11

Elspeth knew that Treyvan and Hydona had resigned themselves to some kind of stabling situation when they reached Haven. Instead, somewhat to their astonishment, the gryphons had been housed in the visiting dignitaries’ apartments just like the humans. Elspeth was pleased, but not completely surprised. She had recalled a set of two large rooms usually left empty, meant for receptions and the like. When the Seneschal had told her that the gryphons would be treated like any other diplomatic visitor and housed in the Palace, she thought of those two rooms. A question to the pages the next morning confirmed her guess was right. Those rooms were needed often enough that they remained ready and empty at all times; there was no reason why the gryphons couldn’t have them. To reach the second room, you had to go through the first, so the arrangement was perfect. The gryphlets could nest in the inner room, and the adults in the outer.

Elspeth, Darkwind, and Firesong went straight to the reception rooms as soon as she confirmed the gryphons were there. The doors—double doors, like the ones in the Throne Room—were standing partially open, as if the gryphons were inviting visitors to come in. The room was completely empty, except for the lanterns on the wall and the adults’ nest. She had expected nests of hay and sticks, however, and was greatly surprised to find that instead they had built “nests” of piles of featherbeds, with tough wool blankets over them to save the beds from the punishing effects of sharp talons.

“Featherbeds?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. “My—how luxurious!”

“And why ssshould we make nessstsss of nassty sssticks when we may have sssoft pillowsss?” Treyvan asked genially, lounging at his ease along one side of the “nest.”

“I have no idea,” she replied with a laugh that made the feather fastened prominently at the side of her head tremble. “I just wasn’t aware that featherbeds were part of a gryphon’s natural forests. No one ever told me that there were wild featherbed trees.”

“And what made you think we werrre wild creaturesss?” Hydona put in, with a sly tilt of the head. “When have we everrr sssaid thisss?”

“She has you there,” Darkwind pointed out. Firesong simply shook his head.

“Do not come to me for answers,” the Healing Adept said. “What I do not know about gryphons is far more than what I do know! I cannot help you; for all that I know, they could nest in crystal spires, live upon pastries, and build those flying barges that we saw Kaled’a’in use—out of spiderwebs.”

“We do not build the barrrgesss,” was all that Treyvan would say. “And you know well that we do not eat passstrriess! But thisss iss not the point; what isss—we musst find sssomeone who knowsss what has been going on herrre sssince you left, featherrrlesss daughterrrr.” He gave her an opaque look. “Desspite that all ssseemsss quiet, it isss a quiet I do not trrrussst.”

Somehow it didn’t surprise Elspeth to hear Treyvan call her that, as he called Darkwind “featherless son.” His sharp eyes had gone straight to the feather braided into her hair the moment she and Darkwind had entered the room. Although he had said nothing, she knew he knew what it meant. She felt warmth and pleasure at the gryphons’ approval. She had Starblade and Kethra’s approval of this liaison, but in many ways the gryphons were a second set of parents to her lover, and winning their approval as well made her spirits rise with a glow of accomplishment. That glow of accomplishment faded quickly, though. Treyvan was right. This was the calm before the storm, and there was no telling how long the calm would last. Days—weeks—or only candlemarks. Too soon, whenever the storm broke.

“If there is anyone in this Kingdom who knows everything important, it’s Herald-Captain Kerowyn,” she said decisively. Of course Kero knew everything; she was in charge of Selenay’s personal spies, and she might have a good guess as to when this calm would end.

“Now, we have two choices,” she continued. “We can bring her here or we can go to find her. The latter choice is not going to be quiet. Treyvan, you and Hydona are the most conspicuous members of this rather conspicuous group; would you rather we brought her to you, or would you rather that as many people saw you as possible?”

“I would rather they stayed put,” came a clear, feminine voice from the door, “but that’s my choice, not theirs. On the other hand, here I am, so you don’t have to come looking for me.”

Kerowyn pushed the door completely open and gazed on the lounging gryphons with great interest. “We can move elsewhere if you want,” she continued, looking into Treyvan’s golden gaze, “but there isn’t anywhere much more secure than this room, if you’re worried about prying eyes and nosy ears, if I may mix my metaphors.”

It was Treyvan who answered. “Yesss, warrriorrr. I am trroubled with thosssse who may overrrhearrr. But I alssso wisssh to know why you wisssh usss to rrremain in ourr aerrrie. You do not trrussst usss, perrrhapsss?”

Elspeth didn’t know if Kero could read gryphonic body language, but Treyvan was very suspicious. He did not know what Kero’s motives were, and he was not taking anything for granted. This set of rooms could easily turn into a prison.

Kero laughed and entered the room, her boots making remarkably little noise on the granite floor. “Simple enough, good sir. You may have convinced the highborn, Heralds, and Companions that you’re relatively harmless, but you haven’t gotten to all the servants, and you’ll never convince some of the beasts. You go strolling about the grounds without giving me the chance to sweep them first, and you’ll panic a dozen gardeners, scare the manure out of most of the horses and donkeys, and cause every pampered lapdog that highborn girls are walking in the garden to keel over dead of fright. You don’t really want angry gardeners and weeping girls coming in here yapping at you, do you?”

Treyvan snapped his beak mischievously. No matter how serious a situation was, he could find something amusing in it. “No,” he replied. “I think not.” Already he was relaxing; Kero had put him at his ease.

“Excellent.” Kero was not in Whites—as usual. She wore riding leathers of a dusty brown, worn and comfortable, her long blonde hair in a single braid down her back. She turned to give Elspeth a long and considered appraisal, lingering over the new Whites. “Well, what is this all about?” she continued. “Trying to set new fashions?”

Elspeth shrugged. “Whatever. I can promise you I can fight in them. Not that I expect anyone to be able to get close enough to me to have to deal with them hand-to-hand.”

“Oh, really?” Kero turned away—then lunged, with no warning at all, not even by the tensing of a single muscle.

But not unexpectedly; Elspeth had been her pupil for too long ever to be taken by surprise, especially after tossing out a challenge like that one. Instead, it was Kero who got the surprise, as Elspeth lashed out with a mage-born whip of power and knocked her feet out from under her. Kero went down onto the marble floor in a controlled tumble, and if Elspeth had not been as well-trained as she was, Kerowyn could have recovered for another try at her. But Elspeth was not going to give her that chance. She kept a “grip” on Kero’s ankles to keep her off her feet, then wrapped her up in an invisible binding. Kero did not resist, as most Valdemarans would have. Elspeth knew she had seen magic often enough when she led the Skybolts as a mercenary company in Rethwellan and southward. She simply waited, lying there passively, until Elspeth released her, then got to her feet, dusting off her hands on her breeches.

“You’ll do,” was all she said, but Elspeth glowed from the compliment, and Darkwind winked at her.

“And you have learned much of magic, lady,” Firesong observed. “Enough to know not to fight mage-bonds, which is far more than anyone else in this land would know. And I am curious to know how you came by this knowledge.”

Kero gave Firesong a long and penetrating look; in his turn, he graced her with one of his most charming smiles. It would have taken a colder woman than Kero to ignore that smile; it would have taken a more powerful wizard than Firesong for that smile to affect her. But in the end, she decided to answer him.

“Simple enough; I’m not from around here.” That was in Shin’a’in, not Valdemaran; Firesong’s eyes widened a trifle and he gave her a look full of respect. Kero looked around for somewhere to sit, and finally chose the side of the gryphons’ “nest” by default. “I was born and grew up in the south of Rethwellan. I was the granddaughter of a sorceress, trained by a Shin’a’in Swordsworn who was her partner, adopted as a Clan Friend to Tale’sedrin, then took a place in a merc company. Eventually I got the Captain slot, and circumstances brought us up here.” She shrugged. “We hired on because I knew Prince Daren, we both trained with the same Shin’a’in, and the Rethwellans owed the Valdemarans a debt that hadn’t been discharged. The Skybolts were part-payment on that debt. Never guessed when we came riding over those mountains down south, I’d lose all my mages and pick up a stubborn white talking horse.”

:No more stubborn than you.:

Every Mindspeaker in the room looked startled at that, with the sole exception of Kerowyn. She only sighed. “That was my Companion Sayvil,” she said, apologetically. “She can Mindspeak with anyone she pleases, and she won’t pretend otherwise like the rest of ’em. Next thing is I expect her to start Mindspeaking people without the Gift. She’s gotten worse about it lately.”

:That’s because there’s been more need for it lately. And speaking of “Need”—:

“I suppose the damn sword decided you didn’t deserve it or something?” Kero asked. “Or did you get fed up with it and drop it down a well like I threatened to do?”

“She’s with Skif’s lady, Nyara,” Elspeth began, hesitantly addressing the air over Kero’s head. “That’s a long story and—”

:You!: came another, and far more excited voice. From the other room bounded a startled kyree, trailed by the gryphlets. :You had Need! You! You must be the youngling trained by my famous cousin Warrl! Lady Tarma’s pupil! The one Lady Kethry gave Need to!:

He bounded over and prostrated himself at her feet for a moment, in the kyree imitation of a courtly bow. :I have heard so much about you! My famous cousin Warrl said you were destined for greatness! You must tell me all of your life so that I may make it into stories!:

All the time that Rris was chattering in open Mindspeech, Kero’s face had taken on an expression that Elspeth had never, ever expected to see.

Completely blank, and slack-jawed. She was, quite clearly, taken utterly by surprise.

She recovered fairly quickly, however. “I don’t believe this,” she said under her breath, as Rris finished and waited eagerly for her answer. “I mean—what are the odds? Who ever sees one kyree in a lifetime, much less two, and for the two to be related? I just don’t by-the-gods believe this!”

Rris took on an air of extreme dignity, and fixed Kero with an admonishing gaze. :My famous cousin Warrl used to say that there is no such thing as coincidence, only mortals who have not fought the winds of fate.:

“Your famous cousin Warrl stole that particular proverb from the Shin’a’in he ran with,” Kero countered. “It happens to be about five hundred years older than your ‘famous cousin Warrl.’ And believe me, I fought so-called ‘fate’ plenty. I don’t believe in fate.” She shook her head again. “All right, kyree—what is your name?”

:Rris,: he said proudly. :Tale-spinner, History-keeper, and Lesson-teacher of the Hyrrrull Pack.:

“All right, Rris, I’ll tell you everything you’d like to know, but—” she interjected, holding up a hand to stave off the eager creature, “—not now. We have a lot to do, and I have the depressing feeling we have a very short time to do it in. It’s only a matter of time before Ancar hits us, and right now we can only pray he follows his old patterns, and makes several feints and tests before he decides to truly come after us. Now, unless I miss my guess, what you lot want is intelligence, right?” She looked around at the others. “Not only what dear Ancar has been up to, but all the things that have happened since Elspeth left.”

Firesong nodded for all of them. “And let me get the last two of our group,” he said. “Skif and his lady, the current bearer of your mage-sword. I think you will be surprised at what has become of the blade. It has changed, warrior, greatly changed. We wish this kept reasonably secret—but not from you. You, I think, need to know what kind of an ally Need has become.”

He turned before anyone could stop him and went off at a brisk walk, robes flowing behind him. He returned quickly with Skif and Nyara. Skif also wore the hertasi-designed Whites—Whites with a number of surprises built into them—and Nyara wore a hertasi-made surcoat and light armor—though it would have been very difficult for anyone who was not aware that it was armor to recognize it as such. As always, Nyara carried Need sheathed at her side, but before anyone could say anything to either of them, the sword spoke up, and Need’s mind-voice was sharp with shock.

:I know you!:

Kero jumped this time, she was so startled. She stared at the blade, and then swore, fervently and creatively, using several languages that Elspeth didn’t even recognize and describing several acts that Elspeth thought were anatomically impossible.

“—bloody hell!” she finished with a wail, throwing up her hands in despair, as if in petition to the unseen gods. “Isn’t it bad enough that I get a lover who takes over my dreams, a talking horse, and a uniform like a target? Isn’t it enough that I go from being an honest mercenary to some kind of do-gooder? Does everything in my life have to come back to haunt me and talk in my head?”

* * *

It took all morning to fill Kero in on everything that had happened to Elspeth, Need, and Skif since they left, but the Herald-Captain refused to impart so much as a rumor before she heard Elspeth’s story. Occasionally, Kero fixed the sheathed blade with a sharp glance, and Elspeth suspected that Need was gifting her former bearer with choice comments of her own. They were, in many ways, two of a kind. Evidently Kero began to figure that out for herself, for after a while those pointed glances took on a hint of amusement.

Elspeth was just grateful that she wasn’t “blessed” with the sword’s presence anymore. And she had the feeling that Kero felt the same.

Finally, after a break for a noontime meal, Kero made good on her bargain.

Elspeth had pillows brought in so that they could all sit comfortably, while the gryphons lounged with their forequarters draped over the side of their nest. They sat in a ragged circle, with Kero at one end and the gryphons anchoring the other.

“First of all,” she said, playing with the end of her braid as she looked at Elspeth, “I want you all to know that not only do I approve of the way Elspeth handled herself yesterday, but the entire Council still approves of the abdication. It’s going to confuse Ancar so much he won’t know what to make of it. He’ll have to wait to see what his spies have to say about it all before he even begins to plan. He’s going to be certain that the abdication was a ruse, until he gets reports that Elspeth really did give up all of her power. He’s going to be hearing all kinds of rumors, and it’s going to drive him crazy. He couldn’t imagine anyone ever giving up a high position.”

“I thought as much,” Elspeth said with satisfaction.

“Now I’ve got a little advice for you and your handsome friend,” Kero continued, looking directly and only at Elspeth. “I know you’re not the Heir anymore, and who you couple with makes no difference. But there are people who are watching you. Don’t make any announcements about pairing up for at least a couple of months; that way no one will think to accuse you of being a softheaded female who lets her heart overrule her head, all right?”

Elspeth raised one eyebrow. “Does it matter if people think I’m a softheaded female? As you just said, who I pair with has no real meaning anymore.”

Kero gave her the look, a scornful expression that had withered sterner hearts than Elspeth’s. “It might not to you, but you’re an example for others, whether or not you realize it. It might seem very romantic to give up throne and duty for the one you love. I’m sure the younger Bards would be thrilled with such a rich topic for balladeering. No one is going to pay any attention to the fact that you’re taking on more responsibility as the first Herald-Mage in an age. You fell in love, and told your duty to take a long walk, that’s how starry-eyed young fluffheads are going to think of it. And while you’re at it, think about the hundreds of young people out there who will use that as an excuse to abandon responsibilities of their own because they think they are lifebonded! Some chowderheaded young fool who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘duty’ is encouraging them to run off to a life of endless love, that’s how it would look. Right now, that’s the last thing we need.”

Elspeth gnawed her lip for a moment, then nodded, slowly. “I can see your point. I’m still someone that people my age look to for an example, and that’s not going to change any time soon, if at all. Well, I’m not going to avoid Darkwind, but we can keep from being blatant about things…”

After all, no one knows what the feather and ring mean but the two of us and the folk that came with us. We can make it public knowledge some time later.

“That’s all I ask. Think before you do something. Always. You may not be the Heir, but you’re going to be just as much in the public eye and mind as before, if not more so. You thought being the Heir was bad, I don’t think you’ve thought about how people are going to react to the first Herald-Mage since Vanyel.” Kero smirked with satisfaction. “Well, now to the business of catching up. We have agents in Hardorn, Ancar has agents here, but I’m pretty sure I know who most of his are, and I’m equally sure he hasn’t caught most of ours, so we’re able to feed him inaccurate and incomplete information without getting caught in the same trap. His pattern hasn’t changed; whenever he thinks he’s found a weak spot in our defenses, he generally pokes at it for a while before he actually mounts an attack. He’s given up on assassins for a while, or they’ve given up on him. Hard to hire people who know the last half-dozen wound up very dead.” She smiled grimly.

“That’s good,” Elspeth said fervently. “That’s very good! What kind of troop strength has he got?”

Kero grimaced. “That’s the bad news. It’s formidable, and he outnumbers us about three to two. He has a lot of regular troops as well as a lot of mages. You managed to relay that the barrier at the Border was coming down, so we’ve been acting as if it wasn’t there for about a week or so, though he hasn’t tried anything yet. I take it that it is down?”

“Probably,” Firesong said, tossing his hair back over his shoulder. “Since one of the signs of that barrier was an inability to work unhindered magic, and both Elspeth and I have been able to do so almost from the moment we arrived, I think we can assume Van—the old spells have been banished.”

Kero licked her lips thoughtfully. “Right. Well, those mages run test attacks against our Border outposts on a fairly regular basis, so if he doesn’t know the barrier is gone now, he will soon. I think we can probably take it as read that he knows now. He’s learned more caution after getting thrown back twice; he won’t rush into an attack right away, I don’t think, even after his usual feints and pokes. The abdication and the appearance of Elspeth as a mage, as well as tales that she brought more mages with her, might give him a little more pause. Every day we make him hesitate is one more day we have to prepare for his next try at us, and if there’s one thing I know will happen, it’s that he’s going to make a try for us.”

All of them nodded as Kero finished. “So whatever we can do to confuse him at the moment is going to be of use,” Darkwind replied. “Are we waiting for something, ourselves?”

“We are,” Kero told him. “When you said you were coming home, I assumed you were going to find some way to get rid of whatever it was that drove Quenten and my other mages off when the Skybolts came north. So I sent some urgent messages asking him to send me as many mages as he could. There are Heralds down in Rethwellan right now, bringing up as many of his White Winds Journeymen and teachers as care to come.”

“White Winds is a good, solid school,” Firesong spoke up. “It was founded by a hertasi mage. We can work with White Winds mages, and I am relieved to learn we will not be the only teachers of Mage-Gifted Heralds.”

“Not by a long shot,” Kero assured him. “Quenten’s White Winds mages will be right up in the front lines, too. They know we’re going to have a fight on our hands, and we won’t take anyone who isn’t willing to work combat-magic. I’ve got more mages coming, though—and these, I am afraid, are not going to be as easy to work with. Alberich isn’t here because he’s down south, too. He’s bringing back a load of mage-trained Sun-priestesses from Karse.”

“He’s what?” Elspeth gasped. She stared at Kero, wondering for a single wild moment if her teacher had snapped under the strain and had gone quite mad. She had heard about the alliance, of course, but she had assumed all that meant was that Karse was going to present a united front against Hardorn. She had never dreamed that Karse would provide more than that!

“He’s bringing back a group of mage-trained Priestesses of Vkandis from Karse,” Kero repeated patiently. “I know it sounds crazy, but in case you didn’t get all of it from Rolan, this is what happened. There’s been a kind of religious upheaval down there, and the Son of the Sun is now a woman, Solaris. Hellfires, that’s been going on since before I became the Skybolts’ Captain, but it seems that just after you left, this lady organized every priestess and a lot of the Sunsguard, and made her revolt stick. She has been watching the situation between us and Hardorn for some time, ever since she was a junior priestess. By my reckoning, that would have been about the time that Ancar usurped the throne. Evidently Solaris decided that Ancar’s a snake, old feuds are not worth dying over, and that if the two female rulers of the lands facing his don’t drop their differences and decide we’re all girls together, Ancar is eventually going to have both for lunch.” Kero shrugged. “Sounds like the kind of lady I can get along with. So, that’s contingent one and two, both on the way. Contingent three is just now getting organized; Daren got in touch with his brother, and the King of Rethwellan is deciding how many of his court mages he can spare, and how many can be trusted to be of real help. He asked us if we wanted him to recruit, but Daren turned that idea down, since there’d be too good a chance a lot of them would be plants from Ancar.”

“That’s all very good news,” Darkwind observed.

But Elspeth frowned. “It is good news, so why are you worried?” she asked Kero.

The Herald-Captain sighed. “Because even with all that help, we’re still outnumbered head-to-head, both in mages and in troops, and that’s just the troops we know about.”

Elspeth thought back to the last conflict, and the mage-controlled troops Valdemar had faced.

“He can take the peasants right out of the fields and throw them into the front lines,” she said slowly, her heart sinking.

Kerowyn nodded grimly. “That’s right. Ancar doesn’t care if his country falls to pieces, so he can conscript as many men to fight as he wants to. He doesn’t care if they’re decent fighters or not; they’re fodder, and he can keep throwing them at our lines until they wear us down.”

“You are sssaying that he will rissk ssstarrving hissss own people that he may win hisss warrr?” Hydona said, astonished.

All Elspeth and Kero could do was nod.

But Kero wasn’t finished with the bad news. “Last of all, he’s got some new mage with him; this one just turned up at Ancar’s Court fairly recently, and this one worries me.” She bit her lip, and looked from the Tayledras to the gryphons and back. “The fellow is so odd that I’m wondering if you lot can’t tell me what we can expect out of him. He looks more than half cat, from what my agents tell me, and he keeps pretty much to himself. Only one of them has seen him, and just for a moment. We don’t even know his name for certain—just a guess, Falcon’s Breath, Falcon’s Death, or something like that.”

Falcon’s—oh, gods. No.

Elspeth felt as if she had taken a blow to the stomach, and Nyara looked stricken. Firesong bit off an exclamation, and Darkwind a curse. The gryphons both jerked bolt upright. Skif looked quite ready to kill something.

Kero looked around at all of them and raised her eyebrows. “I take it you know this person?”

Darkwind was the first to recover. “You could say that,” he replied dryly. “Will we never be rid of the Beast?”

The last was half-snarled, and Skif’s nostrils flared as he nodded in agreement. Firesong shut his gaping mouth with a snap.

“That sincerely annoys me. I can only ask myself what dark demon holds the Beast in high esteem, that he keeps returning,” the Healing Adept said after everyone turned to look at him. He bestowed a look full of irony on Kerowyn. “Twice already he has escaped from situations that should have finished him,” Firesong continued, “and the next time I shall not believe he is dead until I burn the body, and sow the ashes with salt!”

“I may assume, then, that this is not good news?” Kero asked mildly.

It was Treyvan who answered that question.

“No, warrriorrrr,” he growled, crest and hackles up. His voice was so full of venom that Elspeth hardly recognized it. “Thisss isss not good newssss.”

By nightfall, they had a basic plan. Firesong would first find the place where the new Heartstone lay and fully activate it. Then he would roam the Palace with Jeri, looking for the old magic workrooms and any artifacts or books that might still be in existence and stored somewhere other than the Archives. Once the rooms were identified and the artifacts found, he would help Jeri get them properly cleaned and restored to their original functions. He did not expect that to take very long. As soon as the workrooms were ready, Firesong would begin training the strongest of the new mages.

The gryphons would identify any Heralds here at the Collegium that had obvious Mage-Gift and begin their basic training if they were not of such potential that they needed Firesong’s attention. If there were any doubts whether or not a Herald had Mage-Gift, Darkwind or Elspeth could pass judgment. Need could as well—but the blade opined that it would be better to keep the fact of her existence as an intelligent personality very quiet. A sentient sword would be certain to attract attention, and all of it the wrong kind.

“This group is strange enough without adding a talking sword,” Kero agreed. “Good gods, I don’t know how I’m going to explain some of you!”

Meanwhile, until the mages from outKingdom arrived, Darkwind and Elspeth would work with Firesong and the new Heartstone, and search the Archives for “lost” books on magic. She was certain that there were books they needed hidden in there, and that only the prohibition on magic had kept her from finding them in her earlier searches. Now that the prohibition was gone, she should be able to locate them. While books would not replace a real teacher, they could augment what teachers could do. And they might offer spells none of the Tayledras knew, and clues to what Ancar might muster.

Good plans, all of them. Now they would have to see just how long those plans lasted. The worst of their nightmares was now real. Ancar and Mornelithe Falconsbane appeared to be allies. Add in Hulda, and however many mages Ancar had recruited—and Valdemar was racing against time and the most furious of mage winds.

Only Mornelithe and Ancar knew what they were going to do next. Despite what others said about true mages not guarding against mind-magic, Ancar had long ago learned many of the limits of Heraldic abilities. ForeSight or FarSight, neither worked well against him; all they could do was try to outthink him.

* * *

:What have you learned for us?: Dawnfire asked An’desha, as Falconsbane dozed in his chair beside the fire. :Is there anything new?:

She had appeared in the flames of the fireplace itself; if Falconsbane happened to wake, it would be very easy for her to hide herself and her power away. The Avatars often appeared to him in the fireplace now; with Ancar so on edge, he could and did burst into Falconsbane’s rooms at any time, waking the Adept, and An’desha did not dare to be away from the body if that happened. An’desha had learned to manipulate Falconsbane’s mind and body to make him more aware of his fatigue. The Adept slept most of the time he spent in his rooms, but he was not aware that he was spending a truly inordinate amount of time in slumber. An’desha saw to it that he ate and drank and cared for himself; the rest of that time An’desha spent in rummaging through Falconsbane’s memories.

:I have more of Falconsbane’s memories,: he replied, and then, with pardonable pride, added, :and I have been convincing Falconsbane that the defects and faults in his thinking that I cause by accident are truly caused by Ancar, deliberately, to hamper him. It makes him very angry, and less inclined to aid Ancar willingly.:

Dawnfire was joined by Tre’valen; a pair of graceful forms of gold and blue, with whitely glowing eyes. This time they had both appeared as hawks of flame, rather than in human form. An’desha found their chosen forms oddly comforting, for they were very clearly vorcel-hawks, and they made him think of home every time he saw them.

:Excellent!: Tre’valen applauded, and An’desha flushed with pride. :Open your thoughts to us, little one, and we shall search through those new memories of yours. Then tell us what else you have learned as we sort them through.:

That was done quickly; it was a pity there was so little of substance in the memories. This time An’desha had gotten access to the sculpting and training of Falconsbane’s daughter Nyara. He could not think of Nyara as his daughter; he had not engendered her, and he certainly had nothing to do with her upbringing. He did, however, feel a kinship to her. It seemed to him that they were siblings of a kind; they had both suffered from Falconsbane’s whims, and in similar ways. He could empathize and sympathize with her as no one else could.

But the Avatars found more of interest in those pain-filled memories than he had thought they would. :Oh, this is excellent,: Tre’valen applauded. :We shall be able to help Nyara with this. She will never look entirely human again, but there is much that can be undone, now that we know how it was wrought upon her.:

He hadn’t thought of that! The thought that he might be able to help Nyara, even a little, gave him a great deal of pleasure. There was so little he had been able to do for her, and nothing to save her.

:Falconsbane now moves about the court freely,: he reported, as Dawnfire and Tre’valen sorted through the memories they had taken from him. :He does little but observes much, and I am able to watch what he thinks.: For all of his myriad faults, Falconsbane was no fool, and his observations were always worth making note of. :He has concluded that Ancar is something of a younger, much clumsier, and stupider version of himself. Ancar rules as he did, by fear. Other than those he thinks are valuable, which are mostly great nobles, no one is truly safe from Ancar’s mages or his magic.:

Tre’valen turned his burning white eyes on An’desha. Strange, how he had no trouble telling the two Avatars apart. :Why is it that Ancar does not molest his great nobles?: the shaman-Avatar asked sharply.

:I can only tell you what Falconsbane thinks,: he said hesitantly. :The Adept believes that Ancar himself does not know. He thinks in part that Ancar still fears the power those nobles hold, even though he could eliminate them if he chose—it is a fear from the time when he was still the Prince and had little power but that which he stole. And he believes that in part it is because most of them are still his allies, and he knows that if he betrays them, no one will trust him.: He hesitated again, then added, :And Falconsbane thinks he is a fool; if he fears the power of these nobles, he should eliminate them quietly, in ways that seem accidental. This is what he would do.:

Dawnfire’s form writhed and distorted. :Somehow I am not surprised,: she commented.

An’desha continued. :He sees that this is how he himself ruled, but he feels that Ancar is being extremely stupid about it. While Falconsbane could have conquered every one of his own underlings, singly or together, if they had chosen to revolt, he would have had sabotage in place already to destroy them and all they held dear. Ancar would not be able to muster a sufficient defense if all of his underlings attacked at once. So he thinks that Ancar is being very foolhardy.:

Indeed, Falconsbane’s thoughts had been far more contemptuous than that. He felt Ancar should eliminate every risk, and saw his failure to do so as a sign of weakness. An’desha had not been so certain. It seemed to him, after watching Ancar among his courtiers, that the young King felt as long as he kept the threat of retaliation before his underlings, but only made examples of those few he did not need, he would succeed. People were often like rabbits; frighten them, and their minds ceased to work. And An’desha was by no means as certain as Falconsbane that the Adept could have taken all of his underlings if they had chosen to mass against him. Look what one broken Clan, a pair of gryphons, a couple of Outlanders, and his own daughter had managed to do! Twice, it had only been the intervention of the Goddess and her Avatars that had saved him! No, another sign of the damaged state of Falconsbane’s mind was this insane overconfidence, this surety that if only Ancar released the coercions, Mornelithe Falconsbane could conquer any obstacle.

Not that he was aware of what the Goddess had done, nor the gaps in his own reasoning, which surely was the cause for his own foolish bravado.

:You have learned much of this Court. What of Ancar’s mages?: Tre’valen asked. :How do they judge their master? Is there any likelihood they will rise up?:

An’desha considered the question carefully. :Hulda is the most powerful,: he said at last. :She seems to think that Ancar will never escape her influence, and does not realize that he already has done so. The other mages have a hierarchy of their own—the most powerful is a Blood Mountain sorcerer, Pires Nieth. Falconsbane believes that one has ambitions to rule, himself. He comes of a noble family, possibly is of royal blood by bastardy. Falconsbane thinks that if Hulda and Ancar were both to fall, Pires would attempt to seize the throne for himself. But he is only a Master, and not as learned or powerful even as Ancar, and although he rules the other mages, he lives in fear of both Ancar and Hulda.:

The Avatars communed silently with each other for a moment; the flames danced and hissed about their fire-winged forms. :Would he intrigue, do you think?: Dawnfire asked. :If you revealed yourself to him, could he be counted upon to help you and aid you in getting rid of Falconsbane?:

An’desha hesitated, then replied, :I do not know. Falconsbane considered him as a possible ally against Ancar. The Adept would not trust him, so how could we?:

Tre’valen nodded. :A good point.:

:Besides,: An’desha continued, :He is a blood-path mage. Ancar will have none about him who are not blood-path mages. These men—they are all men, but Hulda—are evil, foul, and the only reason they are not as foul as Falconsbane himself is because they have fewer years, less power, and less imagination. Witting sacrifice is one thing—:

:You have no argument from me, youngling,: Tre’valen said, hastily. :You are right; we cannot trust or foster blood-path mages. It would be obscene.:

An’desha wished he had some way to make notes of what he wished to tell the Avatars; he always had the feeling he was going to forget something important!

:There is only one other thing,: he said finally. :Falconsbane would never do anything to aid either Hulda or Ancar because he hates them both, so he is fostering the friction between them. I have been trying to make him think this is a good idea. Am I doing rightly?:

This time Tre’valen chuckled. :Anything you can do to bring confusion to this nest of kresh’ta will be welcome, youngling. You are doing rightly, indeed.:

The fire popped loudly, and Falconsbane stirred uneasily. He was about to wake.

:Farewell!: Dawnfire said hastily—

—and the Avatars were gone, in the space of an eyeblink.

An’desha withdrew as well, to watch and wait.

* * *

Falconsbane stirred as the fire popped again, sending a coal onto the hearth. He opened his eyes, and the coal glared at him from the hearthstone, a baleful fiery eye. He was vaguely aware that there had been something else that had disturbed his sleep but was unable to identify it.

With what had become a habit, he cursed his captor for the clumsy, too-restrictive spells that were making it harder and harder to think or react properly. If that idiot Ancar were only half the mage he thought he was—!

And as if the thought had summoned him, footsteps in the hall heralded Ancar’s arrival.

As usual, he burst through the door with no warning and no consideration, as if Falconsbane, like the rooms themselves, was his own personal property. And as usual, he squinted against the perpetual darkness that Falconsbane cloaked himself and his apartment in, a darkness that Falconsbane enhanced with a touch of magery. If the little brat could not learn to announce himself, then Falconsbane would not make it easy for him to fling himself into the suite at will!

“Falconsbane?” Ancar said, peering around the room, and looking, as usual, for a form in one of the hearthside chairs. “Ah—there you are!”

Mornelithe sighed, as Ancar flung himself into the other chair. At least the child didn’t have the nerve to order him to stand! “I am very fatigued, Majesty,” he said, making no effort to mask the boredom in his voice. “What is it that you require of me this time? I fear that no matter what it is, I have little energy to spare for it.”

In fact, he was lying; after disposing of a pair of Ancar’s political prisoners, he was very nearly at full strength. Granted, he did seem to be sleeping a great deal, but that could be accounted for by the damages he had taken and the coercions he was under. Those things affected the mind and the body, and he did not wish to spare the energy needed to fight the coercions when he might use that same energy to break Ancar.

So far as pure mage-energy, rather than physical energy, was concerned, he felt confident that there was very little he couldn’t do—if he had not been so hedged about with Ancar’s controlling spells.

But he was certainly not going to tell Ancar that.

“I just received word from the border with Valdemar,” Ancar blurted, in a state of high excitement. Falconsbane was taken aback by the level of that excitement, the tight anticipation in Ancar’s voice. The youngster was as taut as a harpstring! “The barrier against magic is gone. I am calling a council of mages; how long until you feel up to joining it?”

Gone? That unbreakable, stubborn barrier was gone? Falconsbane’s interest stirred, in spite of himself, and his attempt to maintain a pose of indifference and exhaustion. “Not long, a matter of moments—” he began, cautiously, trying to collect his thoughts.

“Good. Come along, then. The walk will wake you up.” Ancar sprang to his feet, and Falconsbane fought being pulled out of his chair. Not physically, but via magic, as the young King used his spells to attempt to make Mornelithe rise and follow him. Both the exercise of the coercions and Falconsbane’s resistance were automatic. Like the response of a plant to light, or the strike of a snake at prey.

Then he abandoned his struggle, and permitted the King to force his reluctant body to obey. After all, what was the point? He wasted more energy in fighting than he could really afford, and there was no telling when Ancar might send him another prisoner. At the moment Ancar was so wrought up by the news from the border that he wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to anything else anyway. Falconsbane wasn’t going to make a point of resisting if the King didn’t even notice what he was doing.

As they left Mornelithe’s rooms, three pairs of guards that had been waiting on either side of the door fell in behind them. The Adept raised a purely mental eyebrow at that. Evidently either Ancar feared attack in his own halls, or else he was not taking any chances on Falconsbane’s willingness to come to this “council” of his.

Interesting, in either case. Could it be that he sensed his own coercions weakening, and now was ensuring his captive’s compliance with more physical and tangible means?

Ancar led the way out of the guest quarters and down a staircase into a series of dark, stone-faced halls in a direction Falconsbane had never taken. There were no servants about, but several times Falconsbane thought he smelled the scent of cooking food wafting down from above. It must be nearly dinner time, then, and not as late as he had thought.

Finally, Ancar stopped and stood aside while one of his guards opened a perfectly ordinary wooden door, revealing a room that was not ordinary at all.

It was swathed from ceiling to floor in curtains of red satin, and the only furniture in it was a single, large table, with a thronelike chair at one end (currently empty) and several more well-padded chairs on the other three sides. One of those chairs, the one at the throne’s right hand, stood empty.

Hulda, looking extremely alert, impeccably and modestly gowned, and without any trace of the sullen sensuality she normally displayed, sat to the throne’s immediate left. Her violet eyes fastened on Ancar and Falconsbane, and her lips tightened slightly. More people—all male, mostly the same age as Ancar, and presumably some of his best mages—occupied the other chairs. Most of them Falconsbane recognized; others he had never seen before. All of them wore the same expression of baffled and puzzled excitement, mixed, in varying degrees, with apprehension.

Ancar went straight to the throne and sat down, leaving Falconsbane to make his own way to the sole remaining seat and take it. He did so, taking his time, cloaking his displeasure in immense dignity, wondering if that right-hand seat had been left vacant at Ancar’s orders, or not, and what it might mean that it had been left unoccupied. Was it simply that no one else wished to be that close to Ancar, or was Ancar giving a silent but unmistakable sign of Falconsbane’s status among the mages by ordering it to stand empty until the Adept arrived?

Ample illumination came from mage-lights hovering above the table; a frivolous display by Falconsbane’s reckoning, but there were a few of Ancar’s mages who were fairly useless, and could easily be spared to maintain them. It did eliminate the need for servants to come in and tend candles or lanterns, and if this chamber was used for magical purposes, it was best that only a few people ever had access to it. Ancar waited until Falconsbane had taken his seat, and complete silence fell across the table. There was not so much as a whisper.

He did not stand, but he held all eyes. He waited a moment longer, while the silence thickened, and then broke it.

“I have heard from my mages in the West. The barrier that prevents magic from passing the border with Valdemar is down,” he said, his voice tense with excitement and anticipation. “It appears to be gone completely. My mages at the border assure me that we can attack at will.”

From the stunned looks on the faces of every other mage, including Hulda, Falconsbane concluded that he was the only one besides Ancar to whom this did not come as a revelation. There was a moment more of silence, then all of them tried to speak at once. Hulda was the only one that maintained a semblance of calm; the rest gestured, shouted, even leapt to their feet in an effort to be heard.

The cacophony was deafening, and Falconsbane gave up on trying to understand a single word. Ancar watched all of his mages striving for his attention, each one doing anything short of murder in order to have his say, and the King’s face wore a tiny smile of satisfaction. He was enjoying this; enjoying both the fact that the barrier was down and his will would no longer be thwarted, and enjoying being the center of attention.

Then he held up his hand, and the clamor stopped as suddenly as it had started. His smile broadened, and Falconsbane suppressed a flicker of contempt. Pathetic puppy.

He pointed at Hulda, who alone had not contributed to the clamor. She frowned at him, presumably at being designated to speak with such casual disregard for her importance. But that didn’t prevent her from speaking up immediately.

“We should be careful,” she said, looking cool, intelligent, and businesslike. “We should test the waters first, many, many times, before we even make any plans to attack, much less mount an actual attack. We don’t know how or why this happened, but in my opinion, this is very likely to be a trap. Every weakness we have seen in the past has proved to be a trap, and if the pattern holds, this will be as well. The Valdemarans are treacherous and tricky, and this could be just one more trick in a long history of such things. It would be only too easy for them to lure us across their border, then close the jaws of such a trap on us.” She shrugged. “They’ve done so often enough, and they’ve eaten away at our strength while losing little of their own.”

Falconsbane smiled, but only to himself, at the idea of Hulda calling anyone “treacherous and tricky.” Then again, it took a traitor to recognize one.

“Precisely!” the mage Pires Nieth cried out before Ancar could designate another to speak. He jumped to his feet, his disheveled hair and beard standing out from his face, making him look like an animal suddenly awakened from a long winter’s sleep. “Hulda is right! That was exactly what I wished to say! This requires extreme caution; the Valdemarans have tricked us before by pretending to know nothing of magic, yet turning it on our own troops, and—”

The clamor broke out again, but from what Falconsbane could make out, the consensus was that all of the mages were for caution. Interesting, since from what he had observed, the mages were usually divided on any given subject except when Ancar had previously expressed his own opinion. And from the faint frown on Ancar’s face, this did not suit his intentions at all. But there were also signs of hesitation there. Falconsbane guessed that this was an old argument, and that it was one those in favor of caution generally won.

As they babbled on, each one more vehement than the last in urging restraint, Falconsbane analyzed his observations and began to formulate a plan. One thing in particular surprised him, and that was the reaction of Ancar’s mages. Apparently, whatever had brought this “barrier” down, it was none of their doing. And what truly amazed him was that none of them had the audacity or the brains to claim that it was!

Well, if they would not, Falconsbane would make up for their lack of will and wit. This was another opportunity to impress on Ancar what he could do—and imply he might be able to accomplish far more, if given a free hand. Perhaps this time Ancar might be impressed enough to actually do something.

He let the other mages talk themselves into a standstill, while Ancar’s frown deepened, until they began to notice his patent disapproval of their advice. The voices faded, and finally died altogether, leaving an ominous silence. Not even the curtains moved.

Into this silence, Falconsbane dropped his words, cool stones into a waiting pool.

“I am pleased to learn that my tireless efforts upon King Ancar’s behalf have not gone unrewarded,” he said casually, as if it were of little matter to him. “The cost to me in fatigue has been inconvenient.”

There. Now he had a plausible explanation for spending so much time asleep in his rooms, as well as riveting Ancar’s attention and gratitude—such as it was—on him. And he had just established himself, not only as Ancar’s foreign ally, but as a more potent mage than any in this group. Given the combination of events and the fact that he could now, easily, take on anything covert Hulda would dare to try against him—if she did dare—he felt fairly secure against the woman’s machinations.

Ancar’s head snapped around, and the King stared into his eyes, dumbfounded. Clearly, this was the very last thing he had expected from his tame Adept.

“You broke the barrier?” he blurted. “But—you said nothing of this!”

“You woke me from a sound sleep, Majesty,” Falconsbane said smoothly. “I am hardly at my best when half awake. I have labored long and hard in your aid, and I am simply pleased to learn that those labors have borne fruit. It seemed to me that there was no reason to raise your hopes by telling you what I was attempting, when the barrier was at such a great physical distance and I was laboring under so very many handicaps. I never promise what I cannot deliver.”

That, in light of the many wonders he had heard Ancar’s other mages promise and fail to perform, was a direct slap at most of them. As they gaped at him, he continued, “I dare say that there is no reason to be overly cautious in the light of this development, since it was our doing and not some plot of the Valdemarans. I will be able to do far more for you when I am under less constraint, of course…”

He hoped then that Ancar would say or do something, but his rivals in magic were not about to accept his claims tamely.

Again all the other mages began talking at once, pointing out that there was no way of knowing for certain that it had been Falconsbane who had broken the barrier, each of them eager to discredit him. Mornelithe himself simply ignored their noise, smiling slightly, and steepling his hands in front of his face. It was better not to try to refute them. If he looked as if he did not care, Ancar was more likely to believe he really had worked this little miracle.

Or, as one of his long-ago teachers once said, “Tell a big enough lie, and everyone will believe it simply because it is too audacious not to be the truth.”

Finally, Ancar brought it all to a halt by raising his hands for quiet.

Silence fell over the table, immediate and absolute. Ancar had his mages firmly under his thumb, that much was certain.

“It does not matter if Mornelithe Falconsbane proves to you that he broke the barrier or not,” Ancar said sternly. “It does not even matter to you if I assume that he did. Nothing among the lot of you has changed. The essential fact is that all of you have worked in vain to take it down. Now, it is down. And I intend to do something to take advantage of that fact!”

At that, every one of the mages at the table, except for Hulda, looked both chastised and as if he wished he was somewhere else.

And given Ancar’s record in the past, perhaps they had reason to wish just that. He had lost more than one of his higher-ranking mages to the Valdemarans during the last two attempts to take their border. Right now, they were probably recalling that and wondering what they could do to keep them from being singled out to “test” whether or not that barrier was really gone. None of them had any wish to risk his precious skin against the Valdemarans. All of them would welcome some idea that would save them from that fate. They licked dry lips and glanced nervously about, and it was fairly obvious that they were unused to really thinking for themselves, or coming up with plans on the spur of the moment.

Once again, it was Falconsbane who broke the thickening and apprehensive silence. This should earn him the gratitude, and at least the temporary support, of every man at this table. Yes, and the woman, too, if she could see a way to profit by it.

“My lord,” he said, addressing Ancar directly and ignoring everyone else, “do the lives of common folk in your foot-troops mean anything to you? Are they valuable? Have you any shortage of conscripts? Can you swell your ranks again if they die by the company?”

Ancar stared at him as if he had been speaking Tayledras or Shin’a’in; completely without understanding. Perhaps the concept of valuing the lives of fighters was foreign to him. It would have been foreign to Falconsbane as well, except that he had been in a situation or two where the troops he had were all he would get. At that point, by definition, those lives had value. But finally, Ancar answered.

“Of course not,” the King said impatiently, as if only a fool would ask such a question. “I have an endless supply of peasant boys from women who whelp them like puppies. I have mage-controlled troops, and it does not matter if they are real fighters, boys, or graybeards. They will obey and fight as I please, and there are always plenty of peasants from the same source to conscript when they fall.”

He did not mention that he had tried armed force before, and failed. Instead, he was giving Falconsbane the compliment of assuming the Adept must have a different plan than the one that had failed.

Falconsbane smiled. “Ah, good,” he replied, genially. “That is, on occasion, a concern. If there happens to be a shortage of fighters, or there is no way to make reliable fighters of peasantry, then one must be careful of how the troops are disposed. But in your case—there is your answer. If the lives of troops are meaningless, my lord, then spend them.”

Ancar shook his head. “Spend them?” he repeated, baffled.

Falconsbane leaned forward over the table, underscoring his intensity with his posture, and the nearest of the mages drew back a little before the avid hunger in his eyes. “Use them, my lord. What does it matter if this is a trap? Throw lives at a weak point until you seize it! Their controlling spells will hold past the border now, you have no need to fear that they will no longer obey you once you cross it. So throw them at the border, at one spot, in numbers too great for the Valdemarans to counter.” His smile broadened. “I would venture to say that the Valdemarans have a witless concern over the loss of their fighters. That can be used against them, and it is a potent weapon in your arsenal. Throw your troops at the border, march them over the top of their own dead. Take a position, hold it, fortify it, and use it to take another position. Take land, my lord, and eat into their side as a canker-worm eats a rosebud. Ignore losses, ignore other targets. Take land, and cut Valdemar in half. If lives do not matter, then use them up to your advantage.”

Ancar stared at him, eyes wide, but now it was with an unholy glee, and he drank in the words as a religious zealot would drink in holy writ. Falconsbane mentally congratulated himself. Ancar had known that he was valuable for what he knew. Now the boy knew he was valuable for his intelligence as well.

“Morale is no question when dealing with controlled troops,” he added, “but it will be for the Valdemarans. And that is a weapon, as well. Think of how their hearts will quail, when they see the enemy continuing to come, grinding the bodies of their own dead beneath uncaring boots. Think of how they will falter and fail—and finally, flee.”

“Yes!” Ancar shouted, crashing his fist down on the table and making his mages jump nervously. “That is precisely what we should do!” He began drawing an invisible diagram on the table with his finger, but only about half his mages bent to follow it. That was the half that Falconsbane needed to keep an eye on, the ones that might, possibly, prove dangerous. “We keep the mages in the rear, where they can be protected by the entire army—and we throw the mage-controlled troops at the border! That is the perfect use of our resources! And when Selenay—”

“No, my lord,” Falconsbane interrupted, quickly. The boy was obsessed with the Valdemaran Queen, and now was not the time to permit him to fall into that trap. “Do not make the mistake that has haunted you in the past. Ignore the monarch, ignore your personal enemies. You will have time enough and leisure enough to work your will on them when you have conquered their kingdom. Land, my lord. Concentrate only on taking land. Capturing and holding large pieces of Valdemar itself. Nothing else.”

“This will require a great deal of energy,” Hulda interjected. From the expression on her face, thoughtful, and now a little alarmed, Falconsbane judged that she had finally been shaken out of her complacency. She was thinking fast, and did not want to be left out of this, with Falconsbane taking credit not only for breaking the barrier, but for coming up with a battle plan as well. “But it will grant us a great deal more energy to replace it!” She turned a brilliant smile on Ancar, but one that was as bloodthirsty as it was broad. “Think of all of the troops, both ours and theirs, dying, and in their deaths, supplying a great crimson stream of blood-magic! Sacrifices, by the hundreds, thousands! We will get back twice the power we expend to control the troops. This is a brilliant plan—”

She smiled brightly at Falconsbane, a smile poisoned with malicious hatred. Falconsbane only raised his eyebrow a trifle.

“—and it is one that, properly managed, will gain us more than we could possibly lose even at the worst case.” She settled back in her chair, serene in her confidence that she had at least added her own direction to the flood tide.

But Falconsbane was not yet done.

“In addition, my lord,” he continued, seeming to watch only Ancar, but keeping a stealthy eye on Hulda as well, “I would like to add something else for your contemplation. There is another consideration entirely. You have an envoy from the Eastern Emperor here at your court.”

Hulda sat bolt upright and fixed him with a hard stare. Ancar nodded cautiously. Obviously he did not see where this was going.

Falconsbane held on to his patience. If this had been a child of his, he’d have had the youngling whipped for stupidity a hundred times over by now.

“You need to give this man information to send his master. You need it to be information of a certain kind. You must show him that you are a powerful ruler. By displaying this kind of—initiative—I think you will give this envoy a great deal to think on. By showing that you know the best way to use your resources, I think you will impress him with your ability to take advantage of any opportunity you are given.” He narrowed his eyes a little, and pointed a finger at Ancar. “But most of all, by displaying a ruthless hand toward your own troops, you will prove to him and to his master that you are not to be trifled with.”

Ancar smiled broadly, and Hulda’s face had become an unreadable mask.

What Falconsbane had suspected, Hulda had just confirmed, although he doubted that Ancar realized this. Hulda was either an ally of the envoy, or a spy of the Emperor. Whether this was an arrangement of long standing or a recent development, it did not matter. The interests of Hulda and that of the Empire were the same, and Ancar was a fool not to have seen it.

This would give him another source of friction between the two of them. Things were looking up.

“You show another side of your powers that I had not expected, Mornelithe Falconsbane,” the King replied, unable to keep the glee out of his voice. “And your reasoning is sound. I should have added you to my councillors long ago.”

He looked at Hulda. She kept her face as smooth and expressionless as a statue.

“Very sound,” Ancar repeated, with emphasis.

He stood up, and looked down at all of them. No one disagreed this time.

“So be it,” he said. “We are agreed on a strategy. I will issue the orders immediately. Fedris, Bryon, Willem, you will go with the first contingent of troops to control them. More will follow. Do not risk yourselves, but make certain you drain every bit of blood-magic energy that comes from their deaths.”

He looked around the table once again, and his smile did not fade. Nor did Falconsbane’s.

“You may leave,” King Ancar said, and the smile he wore was the mirror of Falconsbane’s.

12

“So this is the Heartstone?”

Elspeth sneezed; the dust still in the air even after the room had been cleaned was thick enough to make her eyes water. Even Firesong’s bondbird looked dusty—and not at all pleased about it. “Our little gift from V—ah—You Know.” She was a little uneasy about mentioning her ancestor. You never knew who might be listening.

“Indeed, and although I assume You Know made it, I truly have no idea how this one was made in the first place,” Firesong replied ruefully. He appeared to feel the same as she did about saying Vanyel’s name out loud. “I seem to be saying that a great deal lately.”

The firebird tipped its head sideways, giving him an odd look. He laughed a little, and Elspeth grinned a little, despite the undercurrent of unease she had felt since she got up this morning. “Well, now you have some idea of how much there is that you don’t know,” she told him, with mockery in her voice. “You can start feeling like the rest of us mortals. Trust me, you’ll get used to it.”

She turned her attention back to the large globe of crystal on the table in front of her, rubbing her nose to make it stop itching. It didn’t work, and she sneezed again.

This Heartstone did not look much like the one she had seen in k’Sheyna Vale. That had been a tall, tooth-shaped piece of rough stone set in the center of an open glade, alive with power, but with a cracked and crazed surface and a definite feeling of wrongness about it. Not a neatly spherical piece of crystal the size of her head, swirled with hints of color, sitting in the middle of a stone table.

In fact, this room did not look much out of the ordinary at all. It was a direct copy of one on the ground floor of the Palace, one that was probably right above it, if Elspeth had reckoned her distances and angles right. Or maybe—no, probably, this room had to be much older—that room was a copy of this one. Why copy it? Perhaps to throw off enemies who were looking for it; this, if she had understood Vanyel correctly, was the physical link to the Web of power that bound all Heralds and all Companions together. Or perhaps the room had been copied because of the magic-prohibition; something like it was needed, but people kept “forgetting” this room existed. Certainly the servants had been surprised to discover a door behind the paintings stacked against it, despite the fact that the door was clearly visible in bright lantern light.

The room itself was not very large; just barely big enough for the round table in the middle and the padded benches around it. The table itself would seat four comfortably, and eight if they were very good friends. A single lantern suspended above the center of that table gave all the light that there was, and that wasn’t much; it had been designed to leave the room in a state of twilight, even when the wick was set at its brightest. And in the middle of the table, a globe of pure crystal sat in isolated splendor. Just exactly the same as the room upstairs.

But that was where the similarities with the other room ended. That one was used often for FarSeers, when they needed to exercise their Gift in an atmosphere of undisturbed quiet so that they could concentrate. The crystal globe in the center of the table was used to help them focus that concentration, and it could be picked up and moved, although with difficulty. The globe was very heavy, and the center of the table had a depression carved into it so that the globe could not be moved by accident. That sphere of crystal was disturbed often enough that there were a few chips in it, from times when it had rolled off the table and fallen onto the floor. When there were too many chips, someone would take it to one of the jewelers to have it polished smooth again.

The table here was stone, not wood, as were the benches. A lot of the dust had come from cushions that had disintegrated, cushions that Firesong had already replaced. It would take an earthquake that leveled Haven to get this globe of crystal to move, and Elspeth was not certain even that would do it. The globe was fused somehow into the stone surface of the table, and the stone pillar supporting the table fused with the stone of the floor.

Firesong assured her that the stone of the floor at that point was fused with the very bedrock the Palace rested on. This arrangement was quite literally a single piece of rock now, and even if the Palace was demolished, that pillar of stone would probably still stand.

No, she decided, it would take more than a mere earthquake or human clumsiness to move this crystal stone!

“No one in my knowledge has ever created a Heartstone like this one,” Firesong told her. “Normally, we simply choose an appropriate outcropping in our Vales—one that goes down to bedrock—and make it into the Heartstone. I don’t know of anyone who has ever fused several disparate pieces of stone with the bedrock.” The firebird jumped off his shoulder to the table, and stalked over to the crystal globe to examine it with immense dignity from all sides. It even pecked the surface once or twice, but Elspeth did not for a moment assume it was being “birdlike.” A bird’s eyes saw the world very differently than a human’s, and it was entirely possible that Firesong’s bondbird was examining the crystal for his bondmate.

The stone itself glowed, very faintly, even to normal sight. The servants had seen that, and commented about it, as they were lighting the lamp. Interestingly, the glow didn’t alarm them as Elspeth had assumed it would. There was something very welcoming about this room, very comfortable. One immediately felt at ease, calm, and ready to work.

The visible glow was dim, but to anyone with Mage-Sight, the stone pulsed with power, brightening and dimming with a steady rhythm that Elspeth could only liken to a heartbeat, though one much slower than any human’s. Little chasings of sparkles danced across it from time to time.

The other way this room differed was not only in age, but in feeling. Aside from the atmosphere of welcome, there was also an atmosphere of detachment and isolation. Outside sounds were muffled in the room above this one, so that the ringing of the Collegium bells could only be heard faintly. In this chamber, they could not be heard at all. Once the door closed, the Palace seemed to fall away, and as she stood here, the very silence took on a presence, as if every other human being was hundreds of leagues away.

“It is shielded,” Firesong said. “The room, I mean. It is shielded as heavily as if it were a mage’s workroom, although it appears that you and I and Darkwind have been given the key to those shields. They are powerful, layered, and very old; this room should be able to contain anything. As it must be, if it is to contain a Heartstone and yet be in the center of a populous area. The people of Haven are clearly not prepared to live with the energies of such magics.” He raised a snow-white eyebrow at her. “For that matter, I do not know what such magics would do to those who are not Tayledras. There might be problems that one would never encounter in a Vale.”

Elspeth licked her lips, and nodded. “I agree with you,” she said. Those energies were very real to her; she felt them on her skin, like warm sunlight. They were not unpleasant, not at all, and she had Vanyel’s word that she would come to no harm from them, but they were nothing she would want an ordinary person exposed to. These energies might not harm, say, a woman with child—but what if that woman were not a mage? Mages automatically took in energy and incorporated it into themselves, but what if it was not incorporated? All Tayledras were, at least to a tiny extent, mages. It was born into them, a gift from their Goddess. What would not harm them might harm someone from outClan.

Mage-energies radiating from the globe made her grateful that Firesong had thought to shield the servants before he allowed them in here to clean. This was like basking in warm summer sunlight! Now she really knew why working with this kind of magic bleached the Hawkbrothers’ hair and eyes to silver and blue. Firesong had told her that working with node-energy did the same to all Adepts, but living with a Heartstone made it happen more quickly to Tayledras. And for those who actually worked with a Heartstone—well, he claimed his hair was white by the time he was ten. She believed him now. She wondered how long it would take hers to make the change, for when she had looked in the mirror this morning, there had been streaks of silver as wide as her thumb running through her hair, and her eyes were already lighter than they had been. Actually, she had rather liked the effect.

At least when her mother looked at her now, she would never again be haunted by her resemblance to her late and unlamented father.

Actually, maybe it was seeing all the silver hair that made her realize I wasn’t her baby anymore… Hmm. Maybe seeing the silver hair was what convinced the Court and Council that I knew what I was doing! People tended to listen more closely to someone their eyes told them was old enough to have attained some wisdom. There could be unexpected benefits to this bleaching business!

“The last of the workrooms is clean,” she told the Adept, who had taken a seat on one of the benches and was staring into the Heartstone with a little smile of bemused content. “We moved things that were being stored up into the attics, and the few people who were using them for living places or offices have gotten space elsewhere. They’re ready to use, as soon as you have a student you think is dangerous enough to need them.”

“Ah, good,” he said, proving by his immediate answer that he wasn’t as entranced as he looked. “We will be ready for them soon enough. Within a day or two, I think. At the moment you are the only Adept among the Heralds, but that could change at any time. With so many out in the field, one never knows what may ride in.”

She nodded. “I think if there really is an Adept-potential riding circuit, he or she will be coming in within the next couple of days, Firesong. Remember, the Web holds us all, and the Web ‘knows’ we need all the strong Mage-Gifts that are out there. Strongly Gifted people are not going to have a choice; something will bring them in.”

Firesong tilted his head to one side to look at her, and tucked the curtain of his hair behind his ear absently. “Interesting. Very useful.” He returned his gaze to the globe of crystal for a moment, as if he might see a vision of those Heralds in its depths. “And have you located all of the books and manuscripts on magic and the histories of Herald-Mages?”

She nodded, as he looked up again. “I think so,” she said. “At least, if there are any more, they’re hidden in shielded places I can’t sense. Thank you for pointing out that books used around magic would pick up some contamination and be visible to Mage-Sight. I never would have found most of them if you hadn’t mentioned that.”

He simply smiled. “Then let me borrow a single moment of your time. I believe the Stone and I are in full accord now. I know that it is completely active. So there is only one more thing to do, so far as you are concerned—the little triggering I told you of.”

Time for him to introduce me—us—to it. Despite Firesong’s assurances that the Stone was quite safe, she shivered a little. Her only experience with a Heartstone was with the damaged rogue in k’Sheyna Vale, the “parent,” as it were, of this one. It had not been in the least pleasant. On the other hand, if she were going to work as a full Tayledras-trained Adept, she must be able to use not only node-energies, but the powers of her Heartstone. The latter would give her the power to set magics that would outlive her, something few mages ever succeeded in doing. This Heartstone seemed “friendly.” Yet it had come from a Stone that had tried to kill more than one of the Tayledras she knew, and had succeeded with those she hadn’t known.

But she trusted Firesong. He said this Stone was not only safe, but it must be keyed to her, even as the shields around this room were keyed to her, so that she, in turn, could key it to other Adepts. Not just her, but Gwena as well—magically speaking, she and Gwena were bonded as closely as a lifebonded couple. So, with some trepidation, she opened herself completely to Gwena, then put her mental “hand” in Firesong’s and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she was enveloped by light and welcome; and a sense of something very, very old, and at the same time, very, very young. The age of stone, the youth of pure power, both were part of this thing that took her into itself.

:Oh, my—: she heard Gwena exclaim, and knew that her Companion had encountered the same feelings. And this was nothing she had expected. There was intelligence, of a sort, but not a “mind.” At least, it was nothing she recognized as a mind. Fortunately, it was also utterly unlike the angry, unstable “intelligence” of the k’Sheyna Stone. This intelligence, whatever it was, had a far different view of “time” than she did, and if it had thoughts, they were so alien she could not even begin to grasp them.

But it was alive, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about that. It recognized the two of them, and it welcomed her and Gwena both and would do so in the future. They “belonged” now. It would give her whatever power she needed, so long as she was in reach. That was what it was supposed to do.

Here was the moment of truth that made her Tayledras; a Heartstone’s power was meant for the good of the Clan as a whole—which in her case, was all of Valdemar—and not to be used for an individual’s needs. The shielding and the Veils that protected a Vale, the power to sculpt the rocks and create the springs, the force that grew the trees that supported up to a dozen ekeles apiece, all this came from the Heartstone. Excess energies were cleansed and stored there, for the use of all.

And for the moment, all that she wanted it to do was to help her create a mage-shield around Haven. For the protection of all. She sensed Firesong’s approval as she began.

Not too much protection, for that would block Mindspeech and other Gifts, but about the same as the Vales had when they were not under siege. Firesong understood what she wanted, and lent his own expertise, guiding her, but letting her set her own pace. He had done this before and cheerfully encouraged her as he showed her exactly what needed to be done. But she needed to do the actual work; this was her land, her “Vale,” her Heartstone.

To her surprise, she discovered that most of what was needed was already in place; either Vanyel’s work, or Firesong’s, or both. Much of it had a feeling of great age about it. It was possible that there had been mage-shields here before, and they had simply faded with time, leaving behind a framework for her to invest with the new power at her disposal. All she needed to do, really, was to give the shield its proper shape, and define her protections…

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, she was sweating with exertion and very tired, but Firesong nodded at her with the satisfaction of a teacher who has just seen his student complete a lesson perfectly. “Good!” he said. “Excellent! Now, since that shield is linked with this Heartstone, and not to you, it will hold even after you are gone or dead. That is the advantage of a Heartstone; the magics linked to it are perpetuated long past the death of the caster. Any other spells fade when the caster becomes depleted or dies. Distance can weaken the magic, too. That is why, when an Adept creates a Great Work, he tries to remain with it as much as possible—or else he does it in concert with others of his school and links it to their collective powers. That way the burden can be shared, or even passed on to students. The White Winds and Blue Mountain mages work that way, for instance.”

That made sense. She wiped her forehead with a handkerchief and nodded. “I can see that—but there are magical devices and artifacts. I distinctly remember Need showing us that she used one to make spell-impregnated swords. Doesn’t that imply that some magic can be put into things permanently?”

Firesong made a face, and shrugged. “Surely. But I do not know how to do so. Perhaps, at some point, that so-stubborn blade may be willing to show us. Until then I must go on as I have.”

Well, that made sense, too. She changed the subject. “Should we go see how the gryphons are doing? Treyvan said his batch might be able to start doing something about the wizard-weather today, and I’d like to be there when they start.”

“So they have come along that quickly?” Firesong said, with pleasure and surprise. “Wonderful! I should like to see this as well, and select those who might need extra tutoring. We cannot begin teaching them combative magics soon enough. Every hour we gain against the Beast must be used.”

Together they left the room, closing the door behind them and blowing out the lantern beside it. Elspeth was surprised at how well the gray wood of the door seemed to fade into the gray stone of the wall in the half-light of the corridor, and Firesong winked at her. “Camouflage of a sort,” he told her. “Those who do not need to find this room, probably will not be able to, even though they will no longer ‘forget’ it existed. This is not a spell, just good building. That was, in part, how it managed to remain overlooked all these years.”

They took the steps up to the ground floor, then found one of the corridors leading to a door into the gardens. Treyvan was teaching his “fledgling mages” in an old building in the gardens, a storage shed that had been built in the form of an ornamental tower, complete to being made of stone. It was only three stories tall, but it had a good flat roof and a fine view of the countryside on clear days. It had been placed in a grove of dwarf trees and proportioned to them, so that it appeared to be much taller than it really was. On a clear day, one could see every detail of Elspeth’s old pottery shed from its rooftop.

This was not a clear day, however, and the view from the top could be a perilous one in ugly weather. And it had been ugly, ever since the new Heartstone came to rest here. That should change over the course of the next few days; it would take a while to get the local patterns to return. Now the Stone was properly activated, properly shielded, and under supervision. Firesong had done a little about the mage-born storms plaguing the capital, but he had been too busy to learn as much as he needed to about the countryside, so he had erred on the side of caution, refusing to do very much. Another storm had threatened all day without breaking, bringing high winds and moisture-filled clouds in from the east. The wind whipped their clothes around them; Firesong had dressed for working in the dust of the Heartstone room, wearing relatively subdued grays and greens, but his costume was still that of a Tayledras mage, and as the wind caught his sleeves and hems, it made him look as if he were being attacked by his own clothing. The firebird narrowed its eyes to slits and clung to the padding of his shoulder, hunching down and practically gluing itself to his neck. His hair streamed out behind him, a creature of a hundred wildly whipping tentacles.

:I would not want to have to comb out that hair,: Gwena commented. Elspeth agreed; when the wind got through with it, he’d probably spend hours teasing out all the knots. No wonder the scouts wore theirs short!

:Oh, he’ll find someone who’s willing to comb it out for him, Gwena,: Elspeth responded cheerfully. :I’ve heard rumors of a lovely young Bard!:

Elspeth smelled rain as another gust hit her face, and winced. The grounds were already sodden, and another drenching would turn the gardens into a swamp. Well, maybe Treyvan would be able to do something about this before it did more than smell like rain. The farmlands north of here were parched; if they could just get some of this precipitation up there, the farmers would bless them for the rest of the season.

She and Firesong hurried along one of the gravel-covered paths to the tower. It was easy to see even at a distance a pair of golden-brown wings waving energetically at the top. The rest of the gryphon—and all of his pupils—lay hidden behind the stone coping around the tower’s edge.

:Treyvan’s in fine fettle,: Gwena said, with an excited laugh. For the moment, even Gwena had put the lowering threat of Ancar out of her mind. :I’m down below the tower, but I’ve been able to follow the whole lesson, except while you and I were “talking” to the Heartstone, of course. He’s just about ready to have the new mage-trainees try out their weather-working, but I told him you were coming, so he’s waiting for you. He wants you and Firesong to see them at work, I think. These are very cooperative students, and they work well together.:

They rounded a hedge that had been hiding the base of the tower, and there was Gwena, with two other Companions beside her, all of them looking with interest at the tower top. One of those Companions was Rolan; Elspeth recognized him immediately. But she couldn’t make out who the other was. Even for a Herald, it was sometimes hard to tell Companions apart.

:I’m Sayvil, dear,: came the dry mind-voice she had heard a time or two before. :And interested to see how the new teacher was coming. I didn’t know gryphons could be mages, although kyree can, and you know about hertasi and dyheli mages, I presume. He’s doing a fine job; I wouldn’t change a thing.:

Oh, so Sayvil was another one of those Companions who knew something of magic? Wasn’t that interesting…

Was that why she Chose Kero? Or was there some other motivation? It would certainly help to have a Companion who knew about magic in charge of someone who had come riding into your Kingdom wearing a magic sword!

Well, that could wait. There were too many other things that she needed to know. :I’ll let him know you approve, my lady,: she replied, just as dryly, and got an amused chuckle for her pains.

The bottom stories of the tower were used mostly for storing gardening implements, and the top for storing seeds and bulbs, and wintering dormant plants. The whole building had a pleasant earthy smell about it although it was terribly dark, and she and Firesong had to grope after the ladder. The tiny windows in the sides of the tower were proportioned to make it look as if it were twice the size it actually was, and since the stone walls were a handspan thick, they let in very little light. The “ladders” here were an interesting cross between a ladder and a staircase with alternating steps, made so that they could be climbed by someone with both hands full. Not that Elspeth would want to, but the gardeners scampered up and down them all day without thinking twice about it.

There was more light from the open hatch to the roof, and that made the last of their climb a bit easier. They poked their heads up through the open hatchway cautiously, just as a couple of fat drops fell with identical splats onto the wood beside their heads.

“You are in good time, younglingssss,” Treyvan said. “You have ssssaved usss frrrom needing to worrk in the wet.” The male gryphon took up half of the roof space; the rest was occupied by two youngsters in trainee Grays, and three adults in Whites. Elspeth didn’t recognize any of them. Of the three adults, one could not have been more than twenty at most; the other two were somewhere around thirty. The young one was blond and had the look of a Northerner about him; the other two, male and female, both with brown hair, had the stocky build of the folk on the Rethwellan border. The two trainees were probably in their last year; one was thin and very dark, the other plump and fair.

“I will make introductionsss when we arrre finissshed,” the gryphon added hastily, as another set of raindrops joined the first. “Ssstudentsss, you may begin.”

Elspeth was a little surprised to see, as they looked at each other and immediately meshed their powers, that he must have directed them to work as a group rather than separately. On the other hand, since the object was not just to train these people, but to actually do something about a bad situation with the weather, his strategy made sense.

The older of the two trainees handled the wind; he began to leech energy away from the weather system that had created this storm in the first place, an odd knot in the sky to the east of Haven. Elspeth couldn’t quite see the point of this particular tactic; the wind did begin to die down, but that left the storm simply sitting there, right over the capital itself, ready to dump rain on them at any moment. But then the youngster passed the energy he had taken to the oldest of the Heralds, and that lady, rather than trying to change the direction of the existing wind, used the power to start another system north of Haven. Elspeth closed her eyes, and saw what they were Seeing, a “landscape” of weather, exactly like the sculptured terrain in a sandtable. The trainee was taking “sand” from a “hill” in the east and giving it to the woman. She was putting that “sand” in the south, creating another hill there, while the second trainee began to scoop “sand” from the north and pass it along to the woman as well. The air made a kind of thin “liquid” flowing over the sand, too light to move it, but forced to move according to the way it had been sculpted. Where there was a slope, it “flowed” downhill, picking up force. So now there was a new wind that blew in from the south, heading north—

Which, by all reliable reports, could really use the rain that had been dumped uselessly on the capital for the past several weeks. Two more of the Heralds added something else, sculpting the “sand” further, one pulling the air to the north, and one pushing, out of the south. But these two had added something new, to create that push and pull. The one in the north was making things cool and wet, and to the south warm and dry. Elspeth opened her eyes, and saw that the storm really was moving in a new direction; by concentrating, she Saw that “sandtable” as an overlay on the “real” world.

When she had finished making her depression, the second trainee simply held the water in the clouds until they began to move into the north and west and, finally, out of sight.

Firesong smiled; Elspeth “watched” what they were doing using her Mage-Sight and “outer eyes” at once, completely enthralled by the clever way they were accomplishing their goal together. Now she saw why Firesong didn’t want to work any weather-magic without knowing the land around them. It was something that could all too easily go wrong.

On the other hand, this was an application of fairly minor Gifts with major results, and she could well imagine what kind of havoc such weather control could wreak on or before a battle. Bring in a really major storm, and dump a month’s worth of rain at once on a battlefield, and you created a quagmire. Force the enemy to come to you across it, and he was exhausted before he reached your lines.

“Well done!” Treyvan said, as the last of the clouds disappeared into the north, leaving behind a warm, cloudless blue sky without even the scent of rain. With a sigh of relief, the five new mages released their hold on the storm, certain now that it was going to behave, and turned to their strange teacher with glowing faces full of the pride of accomplishment. They deserved that glow; even among the Tayledras, Elspeth had never seen mages work together that well. That alone was an accomplishment of major proportions.

“Very well done,” Firesong put in. “Fine control, good judgment, and the systems you set up should hold long enough for the rain to travel to where it should have gone in the first place. You are learning quickly. That you work together is a wondrous thing—all of you together can do far more than one of you alone.”

One of the Heralds, clearly quite exhausted, sat down on the coping around the edge of the roof. “I’ll admit that I was disappointed when my Mage-Gift proved to be just as minor as my FarSight, but now,” he shook his head, “I’m not certain I’m ever going to call any Gift ‘minor’ anymore. The idea of actually steering a storm around the sky—in the wrong hands, something like that could be devastating. I don’t want to think of someone hitting fields before harvest with hail. You could starve the whole country that way.”

:Good man,: Gwena said from below. :He’s thinking, and in combat terms.:

“You’re right, and think about hitting a line of foot-soldiers with hail, while you’re at it. FarSight and Mage-Gift are a good pairing,” Elspeth told him. “You can use the first to make certain you don’t dump a storm where it can harm someone, or at least someone on your own side, and just now you saw what you can do with the second.”

:Kero would tell you that there is no such thing as a “minor” mage, only a mage who doesn’t know how to make the best use of what power he has,: Sayvil observed from below, making all of them start. :Most of her mages were what they call “earth-witches”—mages of similar power to you. But they knew all about holding what you have in reserve until you are in a position where a little application of magic will bring a big result. Think of it as waiting until your enemy is off-balance, then pushing.:

The three Heralds exchanged glances, and nodded; the two trainees just looked very solemn and a little frightened. Elspeth couldn’t blame them. They were very young to be thinking of going into battle—only partially trained, and with a new Gift they had no appreciable experience in using—but that was just what they were going to be doing, and soon.

“Listen, we ought to introduce ourselves,” the Herald who had spoken said hastily, perhaps hoping to avoid another unsolicited comment from Sayvil. “I’m Herald Rafe—this is Brion and this is Kelsy.”

“We’re Anda and Chass,” said the first trainee shyly. “You’re Elspeth, right? Is this the Hawkbrother friend of yours? The one who is a warrior and a mage?”

She nodded. “I’m Elspeth. This is Firesong, not Darkwind. Firesong has never been anything but a mage, but we don’t hold that against him!”

Firesong made a face at her, and his firebird gave an audible snort, something that made all five of the students stare and chuckle.

“Darkwind is going through some old books right now, looking for some charts. I’m sure you’ll meet him some time soon.” She smiled impartially at all five of them. “Actually, my only purpose at the moment, besides watching what you were doing, was to bring Firesong up here to introduce you to him.”

Quickly she turned to the Healing Adept and explained in Tayledras what the differences were between a Herald and a Trainee. Then she switched back to speech the others would understand. “So what you have here is a very mixed group of ages and experiences. I’m amazed that they work so well together.”

Firesong nodded. “I wish to take these for a day or so, as I think you were hoping. If they can add their powers to work the weather, they can surely add them to shield.”

“I have no objection,” Treyvan said, cocking his head to one side. “You know more of thisss than I. Gryphonsss are sssolitarrry magesss, mossstly.”

“Thanks, both of you.” Elspeth turned back to the group. “He’ll be another of your mage-teachers, for a couple of specific lessons, probably within the next couple of days.”

“In fact, at the moment, we are fairly disorganized,” Firesong concluded, granting them all one of his dazzling smiles. “I pledge you, we will do better soon!”

“I sssurely hope sssso,” Treyvan hissed wryly. “But Firesssong, if you would ssstay here for a moment, I ssshould like you to begin now, and explain sssomething to thessse ssstudentsss forrr me.”

That was clearly a dismissal, and Elspeth ducked back down through the trapdoor. By the time she reached the ground, only Gwena remained of the Companions that had been watching from below.

:One of these days, Sayvil is going to frighten someone right off a roof,: Gwena said, shaking her head and mane vigorously. :Honestly! Oh, Treyvan’s group wasn’t the only one doing weather-work today; Hydona had her lot working in the morning, but since they’re much stronger, she had them working at a distance. Off to the west a ways, doing something about that horrible Gate-storm we triggered when we came home.:

Elspeth sighed with relief. “Thank goodness. I was feeling terribly guilty about that mess. Darkwind said that at this point, what with all the new energy-patterns around, there are probably storms over every major node in this Kingdom. Gods, I can’t believe the mess we’ve got.”

:I hope he also pointed out we can’t take care of them all,: Gwena said with resigned practicality. :There aren’t enough of us, and there isn’t enough time. The only reason we can deal with any of it is because it’s a way to train our new mages.:

“He did.” Elspeth took a moment to hoist herself up onto Gwena’s bare back. “Dearheart, I need a ride. Darkwind said when he finished with the books, he was going to go consult with Kero a bit more and I should meet him at the salle.” She stifled a yawn. “There just aren’t enough hours in the day. This calm is so deceptive—but under it all, I feel like we can’t get everything we need done taken care of fast enough. Ancar is going to get us, and only he knows when.”

:Right.: Gwena set off at a brisk trot, without a complaint. Elspeth took the brief respite to try to force the knotted muscles of her neck to relax. Before being “introduced” to the Heartstone, she had spent the morning going over the newest set of trainees, testing them for Mage-Gift, then giving them a rush course in the basics of magic. She had an advantage over Darkwind, as a teacher; she knew what the mind-magic lessons were like, and she could tell her students exactly how mind-magic and true magic differed. Once they were proficient in those basics, she turned her group over to Hydona.

Then she had gone off to the Archives, and the crates and boxes of books she and Darkwind had discovered late last night, all of them with fading traces of long-ago mage-energies on them. Most of them were handwritten, were either original bound manuscripts, or handmade copies of even older manuscripts. Fortunately, all her delving into the Archives had made her uniquely qualified to sort through them, and determine which were real books teaching magic and which were only contaminated by proximity. Then she had handed the mage-books over to those Heralds that Herald-Chronicler Myste felt could translate them into more modern terms. There had been a few clearly written in Tayledras, which had given Darkwind a bit of a shock, and a couple in no language either could identify. Darkwind was planning to take those to Kerowyn, once he determined if there was anything worth their time in the Tayledras books.

Both of them were running themselves ragged. Her day had started before dawn, and it would last long past midnight. There just weren’t enough hours; the peace of the Palace was so deceptive. Even with the violent weather plaguing them, it didn’t seem as if they were about to be invaded. In fact, things weren’t really much different than they had been when she’d left. It was easy to be fooled into thinking there was nothing wrong here, but Ancar was planning something, she knew it…

For that matter, he might well be doing something, right this very minute. With all those storms on the borders, the relay-towers were useless except when the weather cleared a bit. At least she had a barrier over Haven now, and Firesong would return to the Heartstone when he was done with Treyvan’s students, and use her shield as a model to set other protections in place, as many as he had time and strength for.

And tomorrow, before dawn, it would all begin again.

That was why Gwena was not scolding her for riding the short distance to the salle. Not when riding was quicker than walking, and not as exhausting as running.

She slid off Gwena’s back at the door to Kerowyn’s domain, and hit the ground at a trot. The salle, a huge, wooden building, with clerestory windows and mirrors on two of the walls, was full of trainees being supervised by Jeri, Kero’s assistant, and a Herald who had been hand-picked and personally trained by Alberich, the absent Weaponsmaster. Jeri looked up when she caught Elspeth’s reflection in a mirror, nodded at her, and pointed with her chin toward Kero’s office, all without missing a command to her line of young, clumsy sword wielders.

Elspeth skirted past the youngsters in their worn practice armor, moving along the wall with the benches between her and them, and avoiding the piles of practice gear strewn in her path. She tapped on Kero’s door at the other end of the room, using her own code without thinking twice about it.

It was a good thing she did. The door opened a mere crack, just wide enough for an arm in brown leather to snake out, grab her by the wrist, and pull her inside.

As soon as she cleared the doorway, the reason for Kero’s action was obvious. Darkwind was with her, sitting cross-legged in the corner, but so was another man, a stranger, filthy and travel-stained, dressed like a peddler. He had half-risen from his stool at Elspeth’s entrance, taking a wary stance and perfectly ready to defend himself.

One of Kero’s spies—probably one of her old mercenary company, the Skybolts. That was the only thing he could be. Her heart sank. The man would not be here unless he had some word on Ancar, and from his grim expression, it was probably more trouble.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Kero said, with a nod to the stranger, and a quick hand-sign Elspeth recognized as being the Skybolts’ hand-language for “all clear.” He sank back down onto his stool again, and picked up a towel from a pile on the floor next to him. “You and Darkwind know the most about Falcon’s Breath, and Ragges here actually managed to see him. He’s been describing the man to Darkwind. I want you both to hear what he has to say.”

“Bright feather, I fear it really is Falconsbane,” Darkwind added. “Ragges has described him perfectly; it could be no other.”

Elspeth sat down quickly on another stool, with an explosive sigh. After twice thinking Falconsbane was gone for good, then hearing he had escaped yet again, her reaction to hearing this confirmation that he lived was, oddly enough, simple exhaustion. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I didn’t really think there was any chance of a mistake. I wish that Beast would just die.”

“Don’t we all,” Kero said, leaning up against the door with her ear near enough the crack that she would be able to hear anyone approaching on the other side. “Well, go on, Ragges. Anything you know for a fact could be more important than either of us would guess.”

Bleak depression settled over Elspeth as the spy continued his report.

“This Falconsbane is not only advising Ancar, he seems to be very high up in Ancar’s mage-ranks,” the stranger said, wiping his face vigorously with a towel. As he rubbed, Elspeth realized that what she had taken for dirt and the man’s own swarthy complexion was actually makeup or dye. Underneath it he was far paler than he looked. “Rumor had it, literally just as I left, that he is claiming he has taken down some kind of protective barrier that keeps magic out of Valdemar. There were so many rumors that war was at hand that I fled the capital, hoping to outrun any army Ancar might mount.”

Darkwind looked sardonic. “He would claim anything he thought he could convince folk of,” was all the Hawkbrother said, his lips twisted with distaste.

“Well, Hulda is not long for her spot of ‘favorite mage’ if she can’t find a way to counter his influence,” Ragges told them, picking off bits of hair and things that counterfeited moles perfectly, which had been glued to his cheeks. “At the moment his star is rising pretty quickly. But there’s another player in this little game now, and I have no idea what he’s about. There’s a new envoy at Ancar’s court, wearing badges and livery from some lord I don’t recognize. And mind, most of the allies Ancar picked up in the beginning have pretty well deserted him by now, so whoever sent this lad must be fairly certain there’s no way that Ancar can turn on them.” He fished a bit of pencil and a scrap of paper out of his pocket and made a quick sketch. “This is the badge, and the man seems to be great friends with Hulda. She does her best not to be seen coming and going, but she spends a great deal of time in his suite. She’s so busy watching for spies from her rivals she never noticed me.”

Kero gave the sketch a cursory glance, and shrugged. “Nothing I know,” she said.

“Let me see that,” Darkwind said, suddenly, urgently. She handed it to him, and he frowned over it for a moment.

“I have seen this somewhere—within a day,” he said, his brow creased as he stared at it. “No—I saw it today, this very morning. In a book. No, not in the book, I remember now!”

He reached down to the pile of books at his feet and looked just inside the covers of each of them in rapid succession. Finally he exclaimed, “Here!” and held up the book for all of them to see.

“That’s the device, all right,” Ragges said decisively. Kero shrugged again, but Elspeth took the book from Darkwind and leafed through it. It was in Valdemaran so archaic she had taken it for another language entirely until this very moment. But she had not noticed the very first page before, which looked a great deal more modern. She went back to that first page when she simply could not puzzle out any of the script. As she had hoped, in a modern, scholar’s hand, she found a history of the book itself. This was a copy, not the original, but the scribes had faithfully reproduced every handwritten marginal note and scribbled diagram.

For this was a copy of a very important tome; one of the books brought to this land before it was a Kingdom, before it was even a nation.

By the Baron Valdemar, who became, by declamation, King Valdemar the First.

“According to this,” she said, slowly, puzzling out the words and feeling cold fear growing in the pit of her stomach, “the device inside the cover of this book is that of the former owner—the one that King Valdemar ‘borrowed’ the book from, when he ran west with his people.”

No one would ever have anticipated this; no one could have.

Kero frowned. “I have the sinking feeling I’m not going to like what you’re going to tell me.”

“It’s the personal arms of the ruling family of the Eastern Empire,” Elspeth said, her throat closing until her voice was hardly more than a harsh whisper. All her life she had heard tales of the horrors and injustices that the Emperor wrought on his subjects, and always the refrain had been “be glad the Emperor is too far away to notice us.” Valdemar had run for years with his people before settling here, but the memories of what he had escaped still haunted every scholar’s nightmares. There was no name for the Eastern Empire; it didn’t need one. It covered the entire Eastern coastline, a monolithic giant from which not even rumors escaped. “The Emperor of the East himself has sent an envoy to Ancar’s court—”

“The Emperor’s personal envoy is playing footsie with Hulda?” Kero exclaimed, her voice rising sharply. “Old Wizard Charliss? The Emperor of the East? Bloody hell!”

Whatever else she might have said was lost as someone pounded urgently on the door. “It’s Jeri!” said Kero’s assistant, with strain audible in her voice. “There’s been a relay-message from the east, and they sent a page out here to get you. They need you people in Council right now! Ancar’s troops are attacking our border!”

“Bloody hell!” Kero cried again, then snatched open the door and headed out at a dead run, with Elspeth and Darkwind right on her heels.

* * *

The ax had fallen, and it was worse than Elspeth had feared. Nightfall brought three more messages as soon as lanterns could be seen from relay-tower to relay-tower, with word that a Herald with more detail was on the way.

But the messages, although they were clear and concise, made absolutely no sense.

Elspeth rubbed her eyes and fought back the urge to sleep; no one in the Council chamber had slept for three days. Right now Selenay was reporting what little the Council knew to her chief courtiers while Prince Daren held her seat. Elspeth was trapped between exhaustion and tension. There was no time for sleep; there was no time for anything, now. A trainee put a mug full of strong, hot tea discreetly by her hand; she took it and emptied it in three swallows.

Ancar’s forces had crossed the border shortly after noon on the first day of the attack. As Kero and Elspeth had feared, they seemed to be more of his magically controlled conscript-troops, and they continued to remain under control long past the point when spells had lost their effectiveness in the past. So the barrier was down, just as Vanyel had warned.

What was insane was that they had overrun the first garrison in their path, and had lost at least half their men taking it. Now they were fortifying it and holding it against a counterattack, while more of Ancar’s troops came in over the border at their back—and given the rate at which they were losing men, in a day or two they would have to replace the entire force that had mounted the attack in the first place!

“This isn’t like Ancar,” Kero said tiredly, as she and the Lord Marshal shoved counters around on a map in response to every message from the border. “He just doesn’t fight like this. That garrison is of no value whatsoever; there’s no one of any importance there, there’s nothing valuable there, it’s just one more place on the border. It isn’t even strategically valuable. He just doesn’t go after targets that aren’t worth anything—he certainly doesn’t continue to hold them afterward!”

“I’d say he’d gone mad, except he already was,” the Lord Marshal agreed, running his hand through his thinning hair. “I have never seen Ancar strike for anything that did not have a substantial value to it. That was why we didn’t bother to fortify that town all that heavily.”

“Someone else is dictating his tactics,” Darkwind said suddenly, sitting up straight.

All eyes turned toward him. “He’s never let anyone dictate his tactics before this,” Kero replied skeptically. “That’s one reason why we’ve held him off for so long. He’s very predictable, and bad losses have always made him give up. He always follows the same pattern; he tests us until he loses his test force, then he falls back. Resist him strongly, and he gives up.”

“That was so in the past, but it is not so now,” Darkwind replied emphatically. “He has given over his main strategy to someone else, and we know who it is that spends the lives of underlings like sand, and leaves a river of the blood of his own people in his wake.”

He looked significantly at Elspeth, who nodded. “Mornelithe Falconsbane,” she said.

“The mage?” was Kero’s incredulous reply. “Since when does a mage know anything about tactics?”

“Are these sound tactical decisions?” Darkwind countered. “No. But they will win the war for Ancar. All he needs do is keep driving his troops in, and they will overwhelm you. He will conquer by sheer numbers. Recall, neither of them care at all for the state either land will be in when the war is over. Falconsbane would as soon both lands were decimated, and he could very well have prodded Ancar until he cares only for revenge.”

The rest of the Council stared at him, appalled. Elspeth felt her gut knot with cold fear. This was what she had felt, but had not been able to articulate, probably because she had not wanted to believe it. But now, hearing it spoken aloud, she did believe it.

“No one can win against something like that—” one of the Councillors faltered.

Darkwind only nodded grimly, and Elspeth seconded him.

“Then we are doomed. It is only a matter of time—” The Seneschal did not wail, but he might just as well have. His words, and the fear in them, echoed the feelings of everyone around him.

Black despair descended—eyes widened with incipient hysteria—and the High Council of Valdemar was only a heartbeat away from absolute panic.

“Not if we do something completely unexpected,” Elspeth heard herself saying, and she marveled absently at the calm she heard in her own voice. “Something atypical. That was how Darkwind and I defeated him before. We figured out what he thought we would do, and we did something that he couldn’t anticipate.”

“He’ll assume panic,” Darkwind put in. “He’ll assume that you will mount a rearguard action and attempt to hold a line while the rest of your populace flees, becoming refugees. He will expect you to go north and south, I think; he will try to cut you off from Rethwellan, and count on the mountains to trap you. I would guess that once he panics you, he will come in from a southerly direction to drive you.”

Kero studied the map. “That fits,” she said at last. “That cuts us off from our allies, although he probably doesn’t know about the new alliance with Karse.”

“We have an alliance with Karse?” squeaked someone to Elspeth’s left. Kero ignored whoever it was. “So he’s going to be expecting some kind of digging in, a defensive line, you think?”

“Isn’t that what logic dictates?” Darkwind replied. “A large defensive attempt. Fortification. So, what is not logical? How can we strike at him in a significant way that he will not anticipate?”

Kero stared at him for a very long time, then transferred her gaze to Elspeth. “A dagger strike,” she said slowly. “A very small counterattack, inside his own stronghold. We cut off the snake’s head. Kill Ancar, Hulda, and Falcon’s Breath, and the whole thing falls apart.”

Darkwind nodded, his mouth set in a thin line, his lips gray with tension and fatigue.

Silence around the Council table, although Elspeth saw her stepfather nodding out of the corner of her eye. Prince Daren knew something of expediency.

“That’s murder—” faltered Lady Elibet.

“That’s assassination,” said the Lord Patriarch sternly. “Cold-blooded, and calculated. A deadly sin by any decent man’s moral code.”

“Oh, it’s a moral dilemma, all right,” Kero replied, grimly. “It’s murder, it’s cold-blooded, it’s wrong. If you face an enemy, you should give him a chance to defend himself. Hellfires, killing is wrong. I’m a mercenary, my lords and ladies, and I will be the first to tell you that there is no nice way to kill. But what choice do we have? If we try to run, we either abandon everything to him—and may I remind you, at least half of our population has no means to escape—or we find ourselves running into a trap he’s set for us. So the half that runs gets slaughtered, too. If we make a stand, his numbers overrun us and destroy us. And while we’re dying, so are his own troops. Remember them? They’re poor mage-controlled farmers, graybeards, and little boys! In fact, once he starts taking our land, he’ll start turning our own people against us! Do we have a choice?”

Kero looked into the eyes of each Councillor in turn; some returned her stare for stare, and some only dropped their gazes to the table in front of them, but one and all, they only shook their heads.

Elspeth cleared her throat when Kero’s gaze reached her. Kero nodded; since she was no longer the Heir, she had no real place in Council, but habit would make them listen to her anyway.

“We can baffle him with strike-and-run tactics,” she said. “That will delay him while he tries to take ground. If he is expecting either all-out panic or a defensive line, while the special forces are getting into place, we can puzzle him by not playing either of the games he expects.”

Kero nodded cautiously at that. “Is there a plan behind this?” she asked.

“One he wouldn’t think of—evacuation,” Elspeth replied. “Strike north and lead him up while you evacuate to the south. Then strike from the south and lead him into scorched earth while you evacuate in the west. That way we can get everyone out—and Captain—no one is going to like this—but if people won’t leave, pull them out and burn their houses and fields. They won’t stay if there’s nothing to eat and nowhere to live.”

Someone gasped in outrage, but the Lord Marshal nodded, his face a mask of pain. “We have to think of the people first,” he said, “And if we deny Ancar any kind of sustenance, he will be forced to march far more slowly than if he can loot as he goes.”

“But how can we destroy our own land?” Elibet did wail. “How can we simply give him our Kingdom, and lay waste to it ourselves? How can we do this to Valdemar? And how can we explain this to the people?”

Elspeth did not stand, but held herself proud and tall. “Tell them this,” she said. “Valdemar is not grainfields, or roads, or cattle; it is not cities, it is not even the land itself. It is people. Grain will grow again—herds can be bred—houses can be rebuilt. It is the lives of our people that are at stake here, and we must preserve them. That is what we must fight for, every precious life! There is no book that cannot be rewritten, no temple that cannot be rebuilt, so long as those lives are preserved. So long as the people live—so does Valdemar.”

She looked around the table as Kero had, meeting the eyes of every woman and man on the Council.

“There is not a Herald in Valdemar who will not stand between those people and Ancar’s forces—even if the only weapons he has are those of his mind and bare hands,” she continued. “That includes me—for, my lords and ladies, I will be the first to volunteer for the group that goes into Ancar’s land. You know how much he hates me, personally, and what he will do if he takes me. Every Herald will defend our people to his last breath and drop of blood, and lament that he has no more to give. Tell your people that—and remind them that the Heralds have no homes, no belongings, and never have. All that Heralds have comes from the people—and it will all return to their service, first to last, until there is no more to offer.”

13

Kero sent the trainees out of the Council Chamber—more for their protection than from the need to keep secrets from anyone Chosen. The trainees were as trustworthy as their Companions, but there were a lot of them. It would be difficult to protect all of them from enemy agents if word somehow got out that they knew the contents of a secret plan. Searchingly, she looked at each of the members of the Council in turn. “From here on, nothing leaves this room,” she said emphatically. “And I mean nothing. If I had a way, I’d put a spell on you people to keep you from even thinking about this when you’re outside this room.”

Darkwind coughed politely, and Kero’s head swiveled like an owl’s. Her eyes met his, and he nodded, once. “Don’t tell me; you can do that,” she hazarded. “I should have guessed.”

Darkwind shrugged. “It is called a spell of coercion,” he offered politely, “And we do not use it except in times of greatest need. We prefer not to use the version that makes one forget something important, unless we think that an enemy may also be a strong Mindspeaker. It can be broken, but the person in question must be in the physical possession of a mage stronger than the one who set it, at least in the areas of mind-magic. It can be worked around, but again, the person must be in the physical possession of a countering mage, and it takes a great deal of time. A Tayledras must also have the consent of the one it is placed upon; others are not so polite about it.”

Like Falconsbane, Elspeth thought grimly. She recalled, all too vividly, what Starblade had endured to have his coercions broken.

The other members of the Council, including Heralds Teren, Kyril, and Griffon, stirred uneasily, and there was more than a shadow of fear in some eyes. Magic; that was the problem. Mind-magic they knew, but this was different, alien, and fraught with unpleasant implications. About the only times any of them had encountered true magic, it had been in the hands of an enemy.

:Now they know how the unGifted sometimes feel around them,: Gwena commented ironically.

Prince Daren simply looked interested; after all, he had seen magic at work often enough in his days as his brother’s Lord Martial. “I’d heard of coercions, but before today I’d never met any mage who could set them,” he said. “It was said that the Karsite Priests of Vkandis could set coercions, though, and some things Alberich told me from time to time seemed to confirm that.”

Talia, who sat secure in the knowledge her Gift of Empathy gave her, that Darkwind would sooner cut his own arm off than harm her or any other Herald, nodded gravely. “I can see where such a precaution would give our force a great deal of protection from slips of the tongue.”

“This would be for your protection as well as my team’s,” Kero said flatly. “What you can’t tell, no one can extract from you, even by using drugs. I don’t think we need to fear Ancar sending agents in to kidnap any of you, but please remember that illusions work here now. He could get someone in to impersonate a servant, drug your food, and get you to babble anything you know, before leaving you to sleep it off. With the right drugs, you’d never even know it had happened.”

Talia paled, and rightly. Both she and Elspeth recalled how even when the magic-prohibitions had been in place, Hulda had managed to get in place as an assistant to Elspeth’s nurse and drug that nurse so that it was Hulda who issued the orders.

Lady Kester blanched. “You’re not serious—” she began, then took a second look at Kero’s face. “No. You are. Dear and precious gods. I never thought to see Valdemar in such a pass that Councillors could not be protected in Haven.”

“Nor did I,” Prince Daren sighed, “But let me be the first to agree to such a spell being set upon me. We are many and the servants here are more numerous still. We have not enough mages to check for the presence of illusions at all times.” He raised an eyebrow at Darkwind, who bowed a little in response. “I trust this little spell of yours will be limited in scope?”

“If I set it now, and lift it when the discussion is ended, it will be limited to that time period,” Darkwind replied. He looked around. “There is this; if any of you feel truly that you cannot bear to have such a spell set upon you, there is always the option to leave and have no part in the decision.”

It was an option no one really wanted to take. In the face of Daren’s acceptance, and Talia’s, which followed immediately upon his, the other Councillors could do nothing else but accept. No one wanted to be left out of the decision, nor did they care for the idea of giving up any of their responsibilities.

Darkwind was exhausted, but he was also an Adept; he was not dependent on his own personal energies to set this spell. Elspeth sensed him fumbling a little in his attempt to find the nearest node; she solved his problem by linking him to it herself. His brief smile was all the thanks she needed.

It was a sad irony that coercive spells were some of the easiest to set. Darkwind was done before half of the Councillors even realized he had begun.

“There,” he said, letting his link to the node go and slumping back in his chair. “Now, none of you will be able to speak of this outside the Council chamber, nor with anyone who is not of the Council.”

“We won’t?” Father Ricard said wonderingly, touching his forehead. “How odd—I don’t feel any different—”

“Which is as it should be.” For the first time, Firesong, who was sitting behind Elspeth, spoke up. “A coercive spell is an insidious thing. One set well should not be noticed at all. As none of you ever noticed that you could not speak of magic, nor remember its existence, except as an historical anomaly.” His lips curved in gentle irony as they started. “Yes, indeed, speakers for k’Valdemar—your land has been under a coercive spell for long and long, and you had never noted it. Such is the usage of magic in skilled and powerful hands. You should be grateful that your last Herald-Mage was a man of deep integrity and great resourcefulness.”

:And had a lot of Companions to help him,: Gwena added smugly, confirming Elspeth’s suspicion that the Companions had been involved in keeping true magic a “forgotten” resource.

Kero let out a long, deep sigh. “Well, now that we’ve some assurance we can keep this out of Ancar’s hands, we need to put together our team. Ordinarily—I beg your pardons, but ordinarily this is covert work, and none of you would ever hear about it, much less help me agree whom to send. You might have heard about the results, if Selenay, Daren, and I agreed that you needed the information. There have been a number of operations you’ve heard nothing of, and there will be more.”

The Lord Patriarch smiled, a little grimly. “We had assumed that, my lady.”

Kero coughed. “Well. I had hoped you had. But this time, I need that agreement from you, because if we are going to succeed, we must send mages against mages, and we’ll be taking those mages away from the direct defense of Valdemar. They’re going against Ancar, Hulda, and a mage we know is a dangerous Adept, and that means sending in the best we have. So we must accept Elspeth’s offer.”

“Must we?” Talia asked, but without much hope.

“Speaking as a strategist,” the Lord Marshal said unhappily, “I must agree. She has volunteered, and she is a Herald—she knows her duty. And again, it is the last move that Ancar would ever expect.”

“The last that Falconsbane would expect, as well,” Darkwind put in. “He will be anticipating that every highborn that can will be fleeing to safety in Rethwellan. He cannot conceive of willing self-sacrifice. If he knows that Elspeth is here and not still in k’Sheyna, he will expect her to do the same as he would, to try to escape him and not fly into his reach. After all, she could seek asylum with her kin and be accepted gladly, and she has all the mage-power she needs to escape his minions easily.”

“If you send Elspeth, you must send Skif,” Lady Kester said firmly. “Whether you will admit it or not, I am perfectly aware that he has done this sort of thing before. Send an experienced agent with her, one who has been working with her.”

“If I go,” Skif replied, from behind Darkwind, “then Nyara comes as well. Cymry backs her to come along. She is clever and skilled, a trained fighter, she has a score of counts to settle with Falconsbane, and she knows him as no one else does.”

Kero gave him a long look, transferred it to Nyara, then caught Elpeth’s gaze, and did something she seldom resorted to with anyone but her lover, Herald Eldan. She used Mindspeech.

:Family resemblance, kitten?: she asked.

Elspeth nodded, very slightly. There was no point in going into excruciating detail at this point. Let Kero simply assume that Nyara was trying to make up for the perfidy of a relative, and perhaps, to extract revenge for something Falconsbane had done to her. That was something Kero could understand.

:Ah,: came the reply. :I’d wondered.: And she left it at that. Kero was nothing if not expedient. And she trusted Skif’s judgment as she trusted her own.

“By the same token, I must go with Elspeth,” Darkwind put in. “We have worked together successfully, I am the more experienced mage of the two of us, and as Nyara knows Falconsbane, so she knows Hulda. That will give us four agents to target them, two of them mages and Adepts.”

“But you and Elspeth would strike first at Hulda and Ancar,” Firesong pointed out. “There is some urgency for our people in ridding the world of the Beast, and only an Adept is likely to be able to counter his protective magics. That being the case, I should go with you as well. If you divide, two to target the Hardornens, and two to target the Beast, Skif and Nyara should have an Adept with them. There is no point in dividing those who have worked together.”

Kero nodded. “I have to admit that Falconsbane is not a priority for us—”

Firesong shrugged. “He should be—believe me, even more so than the Hardornens. So, let us plan a two-bladed attack upon him. That gives you an Adept that Falconsbane does not know to work upon him, and an Adept each for Hulda and Ancar, Adepts who are also well-trained as fighters. I am by no means certain that an Adept can take the Beast; I suspect I will accomplish more by distracting him, making him think I am his only enemy. This means that the physical attack, which he will not anticipate, can come from Skif and Nyara.”

:And me,: Need said quietly, for Elspeth’s ears alone. :But the boy will be damned useful. I think I’m going to have to be awfully close to Falconsbane to do any good.:

Elspeth tried not to look surprised at the Healing Adept’s speech, but she had not expected Firesong to volunteer for this. She glanced back at Darkwind, who shrugged.

:He is unique,: Darkwind said wryly. :With his own will. He does have the mindset of the Healing Adept, and that means he would not care to see Falconsbane working his twisted will on lands that had been Cleansed. And I suspect that your mutual ancestor may have impressed some kind of sense of responsibility for your continued health upon him. I certainly would not turn his aid away! But for predictability—I would look upon Firesong as a benevolent trickster.:

“What are we going to do for mages if you’re all leaving?” Lady Kester asked, a little desperately.

“You have the gryphons,” Darkwind pointed out. “They are both Masters. You have Heralds and trainees with Mage-Gift, currently being schooled in combative magics.”

“Ah…” Kero leaned back in her chair, and hooded her eyes with her lids. “We won’t be depending entirely on the gryphons. Since this is all under the rose—I have a surprise for you all. There are more mages coming, and I expect them to start arriving any day now.”

As the Councillors turned as one from watching Elspeth and her group to staring at Kero, she revealed to them the news of the three groups of mages currently being brought at top speed toward Haven, riding pillion behind Heralds and trainees released from the Collegium for the duty. She had virtually denuded the Herald’s Collegium of all but those Mage-Gifted and first-year students.

“That’s why you sent all those so-called ‘training groups’ off !” exclaimed the Lord Marshal. Kero nodded.

“So, we will have mages. Will they be Adepts?” She shrugged. “I can’t tell you. I don’t know what they’re sending us. What I can tell you, since I used mages in my Company, is that a mage is only as good as the tacticians he works with, and his willingness to really use his talents to the fullest. Just because someone is an Adept, that does not mean he is going to be effective.”

“I have, in my time, seen a few completely ineffective Adepts,” Firesong put in. “I have seen a Journeyman defeat one of them in a contest. Kerowyn is correct.”

“So there you have it. Are we all agreed on the team?” Kero spread her hands to indicate that she was ready to call a vote on it.

The vote was unanimous, though it was fairly clear that there was some reluctance to place the only Adepts Valdemar had access to, and its former Heir, in such jeopardy.

“Fine.” Kero nodded. “Then as far as I am concerned, this meeting can close. We all have things we need to do. I have to find a way to insert these folk into Hardorn. You have things you need to tell your people. Ladies and lords, you will be in charge of the physical defenses and the evacuations. You should consult with the Lord Marshal about that, and how to organize them to coordinate with his strike-and-run raids. I’ll join you as soon as we come up with an insertion plan.” She raised an eyebrow at Talia, Elspeth, and Prince Daren. “You three have a task I really don’t envy. The Queen is not going to like this.”

Talia and Elspeth exchanged a knowing glance and a sigh. Daren shook his head.

“Perhaps,” he suggested gently, “I should be the one to break the word first to Selenay. I shall remind her of how sad the little ones would be to become half-orphaned; I hope then she will not slay the father of her children out of sheer pique.”

* * *

Elspeth and Talia waited nervously in the rather austere antechamber to Selenay and Daren’s private suite, but it seemed almost no time at all before Daren was back, beckoning to both of them to come with him. They followed him into Selenay’s private office, and Elspeth’s heart ached to see how drawn and worn her mother’s face was. And to add to that burden of grief and worry—

But Selenay only came straight to her, held out her arms, and embraced her tightly but not possessively. Her body shook with tension but not with the tears that Elspeth had feared.

Finally she released her daughter, and held her away at arm’s length, searching her face for something, although Elspeth could not tell what it was. Her eyes were narrowed with concentration, and Elspeth saw many fine worry lines around her eyes and creasing her forehead that had not been there when she left.

“Good,” she said finally. “This isn’t something someone talked you into. You know exactly what you’re doing. You thought of this yourself ?”

Elspeth nodded. Her mother had pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense braid like Kero’s, and like Talia, she was wearing breeches and tunic, her only concession to rank being a bit of gold trim on the tunic hem and her coronet about her brow. Her sword and sword-belt were hanging from the chair beside her desk, and knives lay on top of a pile of papers. Although she had seen her mother in armor and on a battlefield, this was not a Selenay that Elspeth had ever seen before, but she rather expected that anyone who had fought with her mother and grandfather in the Tedrel Wars would find this Queen very familiar. Selenay had pared everything from her life that was not relevant to the defense of her land. Valdemar was in peril, and the Queen was ready for personal action.

“I thought about trying to be a commander, but I’m not a tactician, and not even a particularly good fighter. No one knows me to follow me as a charismatic leader,” Elspeth said slowly. “In the lines, I would be just one more warrior. Yes, I could help with magic defenses—I could even coordinate the mages—but I would be your daughter, and the ones from outKingdom would always expect me to favor Herald-Mages and their safety over those from outside. Such suspicion could be fatal. Kero always taught us that you don’t stand off and fling sand at a fire from a safe distance; you go in and cut a firebreak right in its path.”

“Kero taught you well.” Selenay rubbed her eyes with her index finger, and blinked hard against tears. “The Queen agrees with you; the mother—what can I tell you? I hate the idea of sending my child off into this kind of danger, my heart wants to hold you back and keep you safe. But you are a woman grown, Elspeth. You are responsible for your own safety and I can’t protect you anymore. Besides, there is no safety anywhere in Valdemar, not now. Elspeth, I am so proud of you!”

Elspeth had never expected to hear that last; it caught her by surprise, and her heart swelled and overflowed. She flung herself into her mother’s arms again, and this time they both gave way to weeping. Talia, and then Daren, joined them in a fourfold embrace, offering comfort and support. This was sorrow both bitter and sweet, sweet for the accomplishment—bitter for all that accomplishment meant to all of them. Nothing would ever be the same again, even if they all survived this.

When both of them got control over themselves again, they separated, slowly and reluctantly, with tremulous smiles.

“Thank you, Mama,” Elspeth managed. “That is the most wonderful thing you have ever said to me. I’ve always been proud of you, too, but never more than today…”

“When you were such trouble—before Talia came—there were times that I despaired of ever seeing you act like a responsible adult, much less make me so very proud that you are my daughter,” Selenay said at last, with a grateful glance at Talia, who only blushed. “No one could ever ask of you what you have just given to Valdemar.”

Now it was Elspeth’s turn to blush. “I don’t know if Papa told you about my rather florid speech in there about saving the people rather than the land,” she said. “But being with k’Sheyna and the Hawkbrothers is what showed me that. The way they simply give up their homes and move on when it’s time—but mourn the loss of every hawk and owl, hertasi and human—that showed me where we should be putting our effort. Let Ancar grab land; the people of Valdemar ran and survived before, and they can now. And if we five can pull this off, they’ll have something to return to.”

Selenay shook her head in wonder. “You’ve grown up. And you’re wiser than I ever will be—”

Elspeth laughed shakily. “No, just knowledgeable in different things, that’s all. Mama, I have to get back to Kero; the sooner we get out of here, the better for all of us.”

“If you can spare me for a moment, I’ll go with her,” Talia added. “I think I have a contact that will give them a way to move across Hardorn quickly.”

Selenay nodded. “I will need you in about a candlemark, to help me calm some hysterical highborns when I tell them they are in the path of an invasion we can’t stop, but not until then.”

Selenay took Elspeth into a quick embrace. “If I don’t see you before you leave—remember you take my love with you,” she whispered into Elspeth’s ear. “And you take my respect and hope as well. I love you, kitten. Come home safe to me. Come home, so I can celebrate your handfasting to that handsome young man who loves you so.”

Elspeth returned the embrace fiercely, then fled to resume her duty before Selenay could see that tears threatened to return.

* * *

“So. Name everything in this room that can be used as a weapon,” Kerowyn grinned at Elspeth.

“Your breath, Firesong’s clothes, and that awful tea,” Elspeth replied to the old joke. Darkwind and Firesong cracked smiles.

Once again, they all had gathered in Kero’s office. Talia was explaining to Kero her link with the secretive and close-knit “clan” of itinerant traveling peddlers. Elspeth had heard it all before, but it was still fascinating, for Talia seemed the last person in the world to keep up an association with the “wagon-families,” as they were known. Very often they were regarded as tricksters and only a short step above common thieves. It had been one of the wagon-men who had taken word of her imprisonment out of Hardorn when she had been captured and thrown in a shielded cell by Ancar.

“—so I’ve kept in constant contact with him, and I’ve tried to help him get his people out of trouble, when I could,” she concluded. “Quite frankly, they can go places we can’t, and it occurred to me that it would be very useful to have their cooperation if we needed to get someone into Hardorn, so I’ve been building up a lot of favors that they owe me.”

Kero nodded thoughtfully, tracing little patterns on the table top with her finger. “The gods know I’ve tried and failed to get an agent in among them. They’re very close-mouthed and insular.”

Tiredly, Talia ran her fingers through her hair. Elspeth wondered if she would get any sleep at all, or if she’d go on until she collapsed. “Ancar hasn’t got any friends among them, I can tell you that. He’s taken whole families; I don’t care to think what he does with them, but once his men take a wagonload, the people are gone without a trace. Since that started happening, only single men and a few women, all without families, have dared to operate over there—and only in groups, so a single wagon can’t just vanish. They’ve taken to putting together wagon-groups of entertainers and peddlers, and putting on movable fairs. But here’s what I think my contact will offer, if I ask him, as the payback for all my favors. I think he’ll set our group up with a bigger carnival, give them genuine wagons and things to sell, and basically see that his people protect ours from discovery by outsiders.”

Kero made a skeptical face. “Entertainers? Carnival showmen? Gods, I don’t know… I’d thought of something a lot more, well, secretive.”

Elspeth snorted. “And how do you propose to hide Nyara or the bondbirds?” she demanded. “The minute anyone gets sight of her or the birds, we’d be in trouble, if we were trying to pass ourselves off as simple farmers or something! How many farmers own large exotic birds, or even a hawk? And we’d never pass ourselves off as Hardornen nobles.”

“My point exactly,” Talia said. “You can’t hide them, so make them just one more very visible set of entertainers in a sea of flamboyance. After all, where do you hide a red fish?”

“In a pond full of other red fish,” Kero supplied the tagline of another Shin’a’in proverb. “All right; contact the man. Don’t tell him anything until you get his consent to the general idea, and Darkwind can slap one of those coercion things on him.”

Talia nodded, and rose from her seat. “I’ll have him here by dawn,” she said firmly, and left.

Firesong looked highly amused. “Carnival entertainers?” he repeated, “Entertainers, I understand, but what is a carnival?”

After Elspeth explained it to him, he looked even more amused. “You mean—we shall cloak the fact that we are working genuine magic, that we have mage-born creatures, by performing entertainer tricks?”

“And selling snake-oil,” Kero added, and had to explain the concept of that to him as well. By the time she had finished, he was laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation.

“But this is too perfect!” he chuckled. “Oh, please, you must let me play a role. The Great Mage Pandemonium! I shall never have another opportunity like this one!”

“I don’t know how we could stop you,” Skif said dryly. “And your bird is the harder to hide of the two.”

Vree cocked his head to one side. :Tricks, I,: he offered. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he jumped down onto the table, waddled over to Firesong, and rolled over like a dog, his eyes fixed on the Healing Adept. :Tricks, I, with Aya. Together.:

“I think he wants you to have a trick bird act with himself and your firebird,” Darkwind said, his eyes still wide with surprise. “I keep thinking he has a limited grasp of abstract concepts, but every once in a while he astonishes me. It would be a very good way of explaining the presence of both birds.”

“I could assist you, Firesong,” Nyara added shyly. “And dance. Falconsbane made me learn to dance, seduction dances, which would be popular, I think. You could say I was your captive.”

“And everyone who saw you would be certain her looks were due to costume and makeup, and the birds to dye or bleach.” Kero nodded. “I like it. You know, I can even show you some things that will make it look as if Nyara’s—ah—attributes are all makeup and costume. We could shave thin lines of her body-fur to look like seams.”

“And I shall dress as flamboyantly and tastelessly as Skyseeker k’Treva!” Firesong crowed. “We call him ‘Eye-burner’ to tease him, for he has no taste! A pity I cannot dye Aya a brilliant pink as well—”

The look the firebird gave him, of purest disgust, only sent him into another fit of laughter.

Darkwind shrugged. “For that matter, there’s not a reason in the world why we can’t bring the dyheli along as another one of your ‘captives.’ There isn’t anyone in all of Hardorn except Falconsbane who’d recognize a bondbird, a dyheli, or Nyara, and Falconsbane isn’t likely to be patronizing a carnival.”

“Also an excellent point.” Kero pondered a bit more. “But there is the problem that you are all going to have magic associated with you… hmm. Can any of you lot do what Quenten could—layer illusions?”

Elspeth nodded quickly. “All of us can, it’s really very simple.”

Kero smiled slowly. “Good. Then here’s what we’ll have. You—” she pointed at Firesong, “—are a very minor mage, too minor for Ancar to recruit, but able to cast illusions. You put them on the Companions, the dyheli, and possibly yourself. Only you layer the Companions; top is a pair of glossy matched bays, under that is what any other mage will think is the reality, an illusion of a pair of nasty, old, spavined geldings. You layer the dyheli the same way; top is the way it really looks, under that is a donkey. You leave Nyara alone—”

:I can make certain anyone who casts a true-sight on her will see a misshapen girl in cat makeup,: Need supplied. :And the assumed presence of an illusion will account for the presence of magic around us.:

“Right, that was exactly what I was going to suggest.” Kero was grinning. “Gods, we are a deceitful bunch! It’s a damn good thing we’re honest, or no one would be safe!”

Firesong looked supremely content. Elspeth reached for Darkwind’s hand under the table, only to find his seeking hers. They exchanged a quick squeeze as Vree, with a very self-satisfied gurgle, returned across the table and leapt back up to Darkwind’s shoulder.

“Once you get into Hardorn, you’ll have to make it up as you go along,” Kero said. “But the way I’ll get you across I think can be pretty simple. The bastard can’t watch the whole border, but drop a lot of what he thinks are Heralds in one place, and you bet he’ll watch that spot pretty closely! So I’ll turn out a bunch of the Skybolts in fake Whites—send them someplace that looks as if it might be strategic, and you cross wherever else you want. Put what looks like a million Heralds anywhere, and Ancar will be certain something is up. Hell, I might just give him something—”

Now she began to laugh, wearily, but after a moment, Elspeth realized it was not out of hysteria.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, just something that occurred to me. I’ll get one of the Blues to build me some kind of complicated war engine out of broken bits, something that can’t possibly work but looks impressive enough to take out a city wall with one blow. I’ll have my pseudo-Heralds escort that to his fortification, and let him take it. He’ll spend forever trying to figure the thing out!” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, as the others began to chuckle. “Oh, gods, it is such a good thing for the world that we’re honest!”

“Speak for yourself !” Firesong replied, with mock-indignation. “I intend to persuade as much coin from the pockets of the unsuspecting as possible!”

The firebird only snorted and resumed its preening.

* * *

Falconsbane sipped at a goblet of fine spiced wine and sat back in his chair with a wonderful feeling of pure content. Or, at least, as content as he could be while he was still someone else’s captive. Everything was proceeding as it should, and completely in accordance with his plans.

His strategies on the border had succeeded so well that Ancar had sent him several more prisoners to dispose of, by way of reward. He had managed to determine that it was not the coercive spells that were keeping him from access to the local nodes and ley-lines, but a set of complicated keying spells that led back to—surprise!—Hulda. And those spells were keeping Ancar away, too, without a doubt. The only real power that Ancar would be able to touch, other than that derived from the death of underlings, would be through Hulda now. The keying spells would even make it difficult for Falconsbane to access those nodes were he not under coercions.

That made him all the more determined to rid himself of the bitch. He certainly didn’t need her, and her overblown and overripe charms had long since lost any attraction for him; her promiscuity was appalling. She could have offered him the key; she had not. Therefore, she had no plans to share her power with anyone.

This put Ancar’s inability to access power outside himself in another light altogether. If Hulda had locked that power away from him, he might not be altogether incompetent after all.

She was playing some kind of deep game, that one.

Falconsbane was not going to play it, either by her rules or anyone else’s.

A slight tap on the door signaled another small triumph. That was Ancar, and Falconsbane had finally convinced him to announce himself before he came barging into Mornelithe’s suite. Respect; the boy needed to learn respect, and he might even be worth saving and making into an underling when all this was over.

Meanwhile, the bitch needed to learn a little lesson, too.

“Enter,” he said aloud, and Ancar’s ever-present escort opened the door silently. Two of the guards entered first, followed by the King, who joined Falconsbane beside his fire. The guards took their positions, one on either side of the door; Falconsbane found their presence rather amusing. Evidently the boy took no chances; he protected himself physically even in the presence of someone he—relatively—trusted. What did he do when he took a wench to his bed? Drug her so that he knew she was harmless? Feh, he was so unappealing, that was probably the only way he would get a bedmate.

Ancar poured himself a cup of wine from the pitcher on the hearth. For all that he took no chances, he was prone to acting very foolishly. Falconsbane was a mage; he could have changed the content of that wine without having any access to poisons. Or didn’t Ancar know that was possible?

Falconsbane waited for him to speak first, since it was obvious from the King’s manner that nothing urgent had brought him here. But from Ancar’s faint frown, something displeased him enough to make him seek Mornelithe’s counsel.

Finally, the young King spoke. “I have tried to take power from those lines of energy you spoke about, which seem to be the same thing that Hulda called ley-lines. Something has blocked me from them.” His frown deepened. “Although I could never use the nodes you spoke of because they were too powerful for me, I have been able to touch those lines in the past. But now I cannot, and I do not know why.”

So, access to the ley-lines had been keyed very recently. Perhaps when Hulda realized that Ancar had attempted a Gate. She knew he was experimenting and had chosen this way to place a limit on what he could do.

“It is none of my doing,” he pointed out. “But I had noted this myself; I, too, have been blocked. It is one of the reasons why I can do so little to help you, other than offer advice. I think, however,” he added slyly, “that if you would trace the spells that keep you at a distance to their origin, you would find it to be Hulda.”

Ancar sat upright. “Oh?” he replied, too casually. “Are you very certain of that?”

Falconsbane only shrugged. “You may see for yourself, Majesty. You certainly have the Mage-Sight to do so. There is nothing preventing you from tracing magic back to its originator.”

Ancar sank back into the embrace of the chair, his frown deepening. “She overreaches herself,” he muttered to himself. Mornelithe guessed that he had not meant to speak that aloud.

But Falconsbane chose to take the comment as meant for his ears. “Then give her a lesson to put her properly in her place,” he said quietly. “Which of you rules here? Will you let her block you from the use of power that is rightfully yours? The coercive spells you have placed upon me have certainly worked well enough. Set them on her! Let her cool for a time in your prison cells. Let her see the rewards of thwarting you. Tame the bitch to your hand and muzzle her that she not bite you.”

Ancar’s jaw clenched and his hands tightened around the goblet. “I do not know that those spells will hold her,” he admitted, reluctantly. “She is at her full strength. You were weak when I set them upon you.”

Falconsbane laughed aloud, startling him so that his hands jerked, and a few drops of wine splashed out of the goblet. “Majesty, the woman is a bitch in heat when she sees a handsome young man! Lay a trap for her, then bait it with one such, and you will have her at a moment of weakness as great as mine! Only choose your bait wisely, so that he will exhaust her before you spring it.”

Ancar brushed absently at the droplets of red on his black velvet tunic, and considered that for a moment. “It might work,” he replied thoughtfully. “It might at that.”

“If it does not, what have you lost?” Falconsbane countered. “You are something near to a Master mage, and that should suffice that you can set those spells subtly enough that she does not notice them until she tries to act against your interest. Such things are either tough or brittle. If they do not hold, they will break. Few can trace a broken spell if she even notices that the attempt was made to coerce her. If they do hold, then you will have her.”

Ancar smiled at him over the edge of the goblet. “You are a good counselor, Mornelithe Falconsbane, and a clever mage. That is why I do not lift the spells on you, and do not intend to until I have learned all that you can teach me.”

That came as something of a shock to Falconsbane, although he hid his reaction under a smooth expression. He had not given the boy credit for that much cleverness.

He would be more careful in the future.

* * *

Ancar left Falconsbane’s chambers with a feeling of accomplishment. So, that was why he had been denied the power he needed lately! The traces that led back to Hulda were easy enough to see when you looked for them—exactly as Falconsbane claimed. He had not thought she would dare to be so blatant in her attempts to keep a leash on him.

The Adept was right. It was time to teach her a lesson; time to put the leash on her.

And he knew exactly the bait for the trap. Hulda was tiring of her mule driver (in no small part because she was using him to exhaustion), but Ancar had anticipated that and had found a replacement a week ago.

This one, a slave—Ancar regretted that his tastes ran to women, and had set his agent to looking for a female counterpart to him—was altogether a remarkable specimen. The agent claimed he had been bred and schooled, like a warhorse, for the private chamber of a lady of wealth from Ceejay. She had met with an accident—quite remarkably, it was a real accident—and the agent had acquired the slave from the innkeeper to whom her lodging-monies were owed. It was then that he had discovered the young man’s talents, when he found the boy in bed with his wife…

He was, fortunately for Ancar, a man of phlegmatic temper and a man with his eye on the main chance. He had realized at once that this was an incident of little import. His marriage was one of convenience. The boy was a slave—whom would he tell? And who would believe him if he did speak? The woman would not dare to speak, for she would be the one disgraced if she did. The merchant’s reputation was safe enough, provided he rid his household of the boy and sent him far, far away. All he needed to do would be to find a buyer—and he knew he had one in Ancar.

He persuaded his wife that she would not be punished and received such a remarkable tale of the lad’s skill, training, and prowess, that he had sent a messenger to the King straight away. Ancar had bought the boy immediately, sight unseen, on the basis of that report, and had set him to work on one of the chambermaids, spying on the two to see if the reports were true.

They were more than true, and Ancar had come very close to envying that fortunate chambermaid. When the lad was through with her, she literally could not move, and she slept for an entire day.

Since then, the boy had been schooled as a page and kept strictly celibate. Reports had him frantic to exercise his craft. He should be quite ready to please Hulda now.

Ancar put the plan in motion, beginning by ordering roughly half of Hulda’s staff replaced that very hour, and slipping the boy in with the replacements. The rest would follow, for the slave had been conditioned that any female he called “mistress” must be pleased. Hulda would not be able to resist his fresh, innocent fairness, especially in contrast to her swarthy muleteer. She would set out to seduce him, and by the time she realized that the seduction was the other way around, she would be enjoying herself so much she would not think to look any further than the pleasures of the moment.

Ancar waited until his spies told him that Hulda had retired, and not alone. He reckoned that four candlemarks would be enough to give them together, and timed his spells accordingly. Her chamber was guarded against combative magics, but not against this. Then again, she had never dreamed he would be audacious enough to use controlling spells against her.

The spells fell into place, softly as falling snow. Ancar waited a candlemark or two more, then moved in with his escort of guards.

No one tried to stop him; the guards at her doors were all his. But he did not come bursting into her chambers—no, he had the doors opened slowly, carefully, so as not to startle the boy.

After all, he might have use for such a talent some other time.

The boy awakened instantly, and looked up from the wild disarray of the bedclothes, his long blond hair falling charmingly over one sleepy, frightened blue eye. Ancar put his finger to his lips, then motioned to the boy to take himself out of the room.

The slave slipped out of the bed so quietly that he did not even stir the sheets. He did not even stop to gather up his garments; one of the guardsmen, flushing a little, stopped him long enough to hand him a robe before he escaped back to the servants’ quarters. Ancar made a mental note to reward the man; a naked page skittering through the halls might cause some awkward comment. Quick thinking deserved a reward.

Ancar motioned to his guards to take up positions around the bed. Then he cleared his throat noisily.

Hulda reacted much faster than he had expected her to. She came up out of the bed like an enraged animal, fully attack-ready, her face a mask of pure anger.

“You!” she spat, seeing Ancar standing at the foot of her bed. “How dare you!” And she lashed out at him with her magic, as she would at a disobedient brat that needed a severe correction.

Tried to, that is. Ancar’s controlling spells stopped her in mid-strike.

He had expected her to be dumbfounded, perhaps to make another attempt. He had never thought she would go from “correction” into an all-out attempt at attack.

He stepped back a pace as he felt his spells shuddering under the impact of her attempt to break them—break through them, and break him. One look at her expression told him that she knew—

Knew that her control of him was over. Knew that he now intended to make an obedient servant of her. He was now the enemy, and she would destroy him if she could.

And in that moment, he realized just how tenuous his hold over her was. Suddenly, he was overcome with terror. She could, at any moment, break loose from his control. And when she did—she would go straight for his throat.

He was no match for her.

“Take her!” he shouted at the guards. They did not hesitate—and one of them had been around mages long enough not to give her any chance to turn her spells on him. The moment that Ancar snapped out the order, the man seized a rug from the floor and flung it over Hulda’s head, following it by flinging himself on her and the rug together. She had a fraction of a breath to be enveloped, realize she was trapped, and start to fight free. By then, he was on the bed, and coolly rapped her on the head with the pommel of his dagger. She collapsed in a heap; he gathered her up, rug and all, bound the entire package with a series of sashes and bedcurtain cords he snatched up from around him. He got to his feet, picked her up, and laid her at Ancar’s feet, and then stood back, presenting the “package” as a well-trained hunting dog presented his master with a duck.

Ancar grinned. “Well done!” he applauded, noting that the man was the same one who had given the page a robe. He would have to see the man was rewarded well. Perhaps with the page?

Well, that would have to wait. It was not safe to leave Hulda anywhere in the palace proper; the place was rife with her power-objects. But there was one place that would be perfectly safe.

And perfectly ironic.

Long ago, he and she had worked together to make one particular cell completely magic-proof. It had held the Herald Talia for a short time, and Ancar and Hulda both had been determined that once they recaptured the woman, she would become a return visitor to that cell, this time with no means of escape. The cell was so well shielded that not even mind-magic could escape it. The shields were a perfect mirror surface on the inside and would reflect any magic cast right back into the teeth of the caster.

And since Hulda had not been able to follow through on her promise to give him Talia, it was only fitting that she herself should test her handiwork. The irony was that although she herself had set the shields, from the inside she would not be able to take them down. Delightful.

He signed to the guard who had captured Hulda to pick her up again, and noted with approval that the man took the precaution of administering another carefully calculated rap to Hulda’s skull before picking her up. He was taking no chances—and Hulda would have a terrible headache when she woke.

The page was standing just inside the door to the pages’ quarters as they passed, still wrapped in Hulda’s fine silk robe, but with his long blond hair now neatly tied back, and his fair young face flushed. The guard carrying Hulda looked at him briefly and flushed, but it was not a blush of embarrassment. Ancar suppressed a smile of amusement.

Yes, he would certainly reward the man with the page. One night with the boy, and the guard would probably die for his lord out of purest gratitude.

With one guard leading, and the man with the Hulda-bundle following, he led the way down into the dungeons.

On the way, he ordered some servants’ livery to be brought along. He would leave nothing to chance, allow nothing from her chambers to enter the cell. If she wished to remain naked rather than clothe herself as his servant, that was her choice. If she chose to clothe herself—well, perhaps the lesson would be taken. If he could only control her, she could still be a useful tool…

Almost as useful as Mornelithe Falconsbane.

* * *

Falconsbane did not move from the chair when Ancar left. He was fairly certain the boy was going to take his advice. He was also fairly certain the boy would succeed.

Temporarily.

Hulda was a powerful Adept. The boy had never actually fought any mage head-to-head, much less an Adept, before this moment. When she recovered her strength, she would be perfectly capable of breaking anything that held her and quite ready to kill the one that had ordered her humiliation.

It might take a great deal of time—but she would do so, eventually, and she would devote every waking moment to the task. Hadn’t Falconsbane? And Hulda would not be hindered by physical weakness or unfamiliar surroundings.

The only question in Falconsbane’s mind was whether or not Ancar would succeed in killing her before she broke free of his control entirely.

The situation was perfect. He sipped his wine, and smiled.

One way or another, whether Ancar won or lost—he would be free, and both Hulda and Ancar would die. If Hulda killed Ancar, the coercions would go with him, and Hulda would be weak enough to destroy.

Falconsbane did not intend to leave an angry Adept on his backtrail when he left. The woman might make the mistake of trying to take him for herself.

If Ancar killed Hulda, he would have to devote everything he had to the attempt, and Falconsbane could break free as soon as the last bit of Ancar’s strength and attention went to the struggle. He might even help Ancar, a little and unobtrusively.

Then when Ancar lay completely exhausted, Falconsbane would kill him. Sadly, it would be so swift he would not gain much blood-magic power from it, but not all things in the world were ideal.

And then—he would have to flee. Either westward or southward; things should be chaotic enough with both obvious leaders gone that he could get back into territory he knew without recapture. If he had to cross Valdemar—well, he could simply cloak himself in the illusion of a simple human peasant, fleeing the war. He could feign being simple-minded to cover his lack of the language.

He toyed briefly with the notion of staying here and attempting to take the kingdom over—but no. Firstly, Ancar had laid waste to it in his foolish warring. At the moment, it was not worth having. There would be two hostile forces inclined to move in, at least, and perhaps more. He did not know this land, and all it would take would be one lucky fool at a moment of his own weakness to kill him. No one native to this place would ever suffer his rule willingly.

No, he must return home, pick up the pieces, build his power back to what it had been, and see what had happened to the Hawkfools in his absence. There were still the artifacts under the Dhorisha Plains to acquire—the permanent Gate beneath the ruins near k’Sheyna to explore—and revenge to be taken. His daughter was still loose, somewhere. And that most desirable mage-sword.

And gryphons…

Gryphons…