looked from him to Treyvan and back again, and said accusingly, “There is something very wrong here. You said we’ve walked into a situation we don’t understand—but everything, absolutely everything I’ve seen tells me that it’s worse than that. You people are in trouble.”
He narrowed his eyes speculatively. “Why do you say this?” he asked before he thought.
“Well, I’m thinking of you, for one thing,” she said. “Need says you were exhausted, that you’d gone days without rest. You don’t do that unless you’re in some kind of trouble. Everything around here seems—well, it feels like being on the edge of a battlefield, on the eve of a war. And if that’s what we’ve walked into, I’d like to know.” She gulped. “I think, on the whole, I’d just as soon take my chances with those things you chased off. I’d rather not get caught in another all-out war. Especially not a war involving magic.”
Again, he spoke before he thought, with a little more scorn than he had intended to show. “And what do you know of warfare?”
She scowled. “I’ve fought in a few battles,” she snapped. “Have you? And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Why should I?” he retorted. He raised his head proudly, planting his fists on his hips. “I know nothing of you, other than that you came across the Plains—and that you likely did without the knowledge of the Shin’a’in—”
“What, you want my credentials?” she scoffed, now obviously very angry, but keeping a firm grip on herself. She turned quickly to her saddlebag and turned round again with a roll of vellum and something else. “All right, I’ll give you what you’ll recognize. My teacher’s teacher was Tarma shena Tale’sedrin. My teacher is Captain Kerowyn of the Skybolts, cousin to most of the Tale’sedrin. She no longer rides a warsteed, but when she did, it was always called Hellsbane. I came to Kata’shin’a’in looking for Tale’sedrin. One found me; a Kal’enedral. He, she, or it gave me these.”
She thrust the roll and an enameled copper disk at him. The latter, he recognized. It was one of the Clan tokens customarily used to identify Clansfolk passing through Tayledras lands. And it was, indeed, a genuine Tale’sedrin token. He even recognized the maker’s glyph on the back. That they had given this Outlander one meant that they expected her to be passing through both the Plains and Tayledras territory, and had granted her as much safe passage as they could.
But the other thing, the roll of vellum, proved to be as great a shock as the spirit-horse.
It was a map of the Plains. Darkwind had heard of such things, but the normally secretive Shin’a’in had never before let one out of their hands, to his knowledge, not even to their cousin, Captain Kerowyn. And it was a genuine map, not a fake. It showed every well and spring in the Plains, used the correct reckonings, and showed the correct landmarks—at least as far as he could verify. For that much it was priceless. It showed more than that; it showed, if you knew what to look for, the locations of common camp-sites of the four seed-Clans and the offshoot Clans. Anyone who had that information would know who held which territories, and where to find them…
And it also showed the ruins here on the rim, circled in red ink, fresher than anything else on the map.
“That was where I was supposed to go, at least that’s what I guessed,” she said assertively, stabbing her finger at the red mark. “I don’t know what it was I was intended to find, but it certainly looks to me as if I was to come here. If you know better, I’d be pleased to hear where I’m supposed to be.”
“No,” he replied vaguely, still staring at the solid evidence of Shin’a’in cooperation in his hands. “No, I would say that you are correct.”
This incident was rapidly turning into something he was not ready to deal with. It had looked like a simple case of Outlanders wandering where they didn’t belong.
Then it became a case of keeping these people out of Falconsbane’s hands. But now it looked as if the Shin’a’in had sent these Outlanders here. And what that could mean, he did not know.
“Please,” he said, rolling up the map and handing it back to her. “Please, if you would only rejoin your friend, the young man, I need to speak with Treyvan.”
She set her chin stubbornly, but he could be just as stubborn. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood between her and the pathway out, silent, and unmoving except for his hair blowing in the breeze. Finally she stuffed the map back in her belt with an audible sniff and turned to enter the lair.
She went inside—but the white spirit-horse did not. The mare stared at Darkwind for so long he began to feel very uncomfortable. It was very much as if she was measuring him against some arcane standard only she knew. In fact, she probably was, given the little he knew about manifesting spirits; Starblade had once seen a leshya’e Kal’enedral, but he never had, and he had been perfectly content to have it remain that way.
Evidently the gods had other ideas.
:A word with you,: the spirit-mare said. Then she looked up at Treyvan and included him in the conversation. :Both of you,: she amended.
Treyvan looked down at the little mare from his resting place atop the lair, and rumbled deep in his throat. :We have many problems and little leisure, my lady,: he replied in Mindspeech. :I do not mean to belittle your troubles, but we have no time for yours.:
She tossed her head and stamped one hoof with an imperiousness that matched her rider’s. :That is exactly what I wish to speak with you about, your troubles! You are being very foolish to dismiss us so lightly. I tell you, you need us, and I swear to you that you may trust us!:
With every word, she glowed a little brighter to his Mage-Sight, until he finally had to shield against her.
:Lady, I know you think I can trust you,: he replied, stubbornly, :but you and she are not of my people; your ways are not ours, and what you think important may mean nothing to us.:
:And please to dim yourself,: Treyvan added. :You do not need to set the forest afire to prove what you are.:
Her glow faded, and she pondered for a moment. :It is true that we are not of the same peoples, but I will tell you what brings us here. The child needs tutoring in magecraft. That is the most important of our tasks. Other than that, we have no agenda to pursue. And we are four more to stand at your side in your troubles.: She snorted delicately. :We have departed from the road that had been planned for her. At this point, I do not see how further deviation from that plan can matter.:
The road that had been planned for her? Interesting words, and ones that explained a great deal about the girl’s temperament. I doubt I would much care for being blown about by the winds of fate. In fact—I just might become as belligerent as she has. He began to feel a bit more in sympathy with the girl. And quite a bit more inclined to trust her.
:Lady, we may not agree on what is to be done here,: he warned. :This is Tayledras land; we follow the task given to us by our Lady, and nothing is permitted to interfere with that.:
She shook her mane impatiently. :Does it matter in whose name good is done? Evil done in the name of a Power of good is still evil. And good done in the name of a Power of evil is still good. It is the actions which matter, not the Name it is done for. You stand against evil here; we will help if you will have us. And then—perhaps—you may help us.:
Well, that seemed reasonable enough. He raised an eyebrow at Treyvan; the gryphon, adroit at reading human faces, cocked his head to one side. :She seems sincere. She is—something that cannot speak falsely. And—Darkwind, we and k’Sheyna are not strong enough that we can afford to neglect any form of aid. Especially if we are to free Dawnfire and my children.:
He nodded. :If that’s the way you feel, then I agree.: He turned to the mare. :Lady, we accept your offer with thanks.:
The spirit nodded emphatically. :Good. Shall we confer on what needs to be done?:
Things to be done—the rescue of Dawnfire, for one thing. After Starblade’s revelations, he was certain that she was in Falconsbane’s hands. He could not leave her there—he told himself it was for k’Sheyna’s sake, that the Clan could not afford another like Starblade—but it was as much for his sake as the Clan’s. Over and over the thought had plagued him, intruding into everything, that if he had only been more vigilant, if he had only taken the time to explain why he had wanted her to stay clear of the gryphons that day, none of this would have happened to her. He knew now that he was not to blame for the shattering of the Heartstone—but this he was guilty of. He had allowed Falconsbane to lure him into relaxing his guard. And this was the result.
:Bring your people out,: he told the spirit. :As soon as they are ready to talk. And I will see if I can explain this before night falls. And explain,: he added grimly, :just what it is that we mean to do.:
* * *
To his surprise—although he should not have been surprised—the Outlanders had a very good grasp of the situation once he sketched it. As the young man said, “It’s not much different from our position at home. Except that the scale is a lot smaller.”
The girl sat with her chin resting on both her hands as she listened, then offered a question. “Why is it that this Falconsbane hasn’t made a frontal assault on k’Sheyna? He has to know that you’re in trouble, and this would be the perfect time to take you.”
This Elspeth seemed much easier and more relaxed, now that her blade was out of its sheath and away from her. The spirit penned within the sword—“Need” was its name—had stated that there was very little it could contribute. It had never been a tactician or a leader and did not care to begin learning the craft now. Furthermore, there was a great deal she could do to shield the gryphlets from further tampering; so that was what she had been left to do.
Elspeth had been a leader and a tactician—at least in small skirmishes—and she had studied her craft under one of the legendary mercenary Captains of the modern times. Word of the Shin’a’in “cousin” had penetrated even into Tayledras lands, via the few Bards that had congress with Tayledras and Shin’a’in. And her pupil’s question had merit.
“I do not know,” he replied frankly. “I am fairly certain that he has the power to pursue a frontal assault. It may be that he has not simply because he does not think in those terms; because he prefers to weaken from within, and gnaw away from without, until little by little he has wrought such damage that he can overcome his target with little effort or losses.”
“That only works if you don’t know what he’s doing,” she pointed out. “Once his victim knows—”
“It may be too late,” Treyvan rumbled. “I sssussspect hisss tacticsss have done verrry well in the passst.”
“He probably enjoys working that way,” the young man—Skif, a very odd sort of name, to Darkwind’s mind—put in. “I mean, it’s obvious from what the cat-lady said that he positively revels in making people suffer. Seems to me he wouldn’t get half the pleasure out of being straightforward.”
Elspeth bit off an exclamation. “That’s it!” she exulted. “That’s his weakness! That’s what makes him vulnerable! He’s so busy with his convoluted plans that if he sees us trying one thing, he might not expect a second attack that was perfectly straightforward. Look, Darkwind, if I were you, that’s what I’d do; I’d pretend to try to negotiate with him, and while he thought he was tying me in knots, I’d make a straight assault to get Dawnfire free. I’d also try and do as much damage as I could on the way out,” she added thoughtfully, “but then, I’m well known to be a vindictive bitch.”
She glanced sideways at Skif as she said that, and the young man looked sour. Evidently she was using words he had thrown at her at some point, and he was not enjoying hearing them now, tossed back in his face.
For his part, Darkwind was a little surprised by this interchange. He had been under the impression that these two were lovers, but evidently this was not so. He tucked the information into the back of his mind for later use in dealing with them. There were niceties needed with a pair of lovers that could be disposed of when working with a pair of friends or colleagues.
Such as splitting them up, for instance, sending one on one mission, and the second on another.
“It is a good notion,” he told the girl. “Except that we are not supposed to know that Falconsbane even exists, much less that he holds Dawnfire.”
“Damn,” she said, with a frown. “I’d forgotten that. Well, what about that daughter of his, Nyara? Can she be useful?”
Now that was a thought. Treyvan rose, anticipating his next words.
“I sssshall wake herrr,” the gryphon said, folding his wings to fit more easily through the door of the lair. “We ssshall sssee if ssshe isss rrready to be morrre frrriend than enemy, asss ssshe claimsss.”
Darkwind nodded, grimly. Now was the time for Nyara to show her true allegiances. There was a great deal about her father and her father’s stronghold and abilities that she could tell them, if she chose. And—just perhaps—some of his weaknesses.
And if she did not choose to help them—well, she would see the Vale after all, as she had often wished. From inside, as he turned her over to the Adepts to be judged. He wondered what they would think of the creature that had eaten Starblade’s bondbird before his eyes. No matter how extenuating the circumstances, he did not think they would be inclined to kindness.
* * *
Dawnfire stood on her squeaking mouse, killed it messily, and leaned down to pick it up head-first. She started swallowing it whole, trying her best not to think about what she was doing.
At least I’m not like a poor, stupid eyas that doesn’t know which end to start on, she thought unhappily. At least I know enough to kill the things before I try to eat them. And I knew how to kill them in theory, if not in practice.
In fact, she had learned a lot more than she was displaying. She blessed the many times she’d spent in full-bond with Kyrr, and blessed Kyrr’s memory for the way the hawk had shared every experience with her. No, she was not a bird—but she had the memories of what it had been like to be a raptor, and once she had overcome her initial despair, those memories had helped her learn the ways of her new body.
They did not help her overcome her fear.
Fear of Falconsbane was only part of it. There was another fear, a constant fear that never left her, waking or sleeping. She knew what would happen as she remained in Kyrr’s body—the longer she remained, the more of herself she would lose, until there was nothing left but the hawk. The fact that she had adapted to the body so quickly was both bad as well as good. The more comfortable she felt, the easier it would be to lose herself.
She tried to hold onto herself, with utter desperation. She tried to remember everything about the scouts, the Vale, Darkwind—and she panicked when she found herself in the midst of a memory and could not remember a face, a name, a setting. Was it just that these things had slipped her mind—or was it that her mind was slipping? There was no way to know.
And what had happened to her body, back in the Vale? What if Falconsbane had killed that along with Kyrr’s soul? What would she do then?
The past two days had felt like two months. Time stretched out unbearably—and there was nothing to distract her from fear and brooding.
When those thoughts drove her into a state of frenzy, there was only one way to break the cycle. She plotted her escape. She had been taken outside enough times on a creance to know all the places where escape might be possible. If she could get away—no, when she got away, she would not think “if”—she would head straight up, as high as a red-shouldered could go. From there, she would have an unparalleled view of the countryside; her scouting experience would tell her where she was. If she didn’t recognize anything, she would circle until she did see a landmark she knew. And Falconsbane shouldn’t be able to touch her.
Planning kept her sane; planning and practice.
When Falconsbane was not in the room, she practiced, as she had seen the fledglings practice; flapping until she lifted herself just above the perch; hopping down the length of her jesses and flying back to her perch. When she had to kill her food, she did so with a clumsiness that was feigned more and more often. She took out her anger on the hapless mice, ripping them with talons and beak after she had killed them.
Though it was still all she could do to force herself to eat the mice afterward.
Falconsbane was not paying a great deal of attention to her, but she continued the charade, lurching clumsily up to the perch and taking a long time to get settled. She watched him carefully as she cleaned her talons and beak. He’d been very preoccupied today; and he had evidently forgotten, if he had ever known, just how wide a field of vision a raptor had. She could watch him easily without ever seeming to pay attention to him.
He had been staring at the scrying stone; no longer relaxed, and no longer so infernally pleased with himself. She had finally decided that the scrying stone wouldn’t work anywhere except this room; certainly he never took it with him, and there was nothing else here but her perch, his couch, the cabinets he kept his toys of pain and pleasure in, and the stone. For the past two days he had spent more and more time here; watching the stone, and getting very intent about something. She overheard him muttering to himself; evidently he had also forgotten how sharp a raptor’s hearing was.
There was something about “heralds,” though what that would have to do with anything, she had no notion. There was more about “Valdemar” and a “queen;” “Hardorn,” and “Ancar.” He seemed very preoccupied with two quite different sets of people. One set seemed to be traveling, and they had something he wanted.
“Wanted?” That was like saying that she “wanted” her freedom. He lusted over this object, whatever it was, with an intensity she had never seen him display before.
The other people were connected with this “Ancar,” who seemed to be the enemy of the first group of people. From the pacing and muttering that went on after he had watched this person, she gathered that he was toying with the notion of contracting with this “Ancar” and proposing an alliance.
That was something new for him, or so she gathered. He wanted to—and yet he did not want to chance losing the slightest bit of his own power.
Then, this afternoon, something had changed. The people he had been watching escaped what he had thought was a perfect trap. And they had taken the thing that he wanted with them.
Falconsbane flew into a rage and flung the stone against the opposite wall with such force that he splintered the rock of the wall and reduced the stone to fragments, and she shrank back onto her perch, doing her best not to attract him to her by moving or making a sound. He paid no attention to her whatsoever; he roared for one of his servants to come and clean up the mess, and stood over the trembling boy, looking murderously at him as the terrified child carefully gathered the sharp shards in his shaking, bare hands.
Dawnfire trembled herself, expecting at any moment that he would take out his temper on the boy as he had on the stone. There would be true murder then—
With a sick feeling, she watched him reach down, slowly, clawed hands spread wide—
But before he touched the boy, the door flew open, and two men in some kind of ornate uniform flung themselves into the room to abase themselves at his feet, babbling of “failure” and “mercy.” Falconsbane started, then grabbed the child to cover his surprise. He pulled the boy up to his feet by his hair, and threw him bodily toward the door, showering the shards around him. This time the boy did not try to pick them up; he simply made good the chance to flee. The guards blanched and immediately went back to groveling with more heartfelt sincerity than before.
He listened to them a while, then cut them short with a single gesture. “Enough!” he growled, the fingers of his right hand crooked into claws, with the talons fully extended.
The two men fell absolutely silent.
“You failed to capture the artifact,” he said, his voice rumbling dangerously. “You failed to corner the quarry, you failed to keep them from finding aid, and you failed to acquire the artifact when you had the opportunity. I should take your lives; I should—remake you.”
The men whitened to the color of fresh snow.
“There is nothing you can say that will redeem your complete stupidity,” Falconsbane continued. “You will report to Drakan for your punishment. I have not the time to waste upon you.”
The two men started to get up; a single snarl from Falconsbane sent them back to their faces.
“I do have time to retrieve from your worthless bodies a modicum of the power you wasted in this effort.” He stretched out his right hand and spread it over the two prone men.
Dawnfire was not certain what exactly he did—but she saw the result clearly. The two men sat back on their heels suddenly, jerked erect like a pair of puppets. Their white faces were frozen in masks of pain, and their limbs trembled and jerked uncontrollably. Their mouths were open, but they uttered not so much as a single sound.
What was truly horrible about the entire tableau was the expression on Falconsbane’s face.
He looked like a creature in the throes of sexual ecstasy. He had tossed his long, flowing hair back over his shoulders, and he stared off into nothingness with his eyes half-closed in pure pleasure. His fingers flexed; every time they did, the two men’s bodies jerked, and their faces took on new lines of agony. Falconsbane’s eyes closed completely, and he lifted his face to the light in obscene bliss.
Finally, he knotted his hand into a fist; the men shuddered, then collapsed.
He opened his eyes, slowly, and gazed down on his victims with a slow, sated smile. “You may go,” he purred. “Now.”
Limbs stirred feebly, heads raised, and the two men began to move. Too weak to do anything else, they crawled toward the door, slowly and painfully.
And that wasn’t even their “punishment.” That was just Falconsbane’s way of reminding them that he was their master in all things.
The first man reached the door and crawled out. All of Dawnfire’s feathers slicked down flat to her body in fright. She couldn’t have moved now if she had wanted to.
“Greden,” Falconsbane said, as the second man started out the door.
The guard stopped, frozen; in a macabre way, he looked funny, like someone caught pretending to be a dog.
“Greden, send Daelon to me on your way out.” Falconsbane turned, ignoring the man’s whispered acknowledgment, and began pacing beside his couch.
In a few moments, another man entered; an older man, lean and fit, with elaborate, flowing garments and dark gray hair and beard. “My lord?” he said, waiting prudently out of reach. Falconsbane ignored him for a moment, his face creased with a frown of concentration. The man waited patiently; patience was a necessity with Mornelithe Falconsbane, it seemed. Patience, and extreme care.
Finally Falconsbane stopped pacing and flung himself down on the couch. “Daelon, I am going to propose an alliance, to King Ancar of Hardorn.”
“Very good, my lord,” Daelon responded, bowing deeply. “Alliances are always preferable to conflict.”
Falconsbane smiled, as if he found the man’s opinions amusing. “I’ve been in contact with him for some time, as you know; with him, and some other rulers of the East. He agreed to meet with me in person, but he would not set a time.” Falconsbane’s smile faded. “When he would not specify a date, I insisted that he must come here, and that it was to be within three months of the initial agreement.”
“I assume that he has set a date, my lord?” Daelon asked smoothly.
“Finally.” Falconsbane scowled. “He told me just before that disaster Greden was in charge of that he will be arriving in three days’ time.”
“Very good, my lord. By Gate, my lord?” Daelon asked, with one eyebrow raised.
Falconsbane snorted with contempt. “No. The fool calls himself a mage, yet he cannot even master a Gate. That, it seems, was the reason he would not set a date. He had to travel overland, if you will, and he did not wish anyone to know that he was en route.”
Daelon produced a superior, smug smile. “Then you wish me to ready the guest quarters, my lord?”
“Exactly,” Falconsbane nodded. “I expect I will be able to persuade him to accept my hospitality after several weeks of primitive inns and the like.”
Daelon raised one eyebrow. “Do I take it he will not be coming directly here?”
Once again, Falconsbane snorted. “He prefers, he says, to remain in ‘neutral’ lands. I directed him to the valley I flooded with death-smoke a while ago. It is secure enough, the horned vermin will not be using it again soon, and if he proves unreliable, well—” the Adept shrugged, rippling his hair and mane. “I flooded it once and can do so again.”
“Very good, my lord,” Daelon bowed, and smiled. “Better to eliminate a menace than deal with a conflict.”
Falconsbane chuckled; the deep, rumbling laugh that Dawnfire knew only too well. She crouched a little smaller on her perch. “Ah, Daelon, your philosophy is so—unique.”
Daelon bowed again, smiled, but said nothing. Falconsbane waved negligently at him. “Go,” he said. Then as Daelon started for the door, he changed his mind. “Wait,” he called, and scooped something up from beside his couch. As Daelon turned, he tossed something at him; and as the servant caught it, Dawnfire saw it was the falconer’s glove.
“Take that bird with you,” he yawned. “I am fatigued, and she no longer amuses me. Take her to the mews; it is time for her to learn her place in life.”
“Very good, my lord,” Daelon repeated. When the servant approached Dawnfire, she tensed, expecting trouble, but evidently he was so unfamiliar with falconry that he did not even attempt to hood her. He merely took the ends of her jesses, clumsily, in his free hand, and stuck his gloved hand in her general direction.
If he didn’t know enough about falconry to hold her jesses properly, he might not know enough to hold them tightly.
She hopped onto his hand as obediently as a tamed cage-bird, and remained quiet and well-behaved. And as he carried her out of the room, and away from Falconsbane’s sight, she saw with elation that he was barely holding the tips of her jesses. Of course, she had fouled them; she couldn’t have helped that. He evidently found that very distasteful, and he was avoiding as much contact with the chalked leather as possible.
And he was holding the arm she rested on stiffly, far away from his body, lest (she supposed) she also drop on his fine robes. And if that particular function had been within her control, she would have considered doing just that.
He could not find a servant anywhere as they passed through silent stone corridors on the way to the outside door; that elated her even further, even as it visibly annoyed him. He was going to have to take her outside himself…
He dropped the jesses, leaving them loose, as he wrestled with the massive brass-bound wooden door, trusting in her apparent docility. She rewarded that trust as he got the door open; a real hawk would have bolted the moment a scrap of sky showed, but she was not sure enough of her flying ability to try for an escape. The man was so fussy she was hoping he would take the time to make sure the door was closed before reaching for her jesses again.
Please, Lady of Stars, please don’t let him see a servant out here…
He looked about him, squinting in the light, as he emerged from behind the bulky door into the flagstoned courtyard, frowning when he found the courtyard as empty as the corridors. He held her with his arm completely extended, away from his body, as he started to shove the door closed.
YES!
She crouched and launched herself into the air, wings beating with all her might, just as she had practiced. With a cry of despair, Daelon made a grab for her dangling jesses—
But it was too late. She flung herself into the freedom of the blue sky, putting every bit of her strength into each wingbeat, exaltation giving her an extra burst of power, as Daelon dwindled beneath her, waving in wild despair.
Skif sat very quietly in his corner of the gryphons’ lair and made up his bedroll with meticulous care. Elspeth had complained a few days ago that she felt as if she were being written into a tale of some kind. Now he knew how she felt. Strange enough to see gryphons this close—but to be rescued by them, hear them talk—
No one at home is ever going to believe this.
The fighting had been real enough, and he’d seen plenty of misshapen things in the ranks of Ancar’s forces. Too many to be surprised by the creatures that had been sent against them. But talking gryphons, Hawkbrothers—
No, they’re going to think we made this up.
He tried not to show his fear of the gryphons, but one of his friends was an enthusiastic falconer, and he knew what a beak that size, and talons that long, could do.
The bigger of the two gryphons was already inside the roofed-over ruin when he entered it. The place was ten times larger than his room at Haven, but it seemed terribly crowded with the gryphon in it.
“Excuse me, my lady,” he’d said humbly, hoping his voice wouldn’t break, “but where would you like me?”
“Hydona,” said the gryphon.
He coughed, to cover his nervousness. “Excuse me?”
“My name isss Hydona, youngling,” the gryphon said, and there was real amusement in its voice. “It means ‘kindnessss.’ You may put yourrr thingsss in that chamberrr. The Changechild will ssshow you.”
That was when he noticed a girl in the next chamber over, peering around the edge of the opening; obediently he had hauled his saddlebags and bedroll across the threshold, wondering what on earth a “Changechild” was.
Then the girl moved out of his way, and fully into the light from the outer door, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
She didn’t have fur, and she didn’t walk on four legs—but she had sharply feline features, slit-pupiled eyes, and the same boneless, liquid grace of any pampered house-cat he’d ever seen.
He managed to stammer out a question about where he was to put his things. She answered by helping him; and that was when he noticed that once the initial shock of her strangeness wore off, she was very attractive. Quite pretty, really.
He smoothed his bedroll and watched her out of the corner of his eye as she brought armfuls of nest-material to put between it and the hard rock. She was more than pretty, she was beautiful, especially when she smiled.
“Thank you,” he said, just to see her smile again. Which she did, a smile that reached and warmed those big golden eyes. There hadn’t been a lot of smiles out of Elspeth lately… it was nice to see one.
“Let me aid you,” she said softly, and knelt beside him to help him arrange a more comfortable bed without waiting to hear his answer.
There hasn’t been a lot of help out of Elspeth either, lately, he thought sourly. In fact, this girl was Elspeth’s utter opposite in a lot of ways. Quiet, soft-spoken, where Elspeth was more inclined to snap at the most innocent of questions.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, as they took the opposite ends of the bedroll, and laid it over the bedding prepared for it.
“Nyara,” she said and looked shyly away.
That was when Elspeth came in and put her own gear away, efficiently and without a fuss, but it broke the tentative conversation between himself and Nyara, and the girl retreated to her corner.
She’s so—mechanical. She’s like a well-oiled, perfectly running clockwork mechanism. She’s just not human anymore.
In fact, for all of her exotic strangeness, Nyara seemed more human than Elspeth did.
He stripped off his tunic and changed his filthy, sweat-sodden shirt for a new one, with sidelong glances at Elspeth.
She changed torn shirt and breeches, both cut and stained with blood, although there was no sign of a wound on her. She took no more notice of him and Nyara than if they had been stones.
No heart, no feelings, no emotion. No patience with anyone who isn’t perfect. As cold as… Nyara is warm.
A sound at the door made him start, as he laced the cuffs of his shirt. The man who had rescued them—Darkwind—stood shadowing the door. Skif had not heard him until he had deliberately made that sound. He spoke with gryphons, moved like a thought, hid in the shadows—he was far more alien than Nyara, and colder than Elspeth.
He looked slowly and deliberately into Skif’s eyes, then Elspeth’s, then Nyara’s. “Come,” he said, “it is time to talk.”
* * *
“Why does it seem as if a whole week has passed since this morning, and a year since we first entered the Plains?” Elspeth asked, her dark brown eyes fixed on the horizon as the last rays of the sun turned the western clouds to gold and red streaks against an incredibly blue sky. The young man called “Skif” was contemplating Nyara, as he had been since she had been awakened.
Darkwind was watching Elspeth and her friend—though mostly Elspeth—rather than the sunset. She had washed and changed into another of those blindingly white uniforms, and he found himself wondering, idly, how she would look in one of the elaborate robes Tayledras Adepts favored. In better days, he’d had time to design clothing for his friends; Tayledras art had to be portable because they moved so often, and clothing was as much art as it was covering. His designs had been very popular back then; not as popular as Ravenwing’s feather masks, but she had been practicing her art for longer than he’d been alive.
In fact, he had been proud, terribly proud, that his father had worn some of his designs. One of the things that had hurt him had been finding those outfits discarded soon after he had joined the scouts, in the pile of material available to be remade into scout-camouflage. Now he knew why his father had done that; discarded the clothing where he would be certain to find it. He’d meant to drive Darkwind farther away, to save him. The knowledge turned what had been a bitter memory into something more palatable.
As he contemplated Elspeth, he imagined what he would design for her. Something hugging the body to the hips, perhaps, showing that magnificently muscled torso, then with a flaring skirt, slit to properly display those long, athletic legs—definitely in a brilliant emerald green. Or maybe something that would enable her to move and fight with complete freedom; tight wine-red leather trews laced up the side, an intricately cut black tunic, a soft red silk shirt with an embroidered collar and sleeves…
What in hell am I doing? How can I be thinking of clothing right now?
Maybe it was that she cried out for proper display. White was not her color. The stark uniform only made her look severe, like a purposeful, unornamented blade. After talking with her at length, there was no doubt in his mind that she was a completely competent fighter—that this was an important part of her life. But there was more to her than that; much more. Her outer self should mirror her complicated inner self.
She needed that kind of setting, with her spare, hard-edged beauty. Unlike Nyara, who would never look anything other than lush and exotic, sleek and sensuous, no matter what she wore.
Nyara sat on the opposite side of Skif, glancing sideways at him; Skif couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had proved, once revived, not only cooperative but grateful that all Treyvan had done was put her to sleep. Her reaction—completely genuine, so far as Darkwind was able to determine—had shamed him a little for behaving with such suspicion and cold calculation toward her.
On the other hand, she herself had confirmed what Darkwind and Treyvan had suspected; that she was a danger. She confessed that she could be summoned by her father at any point, and if unfettered, she would probably go to him, awake or asleep. She did not know if he could read her thoughts at a distance, but was not willing to say that he couldn’t.
“If you have any doubt, you must send me to sleep again, and tie me,” she had said humbly. “Do not waste shields upon me that you may give to the little gryphons.”
That last had won Treyvan; Darkwind was still not so sure, but his own misgivings were fading. She had given them an amazing amount of information about Mornelithe’s stronghold; the problem was, the place was a miracle of defensive capability. Nyara bitterly attributed her easy escape now to the fact that her father had wanted her to get away. Extracting Dawnfire from that warren was looking more and more difficult. Active discussion had died before the sun sank into the west.
But Elspeth was still thinking about the problem and not simply admiring the sunset. “Darkwind, she’s a bird, right? What about getting in, turning her loose, and making some other bird look like her?” Elspeth turned toward Darkwind as the last sliver of sun vanished. “One person, maybe two, could get away with that.”
:Now that is the kind of sortie I know how to run,: the sword put in.
Darkwind looked pointedly at Nyara.
She coughed politely. “This would be a good time for me to absent myself. Could I take a walk, perhaps?” she asked. “Could someone go with me?” And she glanced significantly at Skif, who flushed but did not look as if he would turn down the invitation.
Darkwind found himself torn by conflicting emotions. He knew very well what was likely to happen as soon as those two found themselves alone, and while on the one hand he was relieved that Nyara had found herself a safer outlet for her needs than himself, he also was unreasoningly jealous.
He didn’t trust himself with her. He didn’t trust her; she had already told them that Falconsbane had ordered her to seduce and subvert him. Doing anything except exchanging pleasantries with her was the worst possible idea at the moment.
That didn’t stop his loins from tightening every time she looked at him.
And it didn’t stop him from being envious of anyone else she cast those golden eyes upon.
“I’ve done my share of breaking into buildings in my misspent youth,” Skif said hesitantly, with one eye on Nyara. “But I have the feeling you’re thinking of using magic, and that’s where you lose me. I suppose we could go take that walk, out of earshot. If only one person goes in, I guess it wouldn’t be one of us Heralds—so what I know is pretty superfluous.”
Darkwind glanced at Elspeth; he thought he saw a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth, but the light was fading, and he couldn’t be sure. He wondered if she would be so amused if she knew what he knew about Nyara.
But there didn’t seem to be any reason to object. “Stay within the ruins,” he said, curtly. “Skif, I hold you responsible for this woman. Remember what she’s told us; she can’t even trust herself.”
Skif nodded, but he also rose to his feet and courteously offered Nyara his hand to help her rise as well. Nyara took it, though she didn’t need it any more than Darkwind would have. And she held it a moment longer than she needed to.
I don’t think he has any idea of what he’s in for. She just may eat him alive.
He stopped himself before he could say anything. She isn’t my property. She’s too dangerous right now for me to touch. It doesn’t matter what I want. Acting on what you want is something only children think is an adult prerogative.
So he held his tongue and watched the two of them walk slowly into the shadows of the ruins, side-by-side, but carefully not touching.
The sexual tension between them was so obvious that they might just as well have been bound together by ropes.
“I know I’m being incredibly obnoxious to ask this,” Elspeth said behind him. “But were you two lovers?”
“No, lady,” he said absently, as he struggled to get his jealousy under control. “No, we weren’t. She has that much control of herself; her father ordered her to seduce me, therefore she would not. Otherwise—” he paused, then continued, sensing that this particular young woman would not misinterpret what he was saying. And sensing that he could somehow reveal anything to her, without fear of coming under judgment. “Otherwise we might well have been. She was created for pleasure, I think you know that, or have guessed. It drives her before hunger or pain. She is probably quite—adept at it. She has had most of her life to learn it, and practice.”
Elspeth considered his words for a moment, as he turned back to face her. “You aren’t angry at Skif, I hope.”
He uttered a short, humorless laugh. “Angry, no. She cannot help what she is. Envious—yes. Much as I hate to admit it. Envy is not a pretty trait. And you?”
Her soft laugh was genuine. “I am so relieved that he has finally found someone to—well—”
“Drag off into the ruins?” Darkwind suggested delicately.
“Exactly. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. He has been a very good friend for many years,” she said, tilting her head to one side as she sat silhouetted against the indigo sky. “And he has been under a great deal of strain lately.”
“And were you lovers?” Darkwind asked sharply, in a tone that surprised even him. Why should I care? he wondered. They’re Outlanders. They’ll get what they need and leave, like the breath of wind on a still pond. The only impression they can make is a fleeting one.
She didn’t seem to notice. “I haven’t been entirely candid with you, Darkwind—though mostly it was because I didn’t think rank was going to impress you any, and might have made you reject us out of hand.”
Ah, so my surmise was right.
She took a deep breath. “I’m next in line for the throne. Not that I particularly want it,” she added, and there was a kind of chagrined surprise in her voice, “Which is odd, because when I was little, I thought that being made Heir was the highest possible pinnacle of success. But there it is; now I have it, and I rather wish I didn’t. Skif has always been a kind of big brother to me, and there were always rumors about the two of us.”
“But were they true?” he persisted. He shifted a little; not because he was uncomfortable outside, but because he was acutely uncomfortable inside. Jealousy again, and this time for no damned reason!
It must be overflow from Nyara, he decided. Gods of my fathers, this is embarrassing… have I no self-control?
“No,” she said calmly, relieving his jealousy by her answer. “No, he always thought of me as a little sister. Until we went out on this trip together. Then he suddenly decided that he was in love with me.” She sounded annoyed, to his great satisfaction. “I cannot for the life of me imagine why, but that’s what he decided, and I’ve been trying to discourage him. Maybe once I would have been happy for that, but—it’s not possible, Darkwind. I have duties as the Heir, if I ever get back in one piece. If I were to make any kind of alliance, I have to consider my duties first. And anything permanent would be weighed against them. Love—even if genuine—could only be secondary. Mother married for what she thought was love the first time, and it was a total disaster. Skif is so blinded by his own feelings that he won’t even consider anything else.”
“Ah,” he replied, “I take it that you are far from convinced that what your friend feels is love.”
She snorted. “Infatuation, more like it. I’ve been trying to emulate my teacher—Kerowyn—since we left Valdemar, and he worships her. That may have been the problem.”
So she feels no tie beyond friendship for this Skif, he thought, with a feeling of satisfaction. Well, if she is going to learn magic, that’s just as well. She’ll have a great deal to learn, coming to it this late, and she’ll have no time for anything but study. “That may have been the situation,” he responded, sensing she was waiting for some kind of a reply. “But—you sounded very annoyed just now with him. May I ask why? If there is friction other than what you have told me, I need to know.”
“Nothing other than that once he became infatuated, he wanted to wrap me in silk and stick me in a jewel box,” she replied, the annoyance back in her voice. “I think I have him cured of that, but in case I haven’t, the problem may come up again.”
He nodded, forgetting that it was dark enough that she wouldn’t see the nod, then coughed politely. “Thank you, Elspeth. That could cause some problems. I hope I have not caused you distress by asking you these questions.”
“No, not at all,” she replied, surprise in her voice. “You are a very easy person to confide in, Darkwind. Thank you for giving me the chance to unburden myself. My Companion thinks Skif is perfect for me, and Need thinks he’s an utter loss, so any time I say anything to either of them, all I get is lectures.”
Companion? Oh, that must be the spirit-mare. But she said it as if it were a name…
“Companion?” he asked, as the first breath of the evening wind flowed through the stones and breathed the hair away from his face.
“My not-horse,” she replied, and there was a smile there that he felt across the darkness between them. “The one you have very graciously been treating not like a horse. We call them ‘Companions’; every Herald in Valdemar has one—they Choose us to be Heralds.”
“They—” he hesitated in confusion. “Could you please explain?”
“Certainly, if you don’t mind my coming closer,” she replied. He peered through the darkness at her to see if she was being flirtatious—but she appeared to be swatting at her legs. “There seem to be some kind of nocturnal insects on this rock, and they like the taste of Herald.”
“By all means, come sit beside me,” he replied, grateful to the night-ants. “There are no night-ant nests here.”
She rose, brushing off her legs, as he moved over on his rock to give her room.
“Now,” he continued, “about these ‘Companions’ of yours—”
“Shouldn’t we be discussing how to get Dawnfire free?” she replied as she seated herself, her tone one of concern. “It’s easy to get distracted.”
“We are discussing Dawnfire,” he told her, a little grimly. “You and this ‘Companion’ of yours may be better suited to the task than I. I need to know as much as possible about you.”
“But Skif—”
“Won’t be back for some time,” he assured her. “And I have but two concerns regarding him. The first—that her father not attempt to contact or call her while he is with her.”
“And the second?” she asked.
He sighed, and leaned back on his hands. “That she leave enough left of him to be useful.”
She chuckled, and he felt the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile. “Now,” he continued. “About this ‘Companion’…”
* * *
Nyara could have shouted her joy aloud, as Darkwind gave them tacit permission to go off alone. Skif could have been ugly, foul-breathed, pot-bellied, bow-legged, bald and obnoxious, and she would not at this moment have cared. He was safe, that was what mattered. Mornelithe had not ordered her to seduce him; did not even know that he existed, so far as she knew. She could ease the urges that had been driving her to distraction since her body began to heal, and do so without the guilt of knowing she would be corrupting him—do so only to pleasure herself and him, and not with any other motive of any sort.
That he was cleanly handsome, well-spoken, well-mannered—that turned the expedition from a simple need to a real desire.
She wanted him, in the same way she wanted Darkwind, but without the guilt. Likewise, he wanted her. She guessed, however, that he was shy, else he would have proposed dalliance when they were first alone, in the gryphons’ lair. So, it would be up to her.
She had a cat’s hearing, to be able to discern a mouse squeak in the high grass a furlong away; and a cat’s eyes, so that this light of a near-full moon was as useful to her as the sun at full day.
So when he had just begun to turn to her, to tentatively reach for her hand, she already knew that they were well out of earshot, and that there was a little corner amidst the pile of rocks to their left that would suit his sense of modesty very well. No ears but those equal to hers would hear them; and no eyes but an owl’s would spy them out.
Thank the gods—not Mornelithe—that she had learned trade-tongue, and that these strangers spoke it well.
“Nyara,” Skif said shyly (oh, she had been right!), taking heart when she did not pull her hand away, “I’m sure this sounds pretty stupid, but I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“You have no Changechildren in your lands?” she asked, stopping, turning to his voice, and standing calculatedly near him. Near enough that her breast brushed his arm.
He did not (oh, joy!) step away. “No,” he replied, his voice rising just a little. “No Ch-changechildren, no magic.”
“Ah,” she purred. And swayed closer. “You know what my father made me for? Darkwind has told you?”
A slight increase in the heat of his body told her he blushed. “Y-yes,” he stammered.
“Good,” she replied, and fastened her mouth on his.
He only struggled for a moment, mostly out of surprise, and the anticipation that this was part of a ruse, that she meant to escape. Since that was the last thing on her mind, she told him so, with every fiber of her body.
He stopped struggling, believing her unspoken message. She molded herself to him, each and every separate nerve alive and athrill. Then, as he finally began responding instead of reacting, she led him back into the little alcove, step by slow, careful step.
She was on fire with need, and so was he; she felt it, and, for the first time in her life, Felt it as well, a flood of emotion and urgency that washed over her and mingled with her own.
That was such a surprise that she came near to forgetting her own desire. She melted in his need, pulling him down into the shadows, marveling at this precious gift from out of nowhere. To Feel his pleasure, his desire—it heightened her own beyond any past experience.
I am an Empath? I had never dreamed—my own hatred and fear must have shielded me.
But that didn’t matter at the moment. All that was truly important was getting him out of his clothing. Or part of it, anyway.
He pulled away, and she clutched him, ripping his shirt with her talons. Why was he trying to evade her? She could Feel his overwhelming need so clearly.
“—rocks!” he gasped, as she tried to fasten her mouth on his again. “You’ll hurt your—”
She proceeded to prove to him that the setting didn’t matter, and neither did the rocks. Soon they were writhing together, joined in body and mind, and she bit her hand to keep from screaming her pleasure aloud. Mornelithe knew her body as no one else; he knew every way possible to elicit reactions of all sorts from her. But this was pleasure unmixed with anger, hate, self-hatred. She had never been so happy in all of her short life.
He reached the pinnacle; she followed, and they fell together.
They lay entwined, panting, sweat-soaked and exhausted. He stroked her hair, with a gentle hand, murmuring wonderful things that she only half heard. How amazing she was; astonishing, a dream come to life. These things were never to be believed if a would-be lover whispered them before the bedding—but after?
She probed his feelings delicately, taking care with this new sense. And there was some truth there, a little something more than mere infatuation. Yes, he was infatuated, but he thought her brave for even trying to resist her father, he thought her admirable for giving them the aid that she had.
And he thought her lovely, desirable, beyond any dream. Nor did he despise her for using her body as she had, or even (and she held her breath in wonder) for being used by her own father.
But there was a bitterness to the joy; he imagined her to have been forced into submitting.
He could never understand the forces that had been bred and formed in her; that her father would call, and she would come, willingly, abjectly, desiring him as fervently as she desired anyone…
She resolved not to think about it. The chances were, she would never see him again after the next few days. If they freed Dawnfire, she would use the Tayledras’ gratitude to enable her to put as much distance between herself and her father as her feet would permit.
If they did not—
She would not think of it. Not now. And there was a most excellent distraction near at hand.
She reached for Skif again; he pulled her closer, pillowing her head on his shoulder, thinking she only wished comfort.
She was going to give him such a lovely surprise…
* * *
In speaking to Elspeth, Darkwind found himself baffled and dazzled by turns. By the time Skif and Nyara returned, disheveled and sated, smelling of sweat and sex, Darkwind had begun to realize that there was even more to this complicated princess than he had thought.
She had her flaws, certainly. An over-hasty tongue; not in saying what she should not, but in doing so too sharply, too scathingly. A habit of speech, of speaking the truth too clearly and too often that could earn her enemies—and probably had. A hot temper, which, when kindled, was slow to cool. The tendency to hold a grudge—
Hold a grudge? Dear gods, she treasures a grudge, long past when it should have been dead and buried.
She would, without doubt, pursue an enemy into his grave, then make a dancing-floor of it. Then return from time to time for a jig, just to keep the triumph alive.
She flung herself into the midst of disagreements before she entirely understood them, basing her response on what had just happened, rather than seeing what had led to the situation. She was impatient with fools and scornful of those who were ruled by emotions rather than logic. And she took no care to hide either the scorn or the impatience; without a doubt, that had earned her enemies as well.
But to balance all that, she was loyal, faithful, and truly cared for people; so blindingly intelligent that it amazed him, and not afraid of her intellect as so many were. She tried, to the best of her ability, to consider others as often as she considered herself. Her sense of responsibility frightened him, it was so like his own. So, too, her sense of justice.
Dawnfire had been—was, he told himself, fiercely—a paragon of simplicity compared to her. Of course, Dawnfire was ten years her junior, or thereabouts, but he wondered if Elspeth had ever been uncomplicated, even as a child.
Probably not; not with all the considerations the child of a royal couple had to grow up with. Every friend must be weighed against what he might be wanting; every smile must be assumed to be a mask, hiding other motives. Such upbringing had made for bitter, friendless rulers in the Outlands.
It was a very good thing that these people had their Heralds; a very good thing that the monarch was a Herald, and could know with certainty that she would always have a few trustworthy friends.
He didn’t entirely understand what the Heralds did, but he certainly understood what they were about. They embodied much the same spirit as the Kal’enedral of the Shin’a’in; like them, it appeared that they were god-chosen, for if the Companions were not the embodiment of the hand of the gods, then he would never recognize such a thing in his lifetime. Like them, they were guided, but subtly—for the most part, left free to exercise their free will, and only gently reminded from time to time if they were about to err. It seemed that the unsubtle attempt to steer Elspeth down a particular course was the exception, and not the rule—and it appeared to him to have failed quite dismally. And as a result, Elspeth’s Companion Gwena was now, grudgingly, going to admit her defeat and permit Elspeth to chart her own way from this moment on.
The Heralds were very like the Kal’enedral in another way; for as each had his Companion, so each Kal’enedral had his leshya’e Kal’enedral, the spirit-teacher that drilled him in weaponry and guided his steps on the Star-Eyed’s road.
And the Heralds themselves were blissfully unaware of the fact.
If they didn’t know—and the Companions chose not to tell them—he was not inclined to let the secret slip. “It is not wise to dispute the decisions of the Powers,” he thought, wryly quoting a Shin’a’in proverb. “They have more ways of enforcement than you have of escape.” The decision to set Elspeth on a predetermined path was probably less a “decision” than a “plan.” Another Shin’a’in proverb: “Plans are always subject to change.”
He found himself making a decision of his own: when all this was settled, he would teach her himself. He would find a teaching-Adept, perhaps in another Clan, like k’Treva, and as he relearned, he would teach her. He had the feeling that she respected what he had done, and she would continue to respect him for going back to pick up where he had left off.
Besides, as Tayledras had learned in the past, those who were in the process of learning often discovered new ways and skills, just by being unaware that it “couldn’t be done.” Perhaps they would discover something together.
But that was for the future; now there was a rescue to be staged.
“We have decided,” he said, as Skif reclaimed his boulder, and Nyara seated herself near it. Not quite at his feet, but very close. Darkwind suppressed a last fading twinge of jealousy. “We think we have a plan that will work.”
“It’s going to need a lot of coordination, though,” Elspeth added. “It’s going to involve more than just us. Skif, can you get Cymry listening in on this? I just called Gwena.”
“Cymry?” he responded, sounding confused. “Uh—sure—”
“They don’t need to be with us to be in on conferences,” Elspeth said in an undertone to Darkwind. “The Herald-Companion link is even closer than a lifebond in many ways; no matter how weak your Gift of Mindspeech is, your Companion can always hear you, and, if you choose, listen to what you hear.”
“And right now they need very badly to be eating,” he supplied. “Indeed, the dyheli are so, after a long, hard run.”
He felt her smile, though he could not see it. “Why don’t you start, Darkwind, since this was your idea.”
“What of me?” Nyara asked in a small voice. “Should I—”
“You are going to be inside the Vale by midmorning,” Darkwind told her. “I am going to tell Iceshadow something of your past, and put you in his custody, asking him to keep you always within the shields of the apprentice’s working place, where my father is. If your father can break the Vale shields and the working-shields, he is merely toying with us, and anything we do is trivial against him. I am going to ask you to answer all of Iceshadow’s questions about my father’s captivity, no matter how painful they are to you.”
“Why?” she asked, huddling a little smaller.
“Because you will be helping Iceshadow determine what was done to him, and so break the bonds Falconsbane placed upon him,” Darkwind told her, letting the tone of his voice inform her that he would grant her no more mercy than he granted himself. “That much, at the least, you owe him.”
Skif made a little movement, as if he wanted to leap up and challenge Darkwind, but wisely kept himself under control.
“I will then summon the nonhumans that Dawnfire worked with,” he continued. “They will help be our diversion; tervardi and dyheli, they will concentrate on a place where you, Heralds, will be. In the neutral area, as if you had passed across Tayledras lands and were going westward. It will look to Falconsbane as if you have summoned them, and he will assume it is through your sword, Elspeth.”
Elspeth took up the explanation where he paused. “All he can tell is that it’s magic, Skif. That’s probably why those things were chasing us across the Plains. He wants it, and he hasn’t got a clue that he can’t use it.”
:Oh, he could try, I suppose,: the sword said dryly. :But he doesn’t know I’m in here. It’s quite likely that it would be impossible for him to make any real use of me without destroying me.:
“I suspect he will decide that it is one of the ancient devices used to control the nonhumans in warfare.” Darkwind rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I can tell you that if he thinks that, he will be mad to have it. And he will be equally determined after his last failure that he will not leave the task in the hands of others.”
“So he’ll come in person,” Skif stated, and he was plainly not pleased with the idea. “Where does that leave us?”
“Standing inside the Vale,” Darkwind chuckled, wishing he could see Skif’s face. “It will be your images and your auras in the neutral area, and no more. It is a spell that is not often cast, for it is broken as soon as one moves more than five paces in any direction. Need reminded us of it. In fact, Need intends to be the mage casting it.” He made a little bow in Elspeth’s direction.
:Thank you for the confidence, but save your applause for if it works. And it’ll be Elspeth casting it; I’ll just be showing her how.:
“That leaves me outside,” he continued, “and I shall be the one making the attempt to free Dawnfire. If I have the time, I shall place the illusion of the proper hawk on some other bird in his mews, and blank the beast’s mind. He will assume that Dawnfire’s personality has at last faded. Or so I hope.”
He hated to subject an innocent bird to that, but with luck, it would be one of Falconsbane’s own evil creations.
“If I do not have the time,” he continued, “I shall simply free her and attempt to escape. I do not think he will return before I am away again.”
Skif whistled softly. “That’s going to take some good timing,” he observed. “And you’re the one taking the packleader’s share of the risks.”
“But it could not be done without all of you,” he responded. “I cannot ask you to take the kinds of risks that I will—but I cannot make this succeed without you.”
“And afterward?” Elspeth asked softly. “When you have Dawnfire free, but still trapped in a hawk’s body, her true self fading with every day—what then? You didn’t speak of that.”
He remained silent because he didn’t know—and he didn’t want to contemplate it, having to watch her struggle against the inevitable, and lose.
A long, unhappy silence descended, which the sword finally broke.
:Oh, worry about it when she’s free,: the blade replied irritably. :For one thing, I know a bit about transfer spells. Maybe I can get her into something with a big enough brain that she can stay herself. Or maybe I can get her into something like a sword.:
“Would that not be just as bad?” Nyara asked doubtfully, voicing exactly what Darkwind was thinking. He suppressed a groan.
:At least she’d stay herself, girl,: the sword retorted with annoyance. :There’re worse fates than being hard to break, heart included.:
Darkwind decided to end the discussion right there. “Enough; we have a great deal ahead of us—”
“And not much time,” Elspeth said firmly. “And best to work on it in the morning.”
They returned to the lair, and gave Treyvan and Hydona the basics of what they had decided. Treyvan did not ask about the fate of his own young, but Darkwind could tell that he was gravely worried and weary; evidently Falconsbane had tried something while they were talking and had been beaten back, but at a cost. They were all too tired for anything more, and put off further discussion. Nyara bedded down in the same chamber as Skif and Elspeth, with Darkwind across the door and Treyvan blocking the entrance for added security.
But Darkwind could not fall asleep as easily as the rest. He lay staring at the silhouette of the sleeping gryphon, watching the shadow climb up the wall as the moon set. And over and over, the question repeated in his mind.
What do I do once she is free?
She would never again wear the body of the girl he had traded feathers and favors with. At worst case, he would watch her fade, slowly, into the hawk. If Falconsbane had slain the spirit of her bird with Dawnfire’s body, she might well hold on longer, but the end would be the same. And whether she stayed in the hawk, or Need managed to find a way to put her in another form, the result was the same. She would never again be “Dawnfire,” she would be something else, something he could no longer touch.
What, in the gods’ names, do I do when she is free?