The Mage Winds Omnibus

Some were faded memories, some were fancies of his, a few cruelties he hadn’t yet tried. The dreams were as tortured as the man was twisted, and An’desha could hardly wait for them to fade into the formlessness of deep sleep. When Falconsbane slept, An’desha relaxed and waited for the Avatars to appear. If he’d had a stomach, it would have been twisted with nerves; if he’d had a body, he would have paced. That was one of the problems—there was a body, but it was no longer his.

The last time the Avatars came to him, they promised him that they had found his outside allies on the way, and that he would be able to Mindspeak with one in particular directly—and very soon. They warned him that this would only be possible while Falconsbane was deeply asleep and An’desha could walk the Moonpaths, but the prospect of actually having someone who could speak to him and help him in a real and physical way was so wonderful that it had not mattered. One person, at least, would know his secret and would work to free him.

As Falconsbane’s breathing slowed, the fire on the hearth flared for a moment, and a pair of glowing eyes in a tiny human face winked into existence. It was Tre’valen; he spread his arms there in the flames for the briefest of moments. The halo of transparent hawk wings shone around them.

:Come,: he said, and beckoned. An’desha did not need a second invitation; nervous energy catapulted him from this world into the next. As Tre’valen passed from the fire to the other worlds that held the Moonpaths, An’desha followed in his now-familiar wake.

He flung himself after Tre’valen with heart and will, going in and then out—

And, as he had so many times before, found himself standing beside the Avatar, on a pathway made of pearlescent light, surrounded by luminescent gray mist. Once again, he walked the Moonpaths with the Avatar of the Star-Eyed. But next to the Avatar was not Dawnfire, but someone entirely new.

The newcomer was an old woman, but strong and built like a fighter, with knotted muscles and face and arms burned brown by the sun and toughened with work in all weathers. She wore strange garments made of dark leather, simple breeches and an odd cape-shirt that seemed to have been made of an entire brain-tanned deerhide. Her hair was cut off at chin length and was as gray as iron and straight as grass. She stood beside Tre’valen with her hands on her hips, and although her face was seamed with wrinkles that indicated a certain stern character, he caught a kindly twinkle in her black eyes.

He liked her instinctively; if this had been his Clan shaman, he might never have tried to run away.

“So this is the boy,” she said, and reached out to seize his chin so she could peer into his eyes. He had the distinct impression that she was weighing and measuring everything he was and had ever been. “Huh. You need some shaping, some tempering, and that’s for certain. You’re not pot-metal, but you’re not battle-steel either, not yet.”

He traded her look for look, sensing that shyness and diffidence would win nothing from her but contempt. “I haven’t exactly had an opportunity for tempering, Wise One,” he replied. “My experiences have been limited by circumstance.”

Tre’valen laughed silently, his star-filled eyes somehow seeming more human than usual, and the old woman’s lips twitched as if she were trying not to laugh herself. “And why is that, boy?”

“Because—” he faltered for a moment, losing his courage as he was forced to actually say what he was. Or rather, was not, anymore. “—because my body belongs to Falconsbane, and any moments that I live I must steal from him.”

She raised an eyebrow, as if she did not find this to be so terrible. “Oh, so? And I suppose you feel very sorry for yourself, eh? You feel the fates have mistreated you?”

“Ha. You don’t even know your own mind.” She lifted her lip in a faint sneer and narrowed her gaze. “Well, this fellow here has told me all about you, and I’ll tell you what I think. I could feel sorry for you, but I won’t. I’ve known too many people with hard lives or harder deaths to feel sorry for you. And what’s more, if you indulge yourself in self-pity, I’m gone! I don’t waste my time on people who spend all their time pitying themselves and not doing anything. You want out of this situation, boy, you help make it happen!”

The words stung, but not with the crack of a whip, or as salt in a wound, but rather as a brisk tap to awaken him. He lifted his chin and straightened his back. For all the harshness of her words, there was a kindliness in her tone that made him think she really did feel sorry for him, and would help him the best way she knew how.

And she was right; was Nyara’s lot not much harder than his own? And any of Falconsbane’s victims that had perished in pain surely exceeded anything that had happened to him! “Yes, Wise One,” he said, forthrightly. “Tre’valen has already explained all this to me. If I am to take my body and my life back, I must earn the aid to do so. I was a coward, Wise One, but not a fool. Or rather, I was a fool before, but I am no longer one, I hope.”

She snorted, but the smile was back and the sneer was gone. “Piff. A brave man is simply someone who doesn’t let his cowardice and fear stop him. Hellfires, boy, we’re all cowards at some time or another. Me, I was afraid of deep water. Never did learn to swim.”

He had to smile at that. Oh, this was a crusty old woman, but she had a good heart, and a keen mind that must make her a kind of shaman among her own people. And she did want to help him, he knew it now as well as he knew his own predicament. Somehow her will to help him made him more confident than the Avatars’ promises. They were otherworldly and uncanny, but she was as earthy and real as a good loaf of bread. As the Shin’a’in proverb went, “It is easier to believe in grain than spirits.”

“I should rather think that the water would fear you, Wise One, and part to let you pass,” he said, greatly daring but feeling she would like the attempt at a joke.

She did; she laughed, throwing her head back and braying like a donkey. “All right, Tre’valen, you were right, he’ll do. He’ll do.”

She turned serious, all in a moment. “Now listen, boy. You remember those people Falconsbane wanted to get his claws into so much? The daughter, the girl in white, the Hawkbrother boy? The ones Tre’valen told you were going to be coming this way to do something about Ancar and Falconsbane?”

He nodded. Nyara he knew too well. The girl of the white spirit-steed was one that Falconsbane had coveted, and had never even touched. The Hawkbrother—Darkwind, he remembered—was the son of Starblade, the Hawkbrother mage Falconsbane had gleefully corrupted.

He winced away from the memories that name called up, and not just because they were unpleasant, but because there had been moments of pleasure there, too. Falconsbane was an Adept at combining pleasure and pain, as well as an Adept mage. And he had taken pleasure in the pain, and used the pleasure to cause pain. That was what made An’desha so uncomfortable with those memories… that was what felt so… unclean. Falconsbane knew so much—and to use what he knew in the way he did—that made him all the worse, for he could have used it to such good ends had he wished. The Avatars did, and this woman had power. And the others—

“Well, those three are coming. To Hardorn, here. They are on the way right this very moment. They intend to get Ancar and Hulda—and Falconsbane; eliminate them completely, before Ancar can destroy Valdemar. What we—you, me, and the Avatars—want to do is see if they can’t get Falconsbane without getting you. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She cocked her head to one side and regarded him carefully.

“Somehow we have to find a way to kill Falconsbane without killing my body, so I can have it back.” He shook his head, feeling a sudden sinking of spirits. Put baldly, he could not see how they could manage this. “I am no mage, Wise One, but that seems an impossible task,” he faltered.

She snorted. “Hellfires, boy, I’ve seen less likely than that come to pass in my time. Improbable, maybe. What’s impossible is how he has managed to flit from body to body, down all these years,” she countered. “We don’t know how he’s done it. If you can find that out for me, we have a chance.”

His spirits soared again. She had a point! Falconsbane had to have a way for his spirit to remain intact down all the centuries. And she was clearly a mage, so perhaps once she knew how the Adept had done this, perhaps she could see a way to force him out again.

He nodded with excitement, and she smiled. “Right,” she said. “Now, there are actually five people coming in on this, and three of ’em are Adepts, so among all of us, I think we have a pretty good chance of coming up with an answer for you. Say—” she added as an afterthought. “You want to see what they look like right now? I tell you, it’s worth seeing, you will not believe what they’re doing.”

“Oh—yes, please,” he replied, eagerly. Tre’valen had shown him these people once, but he was starved for another sight of them. One, in particular…

A circular section of the mist between her and Tre’valen brightened—and then suddenly it was as if he were staring out a round window onto a road.

There were three riders framed in that “window,” riding side-by-side. First was that incredibly handsome young man, this time with his long hair bound in a single braid down the back of his neck, and dressed in a motley of robes that would have been, separately, breathtaking and striking, but worn together presented a vision of the most appalling bad taste that An’desha had ever seen in his life. Around his neck, the young man bore a jangling tangle of cheap and tawdry jewelry, and surmounting his head was a—

Well, An’desha could not call this “creation” a hat. It was turbanlike, but so huge that it made his head look as if he were the stem of a mushroom, with a huge, scarlet cap. It, too, was covered with tinsel and jewelry, and rising in moth-eaten splendor in the front was a cluster of the saddest plumes ever to have sprung from some unfortunate bird.

His mount was a dyheli, but one with gilded horns, ribbons woven in his tail, and mismatched bells jangling all over some kind of harness as bright and tasteless as the rider’s robes. The dyheli seemed to find this as amusing as the rider did.

And perched on his shoulder, in a state of resigned disgust, was a white firebird, wing-primaries and tail-feathers dyed in rainbow colors, with a huge ribbon-cluster tied onto its head, and ribbon-jesses trailing from bracelets on its legs. It was most definitely not amused.

“Makes quite a sight, doesn’t he, our young Firesong,” the old woman said, grinning. “Now, looking at that, would you ever guess him to be a Tayledras Healing Adept?”

“Never,” An’desha said firmly. “Nor would I take him to be other than a charlatan.”

“Most wouldn’t take him at all,” she said dryly, “for fear his clothes might stick to them.”

It was hard to turn his attention away from Firesong—for even done up in all that laughable “finery” he made An’desha ache with odd longings. He did look away, though, for the other two riders would be just as important to him as the handsome young Hawkbrother.

They rode a pair of glossy, matched bays, but were otherwise completely unremarkable. They were just another pair of shifty-eyed toughs. Under the slouches and the skin-dye, the oily hair, the sneers and the scuffed leather armor, he could see that the two were that Elspeth and Skif he had also seen before, in Tre’valen’s vision. But it would have taken the eye of someone who knew them to see a pair of fine young Heralds in these two ne’er-do-wells. He guessed, from their postures, that when they walked, Skif would swagger, and Elspeth would slink. He would not have trusted either of them with a clipped coin, and he rather fancied that when they entered a place, women rushed to hide their children.

The vision shifted, and it was clear that the three were riding in front of a wagon, drawn by mules. And there was Nyara, beside the driver, wearing practically nothing at all, with a collar and chain holding her to a huge iron ring beside the wagon seat. She did not seem in any distress, however; in fact, she had draped herself across the seat in a languorous and seductive—and very animalistic—pose. Beside her, wearing a less flamboyant version of Firesong’s motley, was Darkwind. He slouched over the reins, his posture suggesting that he was both submissive and bored. His hawk sat on his shoulder, looking around alertly, with ribbon-jesses like the firebird’s, but without the ribbon-hat.

But the collar and leash on Nyara bothered him, and made him worried for her. What would she do if some toady of Ancar’s attempted some kind of attack? “The collar snaps right off,” the old woman assured him, evidently reading his mind as easily as the Avatars did. “She can be rid of it any time she likes. They’re playing at being entertainers, with a traveling Faire. Firesong’s a magician with a trick-bird act, Darkwind is his assistant, Nyara is his ‘captive cat-woman.’ She does a dance where she takes off most of her clothes, too; I tell you that makes the hair on these villagers curl. The other two are selling a bogus cure-all that Firesong supposedly makes. It’s spiced brandy with some good herbs in it, which is more than I can say for most quack cure-alls, and they price it about the same as a bottle of brandy, so people are willing to buy.”

An’desha stared at Nyara, not because he found her seductive, but because an idea was slowly beginning to form in his mind. “Wise One,” he offered, hesitantly, “You do know that if Falconsbane should hear rumors of a cat-woman, he would be eager to know more. He might even try to see her for himself. He does not know it was Nyara who smashed his crystal and flung him into the Void.”

“No,” An’desha said firmly. “I know his mind, and I know that he never knew that. At the moment, he believes that she fled into the East. He could readily believe she came far enough to be caught by these folk. And he does not know how far to the East he truly is from his home.”

“Really?” The old woman’s eyes narrowed in sudden concentration. “Now isn’t that a bit of interesting thought! I’ll pass that on, and we’ll see if we can’t build on it, eh?”

He smiled shyly back at her, and was about to ask her where she was in this caravan—and then felt the laggings that meant Falconsbane was about to awaken.

The sparse crowd on either side of the road was quiet. In Valdemar they’d have been cheering.

:You don’t deserve me,: Cymry said to Skif, with a chuckle in her mind-voice.

:So long as it’s mutual,: Skif replied. From anyone besides Cymry, he’d have taken offense, but such jabs between close friends were amusing, in a situation where little else was. He was worried about Nyara, wondering if she had overestimated her ability to cope with her role of sexual object. The stares of the men made her tenser than she admitted, and the strain of the dancing-show left her trembling with fear after every performance.

He scowled at the townsfolk, who stood outside their doors and stared at the passing wagons, a bit of interest coming into their otherwise sad and bleak-eyed faces. He didn’t really want to scowl, and it made him sorry to see the fear in their eyes when he gave them that unfriendly look, but the scowl fit the persona he wore. Hardorn had gotten worse since the last time he had been through it, and things hadn’t been all that good then. Most of the people had lost all hope, and it showed, in the untended streets, in the threadbare clothing, in the ill-kept houses.

:There’s a young man over there with a bad leg—see him?: she replied, pointing with her nose to the road just ahead. :He was in the cavalry, got hurt, and got kicked out, and he thinks you stole me—and he knows you don’t deserve me. He’s got some rudimentary Mindspeech, so I can hear him.:

And from the frown on the young man’s face, he was resentful enough to make his thoughts heard to anyone unshielded. It was fairly easy to see why he’d gotten the boot from the cavalry; he’d broken his leg and no one had bothered to set it properly, so it had healed all wrong. He could use it, but not well and he needed a cane; the leg jutted at a crooked angle that must have made walking an agony. Skif grimaced; that sort of thing would never have happened in Valdemar. It would never even have happened in Kero’s Skybolts, or any other good merc company.

It appeared that the rotten weather was plaguing Hardorn just as badly as Valdemar, and Ancar had not even bothered to try to do anything about it. The town was between storms at the moment, but the streets were deeply rutted, as muddy as a river, and the skies were overcast.

But Firesong would make certain the bad weather held off so that the troupe could hold its entertainments as soon as they set up. They traveled under cloudy but rainless skies, thanks to him, Darkwind, and Elspeth.

The traveling Faire needed that break in the local weather, if they were going to make any money; that had been part of the bargain Kero and Talia had made for the protection of the wagon-folk. Wherever the carnival went, the weather would be as close to clear as they could manage, so the tents would go up without hindrance, and the performers’ shows could go on without a downpour. And, as usual, Nyara would be one of the most popular acts in the carnival.

He thrust down his surge of jealousy and anxiety at that thought, his hands tightening on Cymry’s reins. And he vowed, once again, that he would not take that jealousy out on her. She was doing her part—she didn’t like what she was doing any better than he did. She had told him it made her feel greasy, as if the men watching her had been running their hands on her and leaving oily marks behind. It frightened her although she would never admit it to anyone but him. And he was afraid it called up old, bad memories as well.

That didn’t make the jealousy go away, but it made it a little easier to live with and control. Perhaps simply thinking about it was giving him more control over it. He hoped so, because Nyara’s exotic beauty was likely to bring the attraction of men wherever she went, even if she wore the robes of a cloistered sister.

There had been some muttering about Nyara’s popularity as an act among the rest of the troupe after their first stop and her first performances. That muttering had ended when he and Nyara distributed the “take” among the rest of the entertainers. That had been Nyara’s idea, and he was glad she had suggested it, for it had turned what might have become an ugly situation into a pleasant one. Now everyone watched cheerfully as their tent filled for Nyara’s show, for the bigger the audience, the more there would be for all to share. Their cover story, of searching for lost relatives with a view to extracting them from Hardorn, was holding water, given more credence by the fact that among the troupers, they were making no attempt to conceal the fact that they had no interest in making a profit.

As Talia had warned, there were no families with this troupe; only single men and very few women. Most of those women were actually as hardened and tough as Elspeth looked to be. Only people willing to risk everything for a fast profit would make such a journey. There were no real Faires in Hardorn anymore, and no single peddlers providing the country folk with goods. This might be the only entertainment these people would see for the next year—and it would certainly be the only chance they’d have to spend a coin or two on something besides day-to-day necessities. Ancar might be grinding his people into poverty, but there were still youngsters falling in love and wanting love-tokens; still pretty girls wishing for something bright to attract someone’s eye; still loving husbands wanting a special little gift for a new mother. Ordinary life went on, even while war raged over the border, and Ancar despoiled his own land…

The houses ended, and the road came out on the village common—high ground, thank goodness, and not as sodden as the last place they’d played. Ahead of him, the other members of the troupe had begun to form the rows of wagons that became the carnival. Every wagon had its particular place; closest to the village, the food sellers and the trained beasts. Next, the folk with fairings and other goods to sell. Farthest away, entertainment tents. There were reasons for the placement, based on how people spent their money; Skif didn’t pretend to understand any of it, but he followed the wagon-master’s waved direction, and led the way for Darkwind to bring the wagon up beside the one with the contortionist and jugglers. They were, as always, the last in the row, since Nyara was the most popular of acts. Anyone who wanted to see her had to make his way past the temptation of every other peddler, vendor, and entertainer in the carnival.

Firesong didn’t even pretend to be an “act” anymore; his show was strictly to attract people to the tent between Nyara’s shows, so that Skif and Darkwind could try and sell them bottles of cure-all. He was having the time of his life. He combined sleight-of-hand with genuine illusions, ending with bird tricks, which Aya suffered through and Vree positively bounced through. There was one trick, however, that all of them enjoyed—

—the one where Aya would sail out into the audience, and pick out particularly impoverished-looking children, bringing one back to his bondmate. Then Firesong would pluck gilded “coins” from the child’s ears, hair, pockets—any place he could think of—until the child’s hands were overflowing with the bounty of what appeared to be gold-painted mock-coins. Then he would send the little one back out to his or her parents, who were always indulgently pleased with the little one’s “treasure,” assuming it to be as tawdry as Firesong’s jewelry.

Of course, the next day, when the illusion wore off and the coins proved to be real copper and silver, their reaction would probably be something else entirely. Every member of the assassination team wished they could see that moment. There was something redeeming about doing small acts of kindness while they faced their necessary task with varying measures of reluctance.

The wagon slowed and was parked. Elspeth and Skif left their Companions to join Darkwind in readying their show.

Elspeth unhitched the mules and picketed them. Skif went to the back of the wagon and jumped up onto the little porch there, reached up to release a latch at the top, just under the roof, while Darkwind did the same at the front.

Skif watched Darkwind, reflexively analyzing his weak points and noting his handyness. Skif had been going over parts of his past during this trip, and remembered the knife-edges of resentment he had suppressed while Elspeth and Darkwind grew closer. He remembered analyzing Darkwind for the quickest elimination many times, in case he became a threat to Valdemar or Elspeth. Now, though, there was no animosity toward him—it was simply habit.

Darkwind stepped back and signaled. Carefully, they brought what had appeared to be the side of the wagon down on its hinges; this was the stage. This would be where Firesong would work his magic; behind the stage-platform was the real side of the wagon, and there were racks of “Magic Pandemonium Cure-All” in scarlet bottles, built into the recess the stage had covered. The stage itself was hinged its entire length, and he and Darkwind dropped it down onto four stout legs they pulled from under the wagon to support its weight.

While he and Darkwind set up the stage, Elspeth and Nyara crawled under the wagon to take the tent and tent poles from the rack beneath. By the time the stage was set up, they had the tent spread out on the other side, ready to erect. He and Darkwind pounded stakes into the soft earth at each corner, ready to take the guy ropes.

Another stage dropped down from this side of the wagon, but this one had a curtain behind it and was the actual wagon wall. Nyara would appear and retreat into the wagon itself, which doubled as their living-quarters. The wagon formed the back wall of the tent, with the canvas forming the other three walls and roof. It only held about ten people crowded in together, but the stage was high enough that no one could reach Nyara without encountering either him or Elspeth. Lanterns on either side of the curtain gave enough light to see most of Nyara’s performance.

Ten was as many people as they wanted to have to handle, just in case anyone decided to try to get more out of Nyara than a dance. Darkwind provided the “music” she danced to—a drum—and Skif and Elspeth stood guard over the stage while Firesong guarded the outside. If the men ever got to the point where swords weren’t deterrent enough, Darkwind or Elspeth would hit them with true magic to get rid of them.

The canvas was heavy and unwieldy; he and Firesong—who had shed the hat and most of the robes to help with the work—took one side, while Darkwind and Elspeth wrestled with the other, and Nyara crawled inside to set up the tent poles. He sneaked a look at her receding—anatomy.

The first few times they’d done this, it had taken so long that the other wagon-folk had given them a hand so that the carnival could open before dark. Now they were only a little slower than the rest, which was fine, since they were at the end of the line anyway. They would be set up by the time people actually got here.

He sniffed; there was hot oil and spice from the food-vendors, who sold grease-fried bits of salty dough and other things, cups of sweetened water with vegetable dyes in them, and very cheap beer. He knew better than to eat anything from the vendors; one of the reasons that “Pandemonium Cure-All” made money was that it had stomach-soothers in it, and the Great Mage Pandemonium could usually effect a cure or two right on the spot. The vendors shrugged and said philosophically that Faire-food was always pretty awful; if you wanted a good meal, you ate at home. But given the hungry stares some of the people of Hardorn had, Skif had to wonder if this was good food now, to them. Gods, that was a frightening thought.

The center of the tent rose to a peak; Nyara had gotten the middle pole up. She always had a knack for that. A moment later, the two corner poles went in. Skif and Darkwind pulled the corner ropes as tight as they could, then tied them to the stakes they’d pounded into the ground. The canvas by the wagon bobbed as Nyara tied it to the top of the wagon from inside. He dusted off his muddy hands on his breeches and went around to the front to join the others.

Darkwind and Elspeth were already at the edge of the outer stage, and a moment later, Firesong emerged from the back of the wagon, his dubious finery back in place and a grin on his face. His firebird stretched its wings by flying to the front of the carnival and back, causing cries of excitement from the gathering townsfolk as it flew overhead, streaming ribbons. Vree did the same, indulging in some aerobatics to make up in showmanship what he lacked in appearance.

“We’ve got everything well in hand,” Darkwind said, as he looked around for something to do. “Why don’t you go into the wagon and spend a little time with Nyara before the first show? You two have little enough time with each other.”

It was a suggestion Darkwind didn’t have to make twice. Skif ran up the set of stairs at the tail of the wagon and joined Nyara.

She was putting on little bits of makeup and rabbit fur to make her look as if she was wearing a costume. They included a preposterous pair of artificial ears that she could have used as sails, if they’d had a boat.

She was holding them with an expression of distaste. “I do not like these,” she sighed. “They do not fit well, and they are very itchy!”

He chuckled and took one for her, carefully fitting it over her own, delicately pointed ear. “If you wouldn’t be so impatient, and wait for me to come and help you, they wouldn’t itch as badly,” he told her, carefully gluing it in place along her cheek.

She smiled wryly, and handed him the other one to put on for her, then began to add cat-stripes to her forehead and cheekbones. “I wish we did not have to do this,” she said pensively. But behind the pensive expression, he sensed real strain and fear. Was there more strain there tonight than last night?

“I do, too,” he told her, his voice husky with the effort of holding back emotions. She turned, then, and quickly laid the palm of her hand against his cheek, staring up into his eyes.

“If you dislike it so greatly that it hurts you—I will stop—” she faltered, searching his face for his true feelings. “We could—I could be displayed in a cage, perhaps—”

But that notion clearly made her more afraid than the dancing did. He shook his head, his stomach in turmoil, and captured her hand in his own. “No,” he told her. “No, this is the best and fastest way to get Him to hear about you. We need that. But—I worry about you,” he continued, his throat feeling choked and thick. “I know that this could be hurting you, all these men, staring at you, and thinking the way your father did. I worry if you think I’m thinking that, too, if you wonder if that’s the only way I see you, as something to use—to own—”

She licked her lips and swallowed. “Yes,” she admitted after a long moment. “Yes, sometimes I do wonder that. And sometimes I wonder if that is the only real worth I have—”

He started to blurt something, but she laid her finger against his lips, and smiled, a thin, sad smile but a real one. “But then,” she continued, “you say something like you just did—or Need tells me to stop being a stupid little kitten and get on with my job, and I know it is not true.”

She took her finger away, pulled him close, and locked him in another of her impossible, indescribable embraces.

He kissed her gently, but with no less passion. “I love you, too, cat-lady.”

She laughed at the grease-makeup that smeared his face and delicately touched a clawed finger to the tip of his nose.

And then Darkwind began to beat the drum for Firesong’s first turn, and there was no time…

Treyvan narrowed his eyes, and regarded a scarlet-clad Sun-priestess with what he hoped was a predatory expression. “I agrrree with you that Rassshi isss a young idiot,” he said carefully, “and he isss likely mossst difficult to worrrk with. He isss ssscatterrrbrrrained.”

“But,” he continued, “you will worrrk with him. He knowsss the ssspellsss that you do not, and you need to know them. Morrre, you need to learrrn how to worrrk with thossse you do not carrre forrr.”

The priestess tossed her head; he had been warned about her. She was formerly from a noble Karsite family, and she was very conscious of her birth-rank. She had made trouble before this, during her training as a priestess. Rashi, besides being scatterbrained, was the son of a pigkeeper. But he was kindhearted as well, and he knew a series of protective spells that no one else here had mastered—and whether she liked it or not, Treyvan was determined that Gisell would learn them, and would learn to work with him.

Treyvan rose to his full height, and towered over her. “You will worrrk with him,” he repeated. “A mage who will not cooperrrate isss a dangerrr to all of usss. And I am not of Valdemarrr, Karrrse, orrr Rrrethwellan. I do not carrre about you orrr yourrrr alliancesss. I will be gone when thisss warrr isss overrr. I do thisss asss a perrsssonal favorrr to Darrrkwind. And I will sssnap the sssspine of anyone who makesss thisss tasssk morrrre difficult!”

Her face went blank, as she picked his words out of the tangle of trills and hisses, and then she paled. He snapped his beak once, loudly, by way of emphasis, a sound like two dry skulls crunching against each other.

“I have younglingssss to feed,” Hydona added suggestively, looking over Treyvan’s shoulder. “Meat-eaterrrsss. They do ssso love meat of good brrreeding.”

The priestess swallowed once, audibly, then tried to smile. “Perhaps Rashi simply needs some patience?” she suggested meekly.

“Patiencssse isss a good thing,” Treyvan agreed, lying back down again. “Patiencssse isss a jewel in the crrrown of any prrriessstesss.”

The priestess bowed with newly born meekness, then turned to go back to poor young Rashi, her assigned partner, who probably had no idea the young woman had come storming up to Treyvan to demand someone else. The trouble was, there was no one else. The priestess had alienated every Herald and most of the Rethwellan mages except dim but good-natured Rashi.

Gisell was only half-trained, but would certainly be Master rank when she finally completed her schooling. Rashi was only a bottom-rank Journeyman, a plain and simple earth-wizard, and never would be any more powerful than that—but his training had been the best. His instincts were sharp, and his skills were sound.

This was the essence of all the pairs, triads, and quartets that Treyvan and Hydona were setting up. Powerful but half-trained mages were partnered with educated but less powerful mages, with the former working through the latter, as Elspeth had worked in partnership with Need. To the knowledge of any of the fully schooled mages, no one had ever tried this before. All the better. What had never been tried, Ancar could not anticipate.

Some of these teams were already out with the Guard or the Skybolts—and there had been not one, but two Adept-class potential Heralds among the two dozen or so that had come riding in, responding to the urgent need sent out on the Web. Both of them had been paired immediately, one with the single White Winds teacher young enough to endure the physical hardships of this war, and one with the Son of the Sun’s right-hand wizard, a surprisingly young man with a head full of good sense and a dry sense of humor that struck chords with Treyvan’s own. They were doing a very fine job of holding Ancar’s progress to a crawl, simply by forcing Ancar’s mages to layer protections on the coercive spells controlling his fighters. Ancar had, in fact, been forced to send in the Elite Guard, putting them immediately behind the coerced troops to supply a different kind of motivation to advance.

Treyvan and Hydona were in complete charge of Valdemar’s few mages and mage-allies, simply because they were the most foreign. Their ongoing story, at least so far as anyone other than Selenay and her Council were concerned, was just what Treyvan had told that young priestess. They were doing this as a favor to Darkwind; they were completely indifferent to Valdemaran politics, external or internal. Add to that their size and formidable appearance… thus far, no one had cared to challenge any of their edicts. When they needed to coordinate with Valdemar’s forces, they went through subcommanders Selenay had assigned.

Treyvan turned his attention back to the trio he had been working with before Gisell interrupted. “Yourrr parrrdon,” he said, thinking as he did so that at any other time and place, these three would have been at such odds that there would probably have been bloodshed. Not that they weren’t getting along; they were cooperating surprisingly well. But a south-border Herald, a red-robed Priest of Vkandis, and a mage who had once fought Karse under Kerowyn… it could have been trouble.

The priest shrugged, the Herald chuckled, and the merc mage shook his head. “Gisell always difficult has been,” the priest said, in his stilted Valdemaran. “Young, she is.”

“Just wait until she gets out on the lines, she’ll settle down,” the Herald advised. The mage, an older man, bent and wizened, nodded.

“They gen’rally do,” he said comfortably. “Either that, or they don’ last past their first fight.” He glanced at the other two. “You, now—I kin work with the both of ye.”

“Query, one only, had I,” the priest said, looking at Treyvan, but with a half-smile for the old man. Treyvan waited, but the priest, oddly, hesitated. Treyvan wished he could read human faces better; this man’s expression was an odd one. It looked like his face-skin was imploding.

“Red-robe, I am not, truly,” he said after a moment. “Black-robe am I. Or was I.”

He looked from the Herald to the other mage, who shrugged without comprehension, and sighed.

“Black-robe, the Son has said, no more to be. Black-robes, demon-runners are.” And he watched, warily, for a reaction.

He got one. The old mage hissed and stepped back a pace; the Herald’s eyes widened. It was the Herald who spoke first, not to Treyvan, but to the priest.

“I’d heard rumors some of you could control demons,” he said, his eyes betraying his unease, “but I never believed it—I never saw anything to make me believe it.”

“Control?” The priest shrugged. “Little control. As—control great rockfall. Take demon—send demon—capture demon. The Son likes demons not; the Son has said: ‘Demons be of the dark, Vkandis is all of the light.’ Therefore, no more demon-runners.”

But the priest shook his head. “No. Rank stays, robe goes, and no more demon-runners.” He turned back to Treyvan. “Question: demons terrible be and all of the dark. Yet them do we use now, here?”

Treyvan lidded his eyes, thinking quickly. How he wished this man’s superior was here! “Jussst what doesss he mean by ‘demonsss’?” he asked the Herald, who seemed to have some inkling of what the priest was talking about.

“There’ve always been stories that some of the Vkandis priests could control supernatural night-creatures,” the Herald replied. The priest followed the words closely, nodding vigorously from time to time when the Herald hit precisely on the facts. “They’re supposed to be unstoppable—they keep whole villages indoors at night for fear of them, and they are said to be able to take individuals right out of their beds in locked homes, with no one the wiser. What these things are, I don’t know—though from what you and Jonaton there have taught me so far, my guess is they’re from the Abyssal Plane, which would mean they aren’t real bright. Basically, you haul them out, give them a target or an area to patrol, turn them loose—and try to stay out of their way.”

The priest was nodding so hard now that Treyvan was afraid his head would come off. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, and terrible, terrible.”

Treyvan’s own magic was of the direct sort; he had little experience in using or summoning creatures of any of the Planes. The closest he had ever come was in calling an elemental or two, like a vrondi. This sort of thing was usually undertaken by a mage with little mind-magic and a fairly weak Mage-Gift, but with a great deal of trained will. A focused and trained will could accomplish a great deal, even when the sorcerer’s own powers were slight, provided the sorcerer had a known source of energy. Unfortunately, when a mage’s own abilities were poor, the most certain source of energy was that of pain and death. Which was why most of the mages summoning other-Planar creatures were blood-path mages.

This priest seemed to be the exception to that rule; he was somewhere on the border between Journeyman and Master, and he certainly didn’t need demons to help him. He seemed very sincere, and very anxious that they know both that he could call demons, and that they were pretty dreadful creatures.

“Terrible, terrible,” the priest repeated. “But Ancar terrible is. Yes?”

Ah, so what he was saying was that the demons were a dreadful weapon, but they were a weapon Ancar might deserve to get in his teeth.

Now here was a dilemma, if ever there was one. A terrifying weapon, an evil enemy. Did the one deserve the other?

Treyvan ground his beak, frustrated. He had flown out to the front lines once, and it was a damned mess. It had Falconsbane written all over it; there was that kind of callous disregard for life. The carnage could not have been described. Ancar was driving his troops over ground so thick with the bodies of the dead that there wasn’t a handspan of dirt or grass visible anywhere. If a soldier lost a limb, he could bend over and pick up a new one.

“Could Ancarrr take yourrr demonsss, once you loosssed them?” he asked the priest urgently. “Could he ussse them?”

The man looked very startled, as if he had not considered that question. Then, after a moment of thought, he nodded slowly.

Treyvan let out a growling breath he did not realize he had been holding in. So much for the moral question. You do not fling a weapon at your enemy that he may then pick up and use.

“No demonsss,” he said firmly. “We do not give Ancarrr demonsss he can ssssend back.” The priest looked relieved. The Herald and old Jonaton definitely looked relieved.

“Now,” he continued, “let usss once again trrry thisss messshing of sssshieldsss…”

The gryphlets and the two royal twins were playing a game of tag. Of all of them, Hydona reflected, it was the children who were affected the least. For as long as Lyra and Kris had been alive, there had been war with Ancar and danger in Valdemar. For as long as Lytha and Jerven had been alive, they had nested in a perilous world. For both sets of twins, the danger was only a matter of degree. And the tension their parents were under was offset by the joy of having a new set of playmates.

For the two human children, having the fascinating Rris as a new teacher and nurse only made things better. And as for the gryphlets, they now had a brand new playground, and an entire new set of toys and lessons. For the four of them, life was very good.

The youngsters all lived together during the day in the salle. Lessons at the Collegium had been canceled for the duration, and the trainees set to running errands—or, if they were about to graduate, were thrown into Whites and put under the direct tutelage of an experienced Herald. The salle had only one entrance, and that could be easily guarded—and was, not only by armed Guardsmen but by every unpartnered Companion at the Collegium, in teams of four pairs. Inside, ropes could be strung from the ceiling for young gryphlets to climb, practice dummies set up for them to wrestle, and a marvelous maze of things to climb on, slide down, and crawl about in could be constructed for both species. All of these things were done. They caused twice the noise of a war themselves when they were in full swing.

When the children tired, there was always Rris or the two human nurses—a pair of retired Heralds—who were ready to tell stories or teach reading and writing—well, reading, anyway. The gryphlets’ talons were not made for holding human-sized pens. The nurses also instructed the youngsters in the rudiments of any of the four languages now being spoken on the Palace grounds.

Already it was a race to see if the human children picked up more Kaled’a’in, or the gryphlets more Valdemaran, just from playing with each other.

Hydona sighed, thinking wistfully how much she wished she could join the little ones, if only for an hour. But at least she had them when the day was done… and Rris was the best teacher anyone could ever have asked for. It was a truism that those who provided support were greater heroes than the ones who fought the wars, so Rris was as much a hero as his “Famous Cousin Warrl.”

She knew that Selenay felt the same, but Selenay spent far more time away from her little ones than Hydona did, for Selenay’s day did not end when she and a set of pupils were exhausted. The Queen and Kerowyn coordinated everything from the War Room in the Palace.

Valdemar’s greatest advantage remained its communications. Tactics could be put hand in hand with strategy from the Palace, thanks to Mindspoken dispatches, read in condensed battle-code, from field scoutings. Valdemar’s second advantage was knowledge of the land; Heralds on circuit for so many generations had kept precise maps. Whether the land was high or low, wet or dry, resources could be moved rapidly with a minimum of waste.

Ancar had taken a bite from the side of Valdemar; Selenay and Kerowyn were ensuring that he did not find it an easy bite to digest. Treyvan’s mages harried his mages, concentrating all their power on simply disrupting whatever spells had been set, by targeting the mages for specific, personalized nuisance attacks as well as attempting to break the spells themselves. This, evidently, was a strategy no one had used here. Ancar had not anticipated that FarSeers could identify his mages at a distance, and pass that information to mages who could then tailor their spells to suit. It did seem to be helping. And the Guard and Skybolts ran constant hit-then-run-away attacks against his lines, never letting Ancar’s troops rest quietly, and doing their best to disrupt the supply lines.

The good news was that the civilian evacuation was working. There were a minimum of civilian casualties, those mostly too stupid or stubborn to leave when they were told to. This was something Hydona could not understand. How could humans be so attached to things and property that they would lose their lives simply to stay with those things? Nesting for the deranged.

She watched the youngsters a moment more, her heart aching with the need to cuddle them, human and gryphlet alike. But they had not noticed her, and she would not disturb their moment of joy for the world. Too often, the appearance of a parent meant the bad news that the parent would be away for a while. And while the younglings were amazingly resilient and seemed able to play no matter what, there were dark fears lurking beneath their carefree exteriors. When Mummy or Daddy came to say they would be “away,” there was always that fear that “away” would mean far away, like Teren and Jeri, and Darkwind and Elspeth—and they might not come back again…

Hydona slipped out again, with a nod of thanks to the Guard and a feather touch for three of the Companions. Her pupils were ready for the front lines; soon all of the mages would be with the troops, and it would be time for that dreaded “going away.” Treyvan and Hydona would have to leave the little ones, to take personal command of the mage-troops.

But as she neared the Palace, she saw a horse being led to the stables, and took a second, sharper look at it.

She spread her wings and bounded a few steps, taking to the air to fly the rest of the distance to the Palace. As she neared, she saw someone—one of the gray-clad trainees—waving frantically to her.

She backwinged to a landing, trying not to knock the poor child off her feet, as the girl braced herself against the wash from her wings.

“There’s some ’un t’ see ye, Lady,” the girl said. “What I mean is, she’s seen th’ Queen, now she wants t’ see one o’ ye gryphons.”

“I come to you, Lady,” replied the black-clad Shin’a’in Swordsworn, who emerged from the door behind the trainee. To Hydona’s amazement she used Kaled’a’in, not Shin’a’in or Valdemaran.

This plethora of tongues could get to be very confusing, she thought fleetingly as the Shin’a’in sketched a salute.

“It would, of course, be far too difficult for you to enter this door,” the woman continued. “I bring greetings Lady, from your kin—”

Then before Hydona could say or do anything, the woman closed her eyes in concentration and began to rattle off a long series of personal messages, messages that were, unmistakably, from Hydona’s kin and friends still in the Kaled’a’in Vale. There were something like twenty of them, and the poor trainee simply stood there in bafflement while the Swordsworn recited.

Hydona simply absorbed it all, lost in admiration. “Rrremarkable. How did you do that?” she asked when the Shin’a’in was done.

The woman smiled. “I was shaman-trained before the Star-Eyed called me to this,” she said simply. Hydona nodded. Since half of the shamanic training required memorization of verbal histories, twenty messages would be no great burden.

Then Hydona noticed something else. The woman was not black-clad, as she had thought, but was garbed in very deep blue.

Well, at least she is not here on blood-feud! That would have been a complication no one needed right now.

“I am here,” the woman said, answering Hydona’s unspoken question, “for the same reason that you are here. I am the emissary from my people to k’Valdemar, and in token of that, I brought the Queen a true alliance gift. And I see no reason why you should not know it, since shortly all will.” She smiled widely. “It is good news, I think, in a time of bad. Tayledras, Kaled’a’in, and Shin’a’in have united, and are holding open safe exit routes upon the Valdemar border to the west and south. Those places will stay in safe hands. Should all fail, the people of k’Valdemar can do as they did in their past—retreat, and find safe-havens. We, our warriors and yours, shall stay and survive, and work to set all aright.”

Hydona felt limp with relief. That had been her unvoiced, worst fear—that somehow Falconsbane would raise the western border against Valdemar, and trap everyone between an army of his creatures and Ancar’s forces.

And—k’Valdemar? So, the Kingdom of Valdemar was being counted as one great Clan. And by all the Clans…?

Shin’a’in, Tayledras, and Kaled’a’in… Hydona could guess at only one thing that could have pried the Shin’a’in out of their Plains, or the Tayledras from their forests—

She sent a glance of inquiry at the woman, who nodded significantly and cast her eyes briefly upward.

So. She had sent forth an edict, had She? Interesting. Very interesting. It made sense, as much as anything did these days—and after all, Treyvan and Hydona had been part of bringing it all about. Of course, it was also entirely possible that the Star-Eyed was being opportunistic.

She could be claiming responsibility for events that simply happened, as if it were part of a great Cosmic Plan. Most of this uniting of the Clans and People could have been dumb luck. Still, for whatever reason it happened, there it was, and it was a relief indeed.

This Shin’a’in must have ridden day and night to get here as fast as she did, even with Tayledras Gating to get her to the Vale nearest the Valdemar border!

“Yourrr parrrdon,” Hydona said, as she read the signs of bone-deep, profound fatigue that the woman’s control had hidden with fair success. “I am keeping you frrrom a rrressst that isss sssurely well-earrrned.”

“And I will accept your pardon and take that rest,” the woman said, with a quick smile of gratitude. “And when you meet me later—I am called Querna, of Tale’sedrin.” Then she turned to the poor, baffled trainee, who could not have been much older than twelve or thirteen, and spoke in careful Valdemaran. “My thanks, child. I have discharged the last of my immediate duties, and I will now gladly take your guidance to the room you spoke of.”

“Thank you, warrriorrr! Rrressst well!” Hydona called after her. How many languages did these people know? Hydona felt a moment of embarrassment at her growling accent. Ah, but accents were unimportant as long as words were understood. And those words! Treyvan would be so pleased!

She hurried to find her mate, to give him the good news, with a lightness of step she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Now, if their tactics of mistake and harassment would hold, if the innocents could escape, if they could only hold Hardorn’s forces long enough for their real weapon to find its mark, then they could celebrate. All the People and their friends together, and the children…

Firesong rode in front of Skif and Elspeth, telling himself that there was no reason to give in to depression. Things were no different now than they had been when this journey began, but giving himself encouraging lectures did not really help. For the past several days he had hidden his growing and profound unhappiness, feigning a careless enjoyment of his role. There was no point in inflicting any further strain on the others, who had their own worries and stresses.

But this land was appalling. The farther into it they came, the worse it got, as if the closer they went to Ancar’s “lair,” the worse his depredations on his land and people.

Firesong had grown up around the gray and brown of lightbark and willow, sighing-leaf, loversroot and sweet-briar, but the overcast and mud of Hardorn were different, even if the colors were the same as those Vale plants and trees. The grays and browns of Hardorn were those of life departed, not the colors of the life itself. The colors of his robes that had seemed so outrageously bright in Valdemar were sullen and sad. It felt like life had seeped away into the ever-present mud, and he had faded like the colors.

Intellectually, he knew that he had not been prepared for the experience of so many people living together in their cities and towns, and for the problems that caused. Tayledras simply did not live like that, giving each person in a Vale a reasonable amount of space and privacy—and outside their Vales, the land was always wild and untamed in every sense. However, he fancied he had come to grips with the way folk lived here, and certainly he had even come to appreciate some of the advantages.

But that had been in Valdemar, not Hardorn. This was not just his reaction to seeing folk crowding themselves like sheep in a pen, and not only his reaction to the joyless and uncreative lives most of them led. That, in itself, was quite bad enough. For most of these folk, their days were an unending round of repetitive labor, from sunup to sundown, tasks that varied only with the season, and not much even then. A dreadful amount of time was spent simply in obtaining enough food for themselves and their families. The “wizard-weather,” as folks called it here, had been hard on Valdemar, but it was only a small part of what was destroying Hardorn.

There were better ways, ways to make an ordinary man’s life more fulfilling—he had seen that much in Valdemar—but Skif told him that the ruler of this land wanted things this way. A hungry man is concerned with the filling of his belly and not with attempts to free himself from a vile overlord. Being forced to toil to exhaustion each day left no one any time to think of aught but how the next day’s toil could be endured.

In Valdemar, at least, while the poorest folk did labor mightily to feed themselves, they also had some leisure, some time to devote to things outside that round of work. Time to make things purely for the sake of ornament, time to talk, time to sing and dance.

But here… here there was no escape from grueling labor, for before one could even work to gain one’s bread, one must labor in the service of the King. Only after much work was put in—tilling the King’s fields, mending the King’s roads, minding the King’s herds—could one return to one’s own tiny holding and work for one’s own self. And this went on, every day, week in, week out, with never a holiday and never a day of rest.

And meanwhile, the very land itself suffered. Firesong had never seen anything like this, and had only heard of it from his own teachers. Few mages, even those following dark and blood-stained paths, ever did this to the lands they claimed, for they planned to use those lands and took thought not to use them up.

All things living produced tiny amounts of mage-energy which gathered like dew and flowed down into the ley-lines and thence to the nodes. There was some energy available at the sources, weak, but easy to tame, and accessible to a Journeyman. There was more to be had from the lines, though it was stronger, and took a Master’s hand. And the magic of nodes, of course, was something only an Adept could ever hope to control. All this power flowed naturally, in good time, and as both King and mage, Ancar should have husbanded those resources. But Ancar was not content with that. His magics forced the energy from the land, taking the life with it. Small wonder that folks felt drained and without hope! Ancar was stealing their life-force away from them, from their children, from their crops and their animals!

Ancar was a study in malicious negligence, who had risen to power by gradual theft overshadowed by visible force.

The only bright side to all of this was that what Ancar was doing was relatively easy to cure. Even the cure itself was the essence of simplicity.

Dispatch the monster. Get rid of him, and he would no longer be a leech on the side of this land. His lingering spells would decay, ley-lines would drift back to normal, and things would, in time, return to normal.

Even Ancar’s wizard-weather was not as violent as it could have been. He had not been creating any great pools of power to disturb weather patterns as had happened purely by accident in Valdemar, as the Haven Heartstone in turn woke other long-dormant places. Those wells of power had collected without the kind of control and supervision there would have been if there had been a Vale of Tayledras in charge. The weather over Valdemar was steadying now, and centuries’ worth of aged power, steeped into the rocks and trees, was unfolding like a fresh flower-bloom.

But this place made him itch to have the job done and be gone. The despair here spread like a slow poison into his own veins, and made his muscles tight. The sooner they were all gone from here, the sooner he would be able to get back to Valdemar and begin Healing the damage there. He could nudge the land into some kind of magical order, so that Elspeth and her Heralds could work their magics properly. Despite the arrogant poses he kept, mainly for his own amusement, Firesong knew he could only influence the natural order, not control it. Healers, hunters, artists, and farmers knew that.

They passed a knot of farmers in their fields, filthy and mired, stooping over a plot of tubers, half of which were already rotting in the ground. Their threadbare, shabby clothes were nearly the same color as the mud they labored in. Their faces were blank and bleak, with no strength wasted on expression. He shuddered and turned away.

This place was cancerous. Its slow death was palpable, and came from the capital, enforced by marauding soldiers, steel-handed police, and insidious magics. Falconsbane was not much better, but he had never drunk up the life of his land the way these fools were.

The mood of the place had infected Firesong enough that things that had been amusing in the beginning of this trek no longer seemed clever. He had ceased to ask Aya to wear his ribbons, although when the firebird made his flights to attract the customers, he carried his trailing ribbons in his claws rather than wearing them. And he himself no longer donned that silly turban or bright robes until just before they came to a village. There was nothing to distinguish him from Darkwind, save length of hair.

All that really gave him pleasure was to brighten the hearts of the children with his magic tricks, and to know that they were going home with enough money to buy their families a few days of decent meals.

That might be enough to hold them in hope until help really came, for the carnival was within a few days of the city where Ancar held abode.

He fretted about Nyara, about her ability to handle what was surely the most onerous position in this little band, and about her mental stability, given her background. He would have fretted more, if not for Need. The sword spoke to him often, as often as he wished; they had spoken together of this more than once. He believed Need when she assured him that she could hold Nyara if the strain became too much to bear and she snapped beneath it. She had more than once proved herself equal to the task of controlling an adult mage; he had no doubt she could control Nyara if she had to, at least physically. Firesong, as one familiar with Healer-skills, recommended that Nyara’s body could be influenced to calm or comfort her. Need understood.

He had confidence that between them, Skif and the blade could bring Nyara back to her senses if something went horribly wrong. But none of that would be good for Nyara, or help her own sense of self-worth in any way, and he prayed that it would never come to a testing.

There was one source of personal irritation that he could do nothing about. He had not had a lover since they left Valdemar—and for Firesong, who had not slept alone for any length of time since he was old enough to send feathers to suitors, this was an irritation indeed. There had been that charming young Bard in Haven… but that had been all. Nothing in Vanyel’s Forest, of course. Nor on the road between the Gate and Haven. And from Haven to this moment, nothing again. No one in the carnival had even approached him.

He would not, even for a moment, consider Darkwind. Not that Darkwind wasn’t devastatingly attractive. It simply would not be fair. Elspeth did not understand all the nuances of Tayledras courting-play or customs, and she might well be hurt and unhappy if Firesong—

Besides, Darkwind had not reacted in any way as if he was interested in Firesong, which was irritating in itself, though Darkwind could hardly be faulted for personal tastes. Still. There it was. Even if Elspeth could be persuaded it was all completely harmless, Darkwind was simply not going to play.

There was Skif, however… Skif had not shown any interest either, but that could be for lack of opportunity.

He considered that for a bit longer. Nyara had such a warped childhood that there was nothing she took for granted. If he made it clear to her that there was nothing in this but a kind of exchange between friends—

She would still feel badly. I would damage her self-esteem. She would be certain that she is worthless to Skif if he “must” go elsewhere for a partner. I cannot do that to a friend. And to do that to someone already under as much as she is—would be as if I plunged a blade into her back.

Nothing came without a price. There was no hope for it. Unless someone else in this carnival approached the outsiders, he would just have to remain chaste.

The bonds between Skif and Nyara, as those between Darkwind and Elspeth, were simply too new and too fragile to disturb. Those love-bonds were like blood-feathers; if he touched them, they might break, and if they broke, the birds would bleed—if not to death, certainly to sickness. Their relationships were too important to jeopardize, and their friendships too valuable. He would survive his longing. But even once…

He sighed, and Skif looked at him curiously. He indicated the farmers with a jerk of his head, and Skif grimaced. Evidently the young Herald also felt some of the sickness affecting this land, even if he had no mage-senses.

And amidst all the more serious troubles in this unhappy land, amidst all the dangers and uncertainties of this mission, his lack of partners was hardly more than trivial.

But as Skif turned away, he caught himself admiring the young man’s profile. Not his usual type, but variety was the essence of life, and—

Oh, Firesong, he scolded himself. Do grow up. Try to treat this as a serious situation! Your needs are certainly not the only ones in this world!

Darkwind listened to Nyara stirring about restlessly for a moment, before she settled on a bunk. She had chosen to hide herself away; now they needed to keep her appearances as secretive as possible, so that only rumors of her existence would reach Falconsbane. He might dismiss them, but if he didn’t, she could be the bait in a trap designed to bring the Beast to them, to their choice of ground. It would depend on what his spies told him; whether they were convinced that her appearance was all sham, or whether they thought, given that they knew Falconsbane was real, that this might be another of his kind. It was just one plan of several, but it was the plan that had the greatest potential.

There was another reason to keep her out of sight, a very ugly reason. The nearer they got to the capital, the more of Ancar’s Elite Guards there were, prowling about and helping themselves to whatever they wanted from the cowed populace.

So far there had not been more than two or three at once, either riding patrol along the road, or apparently stationed at the villages. They had taken note of Darkwind, Skif, and Elspeth, measured them with their eyes, and evidently concluded that the cat-girl was not worth a fight with skilled mercenaries.

Better to keep Nyara out of their sight as much as possible, however, and keep the trouble to a minimum. It was like the mercy of hooding a skittish hunting-hawk in a strange environment, too—she would not have enjoyed being outside to see the land anyway.

It was relatively easy to deal with the men when they were in the tent audience; the one time there had been four willing to start some trouble, he and Elspeth had used a spell they had devised between them to take the troublemakers under control and make them forget what they wanted. They did this in such a way that seemed, later on, to have been nothing more than intoxication. It was a combination of mind-magic and true magic, and it took two to work it; once again, he and Elspeth were proving themselves as a partnership. Nyara had never even known there had been potential trouble; that was how skillfully Elspeth had worked with him. He would not have her know, either. These days, Nyara was a fragile thing; he would not allow anything to crush her.

That meshing with Elspeth though—so effortless, and so seamless, despite the danger—had matched anything they had done together outside of the bedchamber for sheer intoxicating pleasure. Magic had been like that before, when he was younger. Thanks to Elspeth, it was now that way again. It made for a tiny bright spot in the gloom of tensions that surrounded them all.

He knew that Skif was worried, for they had hurried this plan through, and it was not as well-thought-out as Skif liked. Skif fretted about the other members of the carnival, and how much they could be trusted. He had a point, too—there were too many pressures that could be brought to bear on one of these folk if Ancar’s men got wind of something wrong and decided to haul someone away for questioning. And now that they were within a few days of the capital, he knew that Skif and Elspeth both had another overwhelming fear. They had been gone for a long time—long enough for a war to be won or lost. Although news of a real, stunning victory would surely have reached even their carnival, there was no way of telling what was truly happening on the front if the victories were small ones. The word in Hardorn would be the same for small victories, small defeats, or stalemate—the same bombastic assurance that the war was going well, and victory was assured. What was going on back home? What was Ancar doing to their beloved land? Were the tactics they had sketched out working? Could Treyvan and Hydona handle all those varied mages? How much of Valdemar had been lost already?

The Companions refused to contact others of their kind any more than absolutely necessary, and then only briefly, for fear of detection. Elspeth told Darkwind with unhappy certainty that her mother would misinform the team about how the war was going if it was necessary. It did nothing to ease his worries.

In fact, all of them were acting as if they were preoccupied and fretting about something, with nerves on edge and tempers short. It didn’t take any great wizard to understand why. They all wanted this done, for good or ill, and over with. They were taking action, pursuing the best solution they could come up with, using what resources and fortunes they had. As always, they had hope—and each other.

Some of the members of their troupe were already expressing misgivings about forming this carnival, and not because the Valdemarans were with them either. Everyone rode with weapons near to hand, for Ancar’s Elite Guard had already made trouble at the last two stops. At the first, they had tried to force one of the women-contortionists to give them pleasure; that time he and Elspeth had worked their magics and sent them all into a deep sleep, implanting memories of a great deal of ale and a bet on who could drink the most. At the second, a group had overwhelmed one of the peddlers who had been alone for a moment, taken all his money, and scattered his goods into the mud. Darkwind was not looking forward to tonight’s performance.

He checked back with Nyara, and found she had fallen asleep. He envied her that escape. No doubt, Need had a great deal to do with it. In this situation, the blade was not above imposing her will on the girl.

This must be purest hell for poor Skif, who had less trust in Need—and the rest of the world—than Darkwind had.

Thanks to the gods for a partner who is strong enough to bear as much as I. The sheer relief of knowing that Elspeth could and would take not only an equal share of the load, but would take up the slack if he faltered, was something Skif could not enjoy. It was another tiny source of pleasure in this perilous situation.

It was hard to concentrate on performing with everything else that was going on in his mind and heart, and he knew the others felt the same pressures. And yet, if they did not perform well, they would stand out among the others. Being drab among the other peacocks could be fatal.

For that matter, giving a bad performance could easily bring another kind of attention; that of Ancar’s men, who could decide to take out their disappointment on the performers.

The gravellike mind-voice could only be Need, and despite his worries he smiled. He was beginning to like the old creature. She had a good sense of humor, and what was more, she was just as ready to tell a joke at her own expense as at anyone else’s. With Need along, he did not fear for Nyara’s physical safety; however, he worried for her mental safety. If Need had not been with them, it would have been a different story entirely.

He could not have been more stunned if Nyara had risen from her bed and clubbed him with a frying pan.

Need had an informant? In Ancar’s Court? How in the name of—well, all the gods at once, had she managed that? The blade sounded very smug, and well she should be!

His spirits rose immediately—just, no doubt, as she had assumed they would. But if he had not been Mindspeaking, he surely would have stuttered his reply, he was that flabbergasted. :Lady, that is excellent, incredible news indeed! How does this happen?:

:Let’s just say I have my means.: She chuckled. :And my methods. This is a good source, trustworthy, and most unlikely to be uncovered; he’s got mind-magic, and he’s close enough to the Beast that he can, if he’s very careful, not only find out what is going on with Falconsbane, but influence him as well:

His elation to turned to alarm. An informant was one thing—and he had to assume that this person had Mindspeech—but to use that mind-magic on Falconsbane? That was more peril than he himself would have cared to undertake! :Lady, do either of you know how dangerous that is?: He could think of any number of things that could go wrong, particularly with an outsider trying to influence Falconsbane’s thoughts. The Beast had very little Mindspeech, if any at all, and much less in the way of tolerance. There was always the chance that he would detect anyone who touched his thoughts. He had not gotten as far as he had by being stupid—and what was more, Darkwind knew that Mornelithe was skilled at shielding against mind-magic. How could even an expert hope to touch his mind undetected?

:Steady on. We’re not dealing with the Falconsbane you knew,: she said, so calmly that it made his spinning thoughts slow down and calm. :Hear me out before you panic.:

As he kept a fraction of his attention on the road, she detailed what had happened to Mornelithe Falconsbane from the time after he was lost in the Void and up to this very day.

In some ways, he was forced into a reluctant admiration, simply for the Beast’s ability to survive. But all that punishment had taken a toll on Falconsbane. And she was right; from all she described, he was a very depleted, mentally damaged individual, and one who did not even realize the extent of his handicaps.

:So, you see,: she concluded, :he’s damaged goods, so to speak. But he’s not aware of the fact. Between the coercions that Ancar has him under, and the fragmenting of his own personality, he’s just not up to noticing anything subtle. For that matter, he often doesn’t notice something blatant, so long as it doesn’t make him act against his own best interest.:

Darkwind ground his teeth a little. It sounded too good to be true. Was it? Or was there a great deal that Need had eliminated in the name of an expedient explanation? She had known what they were going to do from the very moment they had begun planning it. She had even taken part in the discussions. But that did not prevent her from running her own schemes to augment theirs. :Let me contemplate this for a moment before I answer you,:he hedged.

The sword sounded amused. :Contemplate all you like. We’ve got the time, as long as you don’t take a week. I know this is sudden, but I didn’t want to break it to you until it was a reality. I’m the last person to tell you to rush into anything. I’m awake now.:

The mules flicked their ears at him as his hands tightened on the reins. If it had been anyone else telling him all this, he would never consider it seriously. Everything hinged on being able to trust someone they didn’t know, had never seen, would not be able to contact directly. Someone they had never even dreamed existed.

But it was not just anyone claiming all this. It was Need. She was caution personified. She never trusted anything or anyone entirely—even less than Skif. If his instincts said to check something twice, hers would move her to check it a dozen times. She simply did not rush into anything; she left that to her bearers.

It followed, then, that she had already done far more about this “informant” than she had told him. Perhaps that was why it had taken her so long to report it. She had said that she had not wanted to tell him of this before it was a reality—and she had plenty of time and opportunity, if distance was no great deterrent to this contact. When it came right down to it, he had no idea what her abilities really were. So.

He weighed everything he knew about Need and her ways and decided to ask two questions.

:How long have you been cultivating this contact?: he asked. :Is there more about him you can’t tell me yet?:

She chuckled, as if she had expected those very questions. :That’s what I like about you, Darkwind. You’re a suspicious one. To answer your questions, there’s quite a bit I can’t tell you about him yet, and I’ve been in one form of contact or another with him for some time. My indirect contacts started even before we crossed the border. I can’t tell you how it all came about, but I can promise you that those who put me in contact with him are trustworthy entities.:

Entities? An interesting choice of words. One could describe the Companions as “entities.” Were the Companions behind this?

:Not exactly, but something very like the Companions. Someone you would trust if I could tell you:

Something—oh—like the Swordsworn, then? The Kal’enedral had certainly been helpful in the past with regard to Falconsbane.

He nodded, and his hands relaxed. In that case—it must be leshy’a Kal’enedral; that would explain a great deal. What the spirit-Kal’enedral were doing in Hardorn he had no idea, but poor Tre’valen had said that She had told him the interests of the Shin’a’in were now carrying beyond the Plains. Perhaps this was one of the things She had meant.

:Do I take it that you are bringing this through me and not through Nyara to spare her distress?: He could well imagine what unhappiness receiving any information about her father at this moment would cause. She didn’t enjoy being used as bait for him, but it was the one useful thing she could think to contribute. He suspected that a burning desire for revenge held her steady in the day-to-day strain of being “staked out” like a stalking-horse. And as for actually seeing Mornelithe face-to-face again—he was certain that Nyara tried not to think of that. She probably tried not to think of him at all. This would not help her precarious peace of mind.

:Precisely.: Need seemed very satisfied with his sensitivity. :Ah—have you noticed that on the whole she is looking and acting more—human? One of the things my time with her has accomplished is that I am able to find the memories of what the Beast did to her. Knowing that, I can do some things to reverse his changes.: Need sounded smug again. He did not in the least blame her.

:I had noticed. My plaudits, Lady. You may not call yourself Adept, but you cannot be far from one.: He smiled at her raspy chuckle.

:So, can I count on you to break this to the others? If you want to make it sound as if you’ve been in on this from the beginning, that’s fine, if it makes the rest more inclined to trust the information.: Need apparently felt that she required his support on this; very well, she would have it. He assented readily. This was too great an opportunity to allow anything to spoil it.

:There is one small blessing in Nyara’s lack of confidence in herself, Lady,: he pointed out. :Poor little thing, she has been so used to thinking of herself as useless that it will not even occur to her that you might have brought this word to her, and not me.:

He sensed something like a sigh from her. :Sad, but true. Well, Skif and I are working on that. And if all of this falls out as best as possible, she’ll have a boost in that direction.:

The next village was coming up; he saw the huddle of buildings through a curtain of trees just beyond the first wagon. He could deal with all of this later. Right now there was a persona to keep up, a show to stage, and hopefully there would be no trouble from Ancar’s men to complicate matters.

However, on that last, the odds weren’t with them, and he knew it only too well.

The carnival-wagons drew nearer the cluster of buildings, then entered the edge of the town. He and Elspeth both sensed the tension as they drove through the village. The townspeople did not even gather to watch them as they passed through; instead, they watched furtively from their windows and doorways, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Their faces were even more haggard than was usual in Hardorn.

More of Ancar’s Elite, some in armor and some only in uniform, were gathered outside a large building on the edge of the common to watch them pull in. It looked as if there were about twenty or thirty of them. He had no idea what so many of the Elite were doing here in this tiny town; it seemed that they were garrisoned here on a permanent basis, but there didn’t seem to be a reason for a garrison. No one in the last town had bothered to warn them about this—and it was something new since the last time any of the wagon-folk had been here.

Whatever it was that caused the Elite to be here—well, the carnival was running a risk in setting up tonight. The Elite always had money and few enough places to spend it. But one of the reasons that they always had money was that they were in the habit of taking whatever they wanted. They seldom needed to actually buy anything, and when they did—well, there were always plenty of people to steal more money from under the guise of “donations for the troops.”

Still, it was difficult to force a good performance out of an artist. A frightened musician forgot words and music; a terrified dancer would move like a wooden doll. A juggler under duress dropped things. And no one could give any kind of a performance with a sword at his throat, or a knife pointed at a loved one. The effect of terror on a performer would only be funny for a limited number of times before the amusement began to pall. If luck was with them, some of these men had figured that out by now.

The routine was the same as always, but the tension had spread to everyone else in the troupe by the time all the tents and wagons were set up. Darkwind’s stomach was in an uproar and his shoulders a mass of knots before they even set up the tent. And before the customers began to trickle in, word was passing among the wagon-folk; sensible word, by Darkwind’s way of thinking.

Ancar’s men were to be given anything they expressed an interest in. Free food, free entertainment, free drink. Smile at the nice soldiers, and tell them fervently how much you support them. Encourage them to toss coin in a hat if you must have it, but do not charge them, ran the advice. If we get out of here whole, that will be enough. He passed on the advice to the others, who agreed fervently. There was no point in antagonizing these men, and if they were in a good mood and remained so, they might even avoid more trouble later.

“Hoo, I’ll give them bottles of Cure-All if they’ll take it!” Firesong said fervently. “In fact… hmm… that’s not a bad idea. They’ll be stuffing themselves from the Mystery Meat sellers. All that grease would give a goat a bellyache. I’ll prescribe Cure-All to the ones that look bilious. It’s a lot stronger than anything they’re used to gulping down, and given all the soothing herbs in it, it might make them pleasant drunks. If nothing else, it will knock them out much more quickly than the ale.”

That was a notion that had a lot of merit. “Mention it has a base of brandy-wine in your selling speech, Firesong,” Darkwind advised. “That will surely catch their interest. Something like—ah—‘made of the finest brandy-wine, triply distilled, of vintage grapes trodden out by virgin girls in the full of the moon, and laden with the sacred herbs of the forest gods guaranteed to put heat in an old man and fire in a young one, to make weeping women smile and young maidens dance—’ How does that sound?”

“You know, you are good at that.” Firesong gave him a strained, ironic half-smile.

“Perhaps I should consider making an honest living,” Darkwind replied with heavy irony.

“Sounds good enough to make me drink it, and I made the last batch,” Skif observed, coming around the corner of the tent. “And I’ve got an idea. Nyara doesn’t dance. It’s too dangerous; maybe we can hold four or five armed men off her, but we can’t take on thirty. And if ten of them are in the tent, that’s twenty somewhere outside where you can’t see them. Tonight, the performance in the tent is you, the birds, and Darkwind. Nyara stays hidden. They don’t know she’s here, so let’s not stretch our luck by letting them see her.”

“I wish this,” Nyara said from the dark of the wagon, her voice trembling in a way that made Darkwind ache with pity for her. How many times had her father made her perform in just such a way for his men? “I greatly wish this. What need have we of showing my face here and now? And there will be no one expecting shared monies tonight, yes?”

“Quite true,” Elspeth said firmly. “After all, the last thing that anyone in this carnival wants is to give these men any cause at all to make trouble, and one look at Nyara will make trouble. In fact, I’m going over to the contortionists’ tent to advise all their women stay out of sight, too.”

While they readied the tent for the shows, Darkwind related everything Need had told him. The news was enough to make everyone a little more cheerful, so when the Elite did show up, Firesong was able to give them a good performance.

At first, only one of the Elite would accept a bottle of the Cure-All. From the grimace on his face, he had eaten far too much of what Firesong called “Mystery Meat,” and far too many greasy fried pies. He took the Cure-All dubiously, with much jibing from his friends—

Until he downed the first swallow, and came up sputtering. His face was a study in astonishment.

“Hellfires no,” the man exclaimed, wiping his face on the back of his arm and going back for another pull. “That good! This here’s prime drink!” With one bottle at his lips, he was already reaching toward Firesong, who divined his intention and quickly gave him a second flask. He polished off the first bottle, and got halfway through the second, with his mates watching with great interest, when the alcohol caught up with him. He took the bottle from his mouth, corked it carefully, and stowed it in the front of his tunic. Then, with a beatific smile on his face, he passed out cold, falling over backward like a stunned ox.

Firesong ran out of Cure-All immediately, but he made certain that every man of the Elite got at least one bottle. After that, they could fight it out among themselves.

Some of them did, in fact; brawling in the “streets” between the wagons in a display of undiscipline that should have shamed them, but which seemed, from the lack of intervention by the officers, to be standard behavior.

Thereafter, they wandered the carnival, bottles in one hand and whatever had taken their fancy in the other, moving from one entertainer to the next. While they were sober, Firesong and Darkwind took pains to make certain that they never repeated a trick from one show to the next—and in desperation, they were using small feats of real magic instead of sleight-of-hand. But once the men were drunk, it made no difference, for they could not remember what they had just seen, much less what they had seen in the show before. The small size of the tent was a definite advantage now, for only ten of them could crowd in at a time, which meant they never had the same audience twice in a row. But the alcohol fumes were enough to dizzy the birds, and the stench of unwashed bodies was enough to choke a sheep.

As darkness fell, the aisles between the wagons were both too crowded and too empty. The Elite filled it with their swaggering presence. There were no townsfolk brave enough to dare the carnival; the Elite held it all to themselves. By now all of the Faire-folk were knotted with fear and starting at any odd sound. This was horribly like being under siege. Darkwind wondered grimly why they had not helped themselves to the women of the town, as they seemed to help themselves to everything else, but Skif had an answer for that when he murmured the question out loud.

“Any attractive women that have relatives out of town have probably gone to those relatives,” Skif told them. “Those that are left are being very careful never to be where one of the Elite can grab them without a lot of fuss. These men aren’t totally undisciplined, and even if Ancar doesn’t care what they do, their local commander knows that if they take their excesses beyond a little bullying and petty pilfering, the whole town will revolt. He doesn’t want that; he has a quota of goods or food he has to meet, and he can’t do that without the local labor. But we’re outsiders, so we’re fair prey. No one here will care if anything happens to us.”

At that moment, shouts and pain-filled cries rang out above the noise of the peddlers and entertainers—exactly what Darkwind had been dreading, yet expecting.

Thirty-one bodies lay unconscious in the middle of the carnival, laid out in neat rows; two of the peddlers were bringing in the thirty-second and last. Virtually all of the rest of the wagon-folk were getting their animals from the picket lines and hitching up.

These two men, a pair of burly drivers, hauled him by wrists and ankles. They let him drag on the ground, taking no care to be gentle, and flung him down beside the rest.

Every one of these men had collapsed where he stood, within moments of the first cry. Most of them had been within a few feet of the victim.

Firesong knelt at the end of one of the rows, his face gray with exhaustion. He was responsible for the mass collapse, and it had taken everything he had; an ordinary and simple spell of sleep had been made far more complicated by the need to target only the Elite, and to strike all of them at once. This was more complicated than either Darkwind or Elspeth could handle, and he had acted while they were still trying to organize themselves. Firesong’s spell had taken long enough to set up that some of the damage had already been done.

The victim of the attack was one of the peddlers; not a particularly feminine-looking lad, but beardless and, most importantly, alone at the moment when four of the Elite came upon him, completely alone, in between two sets of deserted stalls. At this point, the Elite had all realized that there were no females anywhere in the carnival; that there would be no sexual favors here. His stock-in-trade, ribbons, were something none of the men wanted, but they did serve as a reminder that there were none of the easy—or at least, accessible—women they had anticipated getting their hands on.

As Darkwind understood it, the only warning the young man had was when the first four soldiers began an argument with him, claiming they had been cheated. Since he hadn’t given away a ribbon all night, much less sold any, he hadn’t the faintest notion what they meant and had tried to back his way out of the situation.

Then they had surrounded him, informed him that what they had been cheated of was women, and told him he’d just have to make it up to them.

By then, there were ten, not four, and he hadn’t a chance. By the time the first four had pushed him to the ground, there were even more.

This had all been an incredible shock to Firesong, who had spent all of his life in the Vales. Darkwind was not foolish enough to think that molestation was unknown among his people—but it was very uncommon, given that most women and men could very well defend themselves against an attacker. As a scout, he had seen the worst possible behavior on the part of Falconsbane’s men and creatures and had some armoring against what had come. Firesong had no such protection; Firesong was a rare and precious commodity, a Healing Adept, and as such he had been protected more than the ordinary Hawkbrother.

He had never seen anyone victimized like the boy. Others, who had MindHealing skills, would have dealt with such cases, which would probably have involved an enemy from outside the Vale. It was the attack itself that had him in shock, far more than the drain on his resources.

Darkwind had never thought to feel pity for the handsome Adept—but he did now, and he longed to be able to give Firesong some comfort in the name of clean and uncomplicated friendship. But there was too much to do, and no time for such niceties.

Darkwind laid a hand gently on Elspeth’s shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked. “It’s our turn now.”

“I don’t like this, you know,” she said conversationally, although he sensed the anger under the casual tone. “If it were up to me, these bastards would all wake up eunuchs—if I let them wake up at all. I’d rather get rid of them altogether. Permanently. Let their gods sort them out.”

“If it were my judgment, I would agree with you.” He shook his head and sighed. If this were home, he could do as she preferred without a second thought. But it was not; they were not alone, they could not fade into the scenery and vanish. More importantly, however, neither could the people of the carnival and town.

If these men were maimed or killed, retribution would fall, and swiftly, on both the wagon-folk and the village. The only people who had even a chance to escape that punishment would be the Valdemarans, who had magic that would help them get away. Assuming that Ancar’s mages did not try to track them. To put the villagers and Faire-folk into such danger would be an act of unforgivable arrogance.

No, there was no real choice in the matter; he and Elspeth would simply follow the plan they always used. These men would sleepwalk themselves back to their barracks. They would wake up tomorrow with no memory of the molestation, and no memory of being struck down as they either participated, watched and cheered, or waited their turn. They would only remember that they had a good time at the carnival, that they drank more than they should of that drink of dubious origin, and that they had crawled back to their quarters and passed out.

“At least let me give them the worst hangovers they’ve ever had in their lives,” Elspeth begged fiercely. “And make them impotent while the hangovers last!”

He sighed, not because he didn’t agree with her but because it seemed far too petty a punishment, but it was all they dared mete out.

“I wish we could do worse to them,” he said. “I wish we could fix everything. Our best chance at that is to do what we came here to do. Get rid of Ancar, Falconsbane, and Hulda.”

She nodded grimly but softened as she meshed her mind and talents with his. In a few moments, it was done, and the men began to rise woodenly, stumbling to their feet and bumbling in the direction of their barracks. Their faces were blank, their eyes glazed, and they looked altogether like walking corpses.

“I’d like to give them plague,” Elspeth muttered, staring after them. “I would, if I didn’t think the townsfolk would catch it. Maybe some lice or social disease. Genital leprosy?”

As the last of them rose and bumbled off, Firesong stood up, slowly, looking a little better, but still drained and sickly. The last of the wagon-folk were gone, too, and from the sounds all over the encampment, they were getting ready to leave. There were two torches stuck into the ground that gave fitful, sputtering light. “It is hard on a mage to cast magics when there has been no time to prepare for them,” he murmured, his expression open and vulnerable and showing much of the pain he must be feeling. And also some guilt. “Had to push it through with personal power, and damp it all down, so we wouldn’t be discovered.” Firesong rubbed his eyes. “Still. I feel I could have prevented this if I had only acted sooner.”

“You need not feel guilty,” Darkwind said quietly as Elspeth nodded, trying to put some force into his words so that Firesong would believe him. “You were faster than we were. And you did the best you could.”

Firesong looked down at his hands. “But it was not enough,” he said unhappily, the strain in his voice betraying how deeply he ached over this. “Where is the poor lad? Liam was his name? I do not like to think of him being alone—”

Firesong looked astonished at that; Darkwind was a little surprised himself. Gerdo was one of the contortionists, and if he’d spoken a dozen words to Liam in all the time they’d been in Hardorn, Darkwind, at least, didn’t know about it. They were, at best, casual acquaintances.

“He said Sara would understand,” Elspeth continued, “since she was attacked herself. And he said something else, that he knew how Liam felt, sort of, because the same thing happened to him when he was a boy. He said they could at least tell Liam that it wasn’t his fault. Maybe if they tell him often enough, he’ll start to believe it.”

Darkwind nodded, and sensed Elspeth’s agreement and Gwena’s gentle urging. “Do you mind if we join you?” he said simply.

There was no rest for them that night; the entire carnival packed up and moved in the dark. They did not stop until the next village that did not have a garrison of Ancar’s men. Darkwind, Elspeth, Nyara, and Skif took turns driving the wagon and sleeping in it. The poor Companions and the dyheli had no such luxury; they had to make their way on their own four hooves. Firesong spent most of that day and night with Gerdo, helping with Liam. Darkwind was not surprised at that; Firesong was a Healing Adept, after all, even though he was not a body-Healer per se. He had the ability to do Liam a great deal of good—and Liam’s plight could do Firesong an equal amount of good.

Firesong was talented, Gifted, beautiful, and arrogant. In many ways, he had seen himself as above everyone else in this mission, even his fellow Tayledras. Nothing had really touched him except the damage done to the land; he had, for the most part, ignored the damage done to the people. Up until this moment, the pain of these people had been mostly an abstraction to the Adept—something to be deplored and kept at a distance, but nothing that really affected him. Now it had hit home. He had seen willful, cruel violence close at hand. Firesong had opened himself to pain and could not avoid it any more.

Firesong returned to his fellows late in the afternoon, uncharacteristically sober and silent, but with a certain amount of weary satisfaction on his face. When Liam finally appeared as the wagons were setting up for the shows, Darkwind understood the expression.

Liam appeared to have found a kind of peace and support. He was ready to get to work, and could look his fellows in the face. The young man had come through the immediate crisis well; while he would bear scars, they would not be as devastating as they might have been.

And Firesong seemed to have learned a great deal, too. When he looked about him, his beautiful face radiated empathy and compassion for those people who felt pain.

He no longer wore a mask of any kind, frivolous or haughty. “Saving the defenseless” appeared no longer to be a meaningless phrase spoken as any other platitude, but rather a goal to be understood as a way of life. Real pain had been touched and understood; Healing was no longer simply a mental exercise for Firesong.

That night, Need finally conveyed to them what she had learned from her “contact.”

Darkwind wished devoutly that he could go to bed early, but he had done with less sleep in his life, and this was more important. They wanted things to look as normal as possible, though, and “normal” meant that the wagon should at least look as if they were all asleep. So the five of them sat on two of the beds, heads together, whispering into the darkness of the wagon.

:Firstly—we’ve all had some ideas about who was the real power in Hardorn, the one who’s responsible for the way things have gone to pot around here,: Need said. :We all thought it was Ancar, but it wasn’t. He isn’t more than a Master, if that. It was Hulda.:

“But—the protections that were on Valdemar when she was there—how could she have been an Adept?” Elspeth sputtered.

:Apparently she never used any magic while she was there, child, so she never invoked the interest of the vrondi. She knew what she was doing, and understood the nature of the protections. Anyway. She set up this draining effect that’s been pulling life-force out of this land; Ancar’s been getting all the loot, all the gold and the pretties, baubles to keep the baby happy, but she’s been hoarding the power for herself. What she’s done with it, though—I don’t know, and neither does Mornelithe. Falconsbane thinks she was courting the Emperor’s envoy; they use magic over there, so maybe she was sending them the power. If she was, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of people being able to do that sort of thing.:

Darkwind shook his head, feeling nauseous. That had to be one of the strangest and most perverted things he’d ever heard. “So Hulda has been deliberately wrecking this land?”

:Pretty much. Encouraging Ancar to do what he wants, without ever giving him any real power or training past a certain point. Huh. Maybe I do know what she was doing with all that power. Those magical attacks, coercive spells on the troops—all of that is far too powerful for the mages Ancar has in his employ to be able to successfully invoke—unless someone was feeding them the energy to do it. Interesting idea.:

“That makes a great deal of sense,” Firesong agreed, his voice flat with exhaustion. “More sense than that she would be making courting-gifts of mage-power. So Ancar has been the puppet, and she the manipulator?”

:Until lately. She’s been sloppy, and he’s been chafing at the constraints she put on him. She made the mistake of promising him more training and not delivering. So he started experimenting on his own; that’s how he got Falconsbane. Put up half a Gate without knowing what he was doing or what it was for, wished desperately for an Adept to get him out of it before he got eaten alive, the Gate took the wish for the destination, and delivered Falconsbane with a bow on him.:

Firesong bit off an exclamation. Darkwind could only sit and shake his head with weary astonishment. “Either he is the stupidest lucky man in the world, or the luckiest stupid one,” Darkwind said at last. “I would not have given him the chance of a dewdrop in an inferno of surviving such a blunder.”

“And Mornelithe has the luck of a god, I swear it,” Firesong snorted with a little more energy.

:He put Falconsbane under coercion while still magically naked and helpless—for once in his life, the Beast couldn’t fight or break what was put on him. So; now Ancar has an Adept, he starts to feel as if he can do without Hulda. Falconsbane has been encouraging this, figuring on setting both of them against each other and running out while they get rid of each other. Except that Ancar managed to catch Hulda in a moment of weakness, and right now he has her inside a mage-mirrored prison cell she helped create. So she’s out of the way, for the moment.:

“So, what we have is the three powers at the top, who should be working together, who we’ve assumed have been working together, actually fighting each other?” That was Skif, and he sounded incredulous despite his own weariness. “We might yet be able to pull this off !”

The details were many, and often baffling. Only by assuming that Need’s assessment of Falconsbane was accurate could Darkwind even begin to understand how the Beast had made so many fundamental blunders. It was incredible, impossible, insane. But, he realized, that described Falconsbane perfectly.

Still, it was terrifying to think what would happen if Falconsbane should happen to change his mind about cooperating with Ancar. The damage that had been wrought without that cooperation was terrible. And the number of successes the army of Hardorn had against Valdemar without Falconsbane’s real help was even worse. But with it—

And Falconsbane was capricious. He could change his mind at any time. Their only chance was to strike for him while he was still Ancar’s captive, for if he became Ancar’s comrade before they reached the capital—the odds in their favor were not good.

An’desha waited on the Moonpaths; alone this time, for Dawnfire had appeared only long enough to summon him and then had left him. That might mean the old woman wished to speak with him, then. That was good, for An’desha had been keeping Falconsbane annoyed with Ancar, as she had asked him to do, and at the moment it would be more likely for a pig to stoop on a hawk than that Falconsbane should become Ancar’s willing helper.

Still, the Adept was a slippery and unpredictable creature. An’desha had been forced to play fast and loose with Mornelithe’s mind to stave off the thought that it might not be such a bad thing to cooperate with the King. He’d had to remind Falconsbane of the coercions, and the King’s own word that he had no intention of taking them off.

The trouble was that Hulda was still incarcerated. The protections she herself had put on the cell were better than Falconsbane had given her credit for. There was no sign that she was going to come bursting out of there and finish Ancar off any time soon, and the Adept was growing impatient.

He heard footsteps—real footsteps, on the Moonpath to his right. He turned to peer into the glittery fog. It had to be the old woman, for the Avatars had never made the sound of footsteps, and she was just contrary enough to create a sound in a place where such things were superfluous.

The old woman emerged out of the fog; from the set of her jaw, she had much to tell him.

“Well, boy,” she said, stopping within a few paces of him, and looking him up and down as if to take his measure, “I hope you’re as ready for this as your friends think because this is where we gamble everything.”

A chill of anticipation mingled with fear threaded his veins, for all that his “veins” were as illusory as the old woman’s footsteps. “I can only try,” he said carefully. “I have kept Falconsbane at odds with Ancar. He was beginning to think it might be good to ally with King Ancar after all.”

She nodded brusquely. “That’s good. You’ve done very well, boy. But this is going to take a surer, more delicate touch, and constant work. I mean that. We’ve come to the real turning point, and there’s no way back now. You won’t be able to leave him alone for a heartbeat, and you’ll have to be absolutely certain he doesn’t know you’re playing with him. My people aren’t more than a day away.”

An’desha felt very much as if he had been suddenly immersed in ice water, but his voice remained steady. “So, whatever we do, it must be done soon. You have a plan, and its success depends upon my performance. If I fail, we all will lose.”

“Exactly.” She gave him another of those measuring looks. “This is where we see if you can really come up to what we’re going to ask of you. You’re going to have to create memories for Falconsbane from whole cloth, boy—memories of one of the servants telling him about the carnival, and that there’s a captive cat-woman dancing in one of the tent-shows there. We want him to hear about Nyara, we want him to come after her. We intend for him to walk into ambush. Can you do that?”

Create whole memories… he had been making fragments, adding to things Ancar truly had said so that they could be read as being insulting, for instance. Falconsbane had no idea his memories had been tampered with. An’desha had plenty of memories to use to make this one, memories that featured the servants talking. Was there any reason why he couldn’t do this?

She smiled for the first time in this meeting. “Good. Then I’ll leave you. You’re going to need a lot of time to do this right, and I’m only wasting it.”

Part of the plan, however, was not going to work. Having a servant tell Falconsbane about the carnival was simply not believable, no matter what the old woman thought. No, he thought, as he examined Falconsbane’s sleeping mind and all the memories of servants in it. No, I cannot have a memory of a servant telling him something. They do not speak to him unless they need to, for they fear him. But a memory of him overhearing them—yes, that I can do. There are plenty of those, and they will be less obtrusive, for he listens to the servants speak when they do not think he can hear them.

The memory, he decided after some thought, should be just a little vague. Perhaps if Falconsbane had been sleeping?

He selected something that had happened in the recent past, a recollection of a pair of servants coming into Falconsbane’s room to tend the fire, and waking him. That time they had been gossiping about Ancar and Hulda and had not known he was awake. It was a good choice for something like this; Mornelithe had been half-asleep, and had only opened his eyes long enough to see which of the servants were whispering together. It was another measure of how damaged he was that he didn’t think of the servants as any kind of threat. The old Falconsbane would never have been less than fully alert with even a single, well-known person in the same room with him, however apparently helpless or harmless that person was.

He took the memory, laid it down, then began to create his dialogue. It wasn’t easy. He had to steal snippets of conversation from other memories, then blend them all in a harsh whisper, since Hardornen was neither his native tongue nor Falconsbane’s. He did not think in this language, so he had to fabricate what he needed, making his dialogue from patchwork, like a quilt.

He kept Falconsbane sleeping deeply as he labored through the night. If he had been able to sweat, he would have; this was hard labor, as hard as horse-taming or riding night-guard. It was so much like weaving a tapestry—like he imagined the legendary history-tapestries were. But at last it was done, and he watched it himself, to examine it as a whole with a weary mental “eye.” He was so weary that even his fear was a dull and distant thing, secondary to simply finishing what had been asked of him.

The two servants entered the room; the memory of this was only the sound of the door opening and closing. They were whispering, but too softly to make out more than a word or two—“show,” and “faire,” and some chuckling. Then—a bit of vision as if Falconsbane had opened his eyes and shut them again quickly. A glimpse of two menservants, one with logs and the other with a poker, silhouetted against the fire.

“…what could be worth going back there?” asked one, over the sound of the fire being stirred with the poker.

“There’s a dancer. They call her Lady Cat, and she looks half cat. I tell you, when she’s done dancing, you wish she’d come sit on your lap! When she moves, you can’t think of anything but sex. She’s supposed to be a slave; she’s got a collar and a chain, but she doesn’t act much like a slave, more like she owns the whole show.”

Another laugh, this one knowing. “I’ll bet she does! I’ll bet she does things besides dance when the show closes, too!”

Sounds of logs being put on the fire, then of the servants leaving the room and closing the door behind them.

It looked good, what vision there was behind it. It sounded good, solid and real. Well, now to wake Falconsbane up, and make him think the little conversation has just now occurred.

He woke the Adept with the sound of the door closing, and a little jolt, then left the memory out in Falconsbane’s mind where it was the very first thing he would “see.”

And it worked! The Adept thought he had actually witnessed the entire conversation!

He watched as Falconsbane mulled it over, wondering if this so-called “Cat Lady” was a carnival fake, created because of his own growing notoriety, or was real—

Oh, no—oh, no. She can’t be a fake—he can’t even think she might be a fake. Quickly An’desha shunted that thought away, guiding Falconsbane’s sleep-fogged mind in the direction he wanted.

No, of course the cat-woman wasn’t a fake. No one would dare counterfeit a Changechild, much less counterfeit Falconsbane; his own reputation would frighten anyone who dared to try it! No, it had to be real, and if it was real, there was only one creature it could be.

Nyara, An’desha whispered, keeping his own terror of being caught under tight control.

Nyara. Falconsbane’s claws tightened on the bedclothes, piercing holes in the cloth. She had run eastward, after all! Probably she had started running when he had escaped death at the hands of the cursed Shin’a’in, and had not stopped until she had been captured. Now was his chance to catch her and make her pay for her treachery!

But of course he would have to hide her very existence from Ancar. He would have to slip out of the palace, go alone and unobserved, and take her himself. If Ancar learned about her, he would want to see her, and the moment he saw her he would know she was Falconsbane’s handiwork. Ancar was not the fool Falconsbane had thought—although a fool he certainly was—and he would certainly use Nyara as an additional hold over his captive Adept. Falconsbane had invested a great deal of power in making Nyara what she was, and any mage higher than Journeyman would know that using her he could control the creator. The old law of contamination. Any mage left some of himself along with his power, even an Apprentice knew that. There was the likelihood that even Hulda’s old toy knew it as well.

Going to this carnival alone and unobserved, though—that would take some creativity. There were always guards at his door, and more guards throughout the palace. He would have to find a way to avoid them, and a time when Ancar was occupied elsewhere. This would take a great deal of advance preparation, and no small amount of power to come and go without detection.

But then, why else had he been storing up mage-energy? Even with the coercions, he could still work spells that would make him ignored by anyone who set eyes on him. He could even work a true spell of invisibility for a short period of time. He could stun the guards for as long as he needed, and he had certainly picked up enough information from the servants’ gossip to know the easiest clandestine ways in and out of the palace. If he picked a time when Ancar was busy with the war plans, he could be down to the carnival and back with no one being the wiser.

And as for Nyara—once he had her, even though her death would of necessity be rushed, he could make it seem an eternity to her. Perhaps—perhaps he could enhance all her senses, and stretch her time perception, so that every tiny cut seemed to take a year.

Falconsbane began to plan what he would do to his daughter when he finally had his hands on her. An’desha shuddered but did not pull back into the familiar corner of his mind.

Skif couldn’t help but notice the air of relaxation all through the carnival this afternoon. Wagon-folk all over the carnival had breathed a sigh of relief as they set up just outside the walls of the capital, at the gate nearest the palace itself. Ancar might permit his men to do as they willed anywhere else, but here they were as restrained as good, disciplined troops in any other land. Pairs of Elite Guards with special armbands patrolled the streets, and today while running his errands, Skif had seen one man hauled off for public drunkenness, and another for robbing a street peddler.

Skif only wished that he and the others could share in the general feeling of relief. For the Valdemarans and their allies, the dangers had just increased exponentially.

The general consensus among the wagon-folk was that it would be well worth staying a week or so here, and safe enough to let the women come out of hiding. There were good pickings to be had in this city. Many of them had constructed clever hiding places in their wagons for a small hoard of coins in anticipation of a good run.

No one among the wagon-folk knew what the Valdemarans were really up to; their story—which still seemed to be holding under the pressure of passing time—was that they were going into the city; that they had found out that their missing relatives had last been heard of here, and they were going to get them out, if they were still alive. Missing relatives was a common enough tale in Hardorn these days, and if the wagon-folk wondered about the odd group, they had so far kept their speculations to themselves.

Skif had gone out into the city to get the lay of the land; now he returned to the carnival with the provisions he had been “sent” for, and a great deal of information. Last night Nyara had danced in three shows; and his every muscle had been tight with strain at each one, wondering if she would be able to continue the charade. This morning there were at least a few people in the marketplace talking about her. If Falconsbane would just hear about her and come looking…

Already townsfolk threaded the aisles of the carnival, looking, fingering, and sometimes buying. He pushed his way through them until he came to “Great Mage Pandemonium’s” stand. At the moment it was closed; the five of them had decided it would be better only to perform after nightfall, and to keep the use of magic to a minimum. Nyara was only a draw to the adult crowd, anyway, and the day-goers seemed to be families and older children.

The rest should be in the tent, relaxing; the wagon was too cramped for anything except sleeping. And just sleeping; he was far too shy to do anything with Nyara in company, and Elspeth and Darkwind felt the same. They’d been making it a habit to eat, lounge, and carry on the things that had to be tended to, day-to-day, in the larger area of the show-tent.

He had expected the atmosphere to be tense when he entered the tent, but he had not expected the set of peculiar expressions on the faces of his friends as they turned toward him. They were seated on makeshift stools of whatever equipment boxes happened to be handy. Even in the dim light beneath the heavy canvas, they looked as if they were suffering from sunstroke. Stunned, and quite at a loss.

“Our sharp friend has handed us a complication,” Darkwind said, his own expression swiftly changing from irritation to apprehension and back again as he glanced at the sword at Nyara’s side.

What? “An imposter?” Skif blurted, that being the only thing he could think of. “We’ve been chasing an—”

“No, no, no,” Elspeth interrupted. “No, that’s not it at all! But—the Beast is not exactly alone.”

Now Skif was even more bewildered, and he shook his head violently, as if by shaking it, the words would make some sense. “What in Havens are you talking about?”

:Damn it, you’re all missing the point,: Need said with irritation. :Except Firesong, but I’ve been talking to him all morning. Here, let me show you.:

Then, without even a “by your leave,” Skif found himself inside the thoughts of some other person entirely, just as Need had once flung him inside her own memories when she had first awakened, to explain what she was by showing him. But this was not Need’s memory; this person was young, male, and seemed to be Shin’a’in—

:Halfbreed,: Need interrupted. :Trust me, it made a difference in how things came out.:

He watched, a silent observer, as the boy discovered his mage-powers, determined to run away to the Hawkbrothers, got lost in the Pelagiris Forest, tried to light a fire—

—and the entity that called itself Mornelithe Falconsbane—in this lifetime—came flooding in to take his mind and body and make them his own.

Abruptly, Need flung Skif out of those memories, and he found himself back in the carnival tent, blinking, the others shaking their heads as they, too, recovered from the experience. “I wish you wouldn’t do that without warning a man,” Skif complained, hitting the side of his head lightly with the heel of his hand. “It—”

:It saves time,: Need replied testily. :Well, now you know. That’s who my informant has been.:

“The boy?” Skif chewed his lip a little. “And presumably he still lives within Falconsbane’s body. Forgive me, but I don’t see how that changes anything.”

:He lives inside his body. Falconsbane has stolen it. What changes everything is that the boy found out how Falconsbane’s been doing this. An’desha’s body is far from the first he’s stolen. Unless we stop Falconsbane in a way that keeps him from taking his spirit off to hide again, it won’t be the last. People, this has been happening since the time your folk call the ‘Mage Wars.’ All he needs is a body out of his bloodline, with Mage-Gift. And trust me on this; he spent a lot of time back then making certain he’d have a lot of descendants. Usually he does the same any time he’s had a body for a while.:

After a moment the sense of that penetrated, and Skif cursed softly. “You mean if we take him the way we had planned and kill him, we might be facing him again in a couple of years?”

:If he finds somebody else with his bloodline, yes. Or takes over Nyara’s children. You see, he had another motive for trying out all his Changes on her first. Mage-Gift will always breed true in her children now, and if and when she decides to have them, despite the lies her father told her, she’ll be very—ah—prolific. Catlike in more than looks, it seems.:

Skif froze in place, his body and mind chilled, as his eyes sought Nyara’s. She nodded unhappily. “I could not fight him, Skif. Need could help me, but she cannot be everywhere, at all times, and what are we to do? Insist that our grown children stay with us all their lives?”

:Even if you don’t have children, there are always more where An’desha came from. His father was out spending his seed all over the south. Sooner or later, Falconsbane will be back.:

“We can’t capture him—we can’t kill him—what in the nine hells can we do with him?” Skif demanded, his voice rising. He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. “What are we here for? Why don’t we just give up? Why are we even trying?”

Firesong gave him a look that shut him up abruptly. “We can kill him, Skif,” the Healing Adept said calmly, his face an inhuman mask of serenity. “Need and I have been discussing this since you left. We can be rid of him, forever, and in a way that will allow An’desha to reclaim his body. But it will take four of us working together; you, Nyara, Need, and myself. Possibly even your Companion. It will take superb timing and equally superb cooperation. And it will not be silent.”

“By silent, you mean that it is going to take some very obvious magic?” Skif hazarded. This time it was Darkwind who nodded.

“That’s why Elspeth, Vree, Gwena, and I will not be here. We will have to strike after Ancar takes the backlash of this magic or detects it in other ways, but before he has a chance to act on that knowledge. Since Falconsbane bears a great many of his coercion spells, slaying the Beast should snap them, and they will recoil on him like snapped bowstrings.” Darkwind rubbed one temple, then moved his hand up higher to scratch Vree. “More timing, you see. There will be a moment when he is very stunned, and that is when we must strike. Firesong will give us a signal when Falconsbane is gone. First we will take out Ancar. Then we will deal with Hulda.”

After all the time it had taken to get to this point, things seemed to be cascading much too fast, one plan running into the next like an avalanche. But so far as Skif was concerned there was still one question to be asked.

“If you can kill Falconsbane without killing the other fellow, wouldn’t it be easier to kill him straight off and not worry about this boy?” There, it was out. He didn’t like it, but how could seeing her father’s body walking around do Nyara any good? And why complicate matters? It was very nice that this An’desha fellow had helped them, but sometimes you had to accept innocent casualties…

The realist and the Herald warred within him, and the realist looked to be winning, but it was not making him feel anything other than soiled, old, and terribly cynical.

“We could, and it would be simpler,” Firesong admitted reluctantly. “But it is something I do not care for. On the other hand, one less complication might increase our chances for surviving this.” It looked to Skif as if he were facing his own internal struggle, and didn’t care for the realities of the situation either.

Skif nodded; Elspeth looked uncomfortable and distressed, but nodded also, for she had learned long ago to accept that the expedient way might be the best way. But to Skif’s surprise, it was Nyara who spoke up against the idea.

“Need has given me a sense of what An’desha has dwelt within, all these years,” she said slowly. “What Falconsbane did to me is nothing to what he has done to this boy. He has helped us at risk of real death—and he has done so knowing we might decide not to help him. I say it would reflect ill upon us all our days if we were to pretend he did not exist. I say we should save him if we can, and I put my life up for trying.”

She looked at Skif as if she were afraid he would think her to be crazed. He did—but it was the kind of “crazed” that he could admire. He crossed the tent and took her in his arms for a moment, then turned to the others.

“Nyara’s right. It’s stupid, it’s suicidal, but Nyara’s right and I was wrong.” He gulped, shaking all over, but feeling an odd relief as well. “We have to help this boy, if we can.”

“All right, Great Mage Pandemonium,” he said. “Then let’s do this all or nothing. After all—” he grinned tautly as he remembered his old motto, the one he had told Talia so very long ago, “—if you’re going to traverse thin ice, you might as well dance your way across!”

Night fell, and Falconsbane’s preparations were all in place. They were in for another bout of wizard-weather, this time an unseasonable cold, and as far as he was concerned, that was all to the good. Bad weather would make it easier for him to disguise himself.

There was a very convincing simulacrum of himself in the bed, apparently sleeping, in case anyone came in while he was gone.

Ancar was in his war-room, a large chamber with a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the palace. Hulda, of course, was still in her cell, and showing no signs of breaking free. The other mages were all with Ancar, but the King did not trust Falconsbane enough to allow him access to the actual battle plans unless things had unraveled to the point that there was no choice.

The servants were mostly elsewhere. Rumors of what Falconsbane had done to the prisoners Ancar had given him insured that, except when he was known to be sleeping. There were two guards at his door, however…

Falconsbane moved soundlessly to the doorway, and placed his hands at head-height on either side of the doorframe. This would be very tricky; he had very little mind-magic, so this would all be true spellcasting. Difficult, when one could not see one’s target…

He gathered his powers; closed his eyes, concentrating, building up the forces. And then, at the moment of greatest tension, let them fly, arrows of power from each hand that pierced the wall without a sound.

He opened his eyes. There was no noise, no hint of disturbance, on the other side of the door.

He reached for the voluminous cloak he’d had one of the servants bring him this morning and swirled it over his shoulders. It fell gracefully to his feet in heavy folds; he pulled the hood up over his head, using it to cover his face, so that nothing showed but his eyes. As cold as it was tonight, no one would think anything wrong, seeing a man muffled to the nose in a cloak. Likely, everyone else on the street would be doing the same thing and hoping that it would not rain.

He opened the door. The two guards still stood there, at rigid attention. Perhaps—a trifle too rigid?

Mornelithe chuckled and waved his hand in front of their glazed eyes. “Hello?” he said, softly, knowing there would be no response.

Nor was there. Ancar had not thought to armor the guards he had on Falconsbane against spell-casting, trusting in the coercions to keep Falconsbane from doing anything to them. But Mornelithe was not doing anything against Ancar’s interests, no indeed…

“Just going for a little walk, men,” Mornelithe whispered to the unresponsive guards in a moment of perverse whimsy. “I’ll be back before you miss me, I promise!”

He closed the door carefully and set off down the hallway in a swirl of dark fabric. He was not worried about the servants seeing him; if they caught sight of him, they would never imagine the stranger was Falconsbane, and Mornelithe’s authoritative stride was enough to make most of them think twice about challenging his presence in these halls. Ancar had a great many visitors who did not wish to be seen or challenged, and people who were foolhardy enough to do so often disappeared. In a few moments, the two men he had bespelled would wake from their daze, quite unaware that anything had happened to them. He would bespell them again on his return.

It was Ancar’s other guards and soldiers Mornelithe wished to avoid. He hoped there would be none of them to challenge him, but the best chance of avoiding them lay in getting outside quickly.

He could bespell more guards if he had to, but then he would have to find a way to dispose of them. They might be missed. That would be awkward, and not as much fun as he’d prefer.

He continued down the hall without meeting any more men in Ancar’s uniform, but as he rounded a corner and drew within a few feet of his goal he heard the distinctive slap of military boots on the wooden floor. Four sets, at least.

He gambled; made a dash for the door leading to the staircase and wrenched it open. He slipped inside just before the guards came into view, and ran right into a young servingman, just as he closed the door and turned on the landing.

The boy opened his mouth. Falconsbane seized him by the throat before he even managed to squeak. There was no time for finesse; he simply choked the boy so that he could not make a sound. He then wrapped them both in silence, drained the servingboy of life-force, and left him on the landing.

The staircase led directly to the public corridors of the palace. Here he was even less likely to be challenged, and he opened the door at the bottom with confidence, striding out into the corridor and taking a certain enjoyment in the way people avoided looking at him directly. Anyone who walked in such a confident, unhurried manner in Ancar’s palace must be powerful and dangerous… both attributes belonged to people that the folk here would rather avoid. Especially if the strangers took pains to hide their faces.

Unhindered, he passed out into the chill and darkness and paused for a moment on the landing above the courtyard. The guards at the doors did not even look at him; after all, they were there to keep people out, not in. He trotted quickly down the steps to the courtyard, casting a covert glance as he did so to the room behind the balcony immediately above the main doors. Lights were still burning brightly, and shadows were moving about inside. The war-council was still going strong.

There were more guards at the various gates he had to pass to get to the city itself, but once again, they were there to keep people out, not in, and they ignored him. On his return journey, he would come in through another way, via the gardens, and an ingenious series of gates with locks that could be picked with a pin or latches that could be lifted with a twig, holes under walls, and trees with overhanging limbs. This was the route that the servants used to slip in after a clandestine night in the town. Pity it only worked to get in by, but overhanging limbs that permitted a drop down were not very useful when the reverse was needed. He was a mage, not an acrobat.

He passed the last gate and a squad of very bored, very hardened soldiers who looked as if they would have welcomed an intruder just so that they could alleviate their boredom by killing him. Then he was out in streets of the city, and free.

For one brief moment, he was tempted to just keep walking. Forget a cat-woman who might or might not be Nyara; forget that he might be hundreds of leagues from his own territory. He was free—he could take that freedom and just walk away from here.

But as he thought that, he suddenly felt the jerk of the coercions on him, a chain jerking a dog back to its kennel. The force was sufficient to make him stagger. And he snarled inside the shadow of his hood.

No, this breath of freedom was an illusion after all. And he could not simply walk away. Ancar’s coercive spells were set too well, and the King had evidently planned against this very possibility. He had the freedom of the city—but that was all.

Very well. Let him see if this Lady Cat was indeed Nyara. And if she was, he would use her death to fuel his own powers, taking back into himself all that he had used to make her.

An’desha was very glad that his link with his physical body was so tenuous that as long as Falconsbane was awake it might just as well have not existed. If he—or rather, his body—had broken into a sweat of nervous fear, Falconsbane would certainly have noticed something was going on!

That moment when Falconsbane had thought to simply walk off—An’desha had taken a gamble and given the Adept a jolt he hoped Falconsbane would interpret as Ancar’s coercions. The gamble had worked, but the old woman had been only too correct when she had warned that this was going to take every bit of cleverness and concentration he had. The Adept had come within a heartbeat of bringing down all their plans.

Falconsbane moved swiftly through the darkened, noisome streets to the city gate. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the odor of offal in the gutters, an odor even the bitter cold could not suppress. And this was supposed to be one of the better parts of this city! An’desha could not for a moment fathom why anyone would want to live in one of these hives. He felt a pang of longing as sharp as any blade for his long-lost Plains, or even the Pelagir territory Falconsbane had taken for his own. Wilderness, he thought achingly, as a vision of the endless sea of grass that was the Plains in late spring danced before his mind’s eye. Shall I ever see it again?

On the other side of the gate in the city wall, the Faire spread out on the long slope of a meadow, inclining away from the city. Lighted stalls, wagons, and tents showed that the carnival was in full swing, and streams of people going to and from the Faire proved that folk still craved entertainment. Perhaps they craved it even more, under Ancar’s repressions.

Falconsbane made his way through the crowds; most folk ignored him or avoided him, but he hardly noticed. His eyes searched out and dismissed every occupant of every stage. He passed a wealth of jugglers, musicians, conjurers, salesmen of every sort of strange brew and device—

He could not get too near the wagon-stage in question, for the people were piled ten and twenty deep around it. The performance he had heard so much about was just ending, but Falconsbane saw more than enough to make his heart race.

Dancing provocatively to the throbbing of a drum, posing and twisting in positions that rivaled the contortionists on the next stage, was Nyara.

Even with the foolish and patently false ears and tail she wore, and the peculiar makeup that added stripes to her face, it was clearly Nyara, dressed in a few veils and a singlet—And a collar and chain-leash.

She posed once more, dropped a veil, and whisked around the corner of the wagon, to what was obviously a performance tent—where, presumably, she would remove more than a single veil.

A fellow in an impossibly gaudy costume began chanting something to that effect, inviting the crowd to see “more of her,” in just a half candlemark. Then he followed after Nyara, presumably to ready the stage inside the tent.

And after the initial shock and elation, Falconsbane could only think of one thing.

An’desha panicked. To have come so far, and to have Falconsbane flee on the threshold—no, it could not happen! There had to be something that would push him past this, to the place where caution didn’t exist! To the point of madness, of obsession—

Quickly, even as Falconsbane completed that thought, An’desha added another, praying to the Star-Eyed that he would not notice An’desha’s “voice” in his head.

Falconsbane’s field of vision narrowed and tinged red with a rush of rage that sent a flood of blood to his head, and burned along his veins.

:Good boy! I’ll warn the girl,: came a harsh whisper to An’desha, as the mere mention of gryphons triggered Falconsbane’s powerful, ancient obsession. Now it did not matter to Falconsbane that this might be a trap. Nothing mattered—except that there might—no, must—be gryphons, the two gryphons who had twice escaped his wrath. Maybe the little ones, too!

An’desha felt a new fear now as he realized that his thoughts and Mornelithe’s were intertwining the more he manipulated the Adept’s thoughts. He was inserting thoughts and ideas so much quicker than before—what if Mornelithe left this body and took An’desha’s consciousness with him, instead of abandoning the body to its rightful owner?

Then that is the price I must pay, An’desha thought, with smothered despair, and spurred Mornelithe forward. Either way, may the Goddess ensure Mornelithe is done for.

Quickly, Falconsbane shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring protests and return shoves, working his way to the end of the row where he could get to the back of the tents. There, if anywhere, would be the gryphons. They were too big to hide anywhere else.

He shoved his way into clear space and darkness, out of the reach of the torches illuminating the public areas of the carnival. He had squeezed his way between two of the wagons, and was now in an area of the carnival meant only for the Faire-folk. There were at least a dozen large tents here, all in a neat row, most glowing softly from within. Beside one, a horse was grazing quietly. It screamed to his mage-senses of illusion; he looked below the illusion—to see a poor old broken-down nag where the glossy bay was standing.

And even as he got his bearings, he saw the shadow of a gryphon, briefly, against the side of one of the tents.

Falconsbane took in that shadow, those waving wings, and went quite mad—a madness like a deadly storm, built over the course of centuries.

Falconsbane’s hands blazed with power, ready to strike. He rushed at the tent, screaming at the top of his lungs in anger, burning the canvas away as he neared, and came to a halt—

And saw Nyara; she held a sword as if she actually knew how to use it! Behind her, a young, curly-haired man was using a lantern to make clever shadow-shapes with his fingers against the canvas.

It was a trap! But he would trap them! This had become absurdly funny. He—

Something dark loomed up behind him and struck like a lightning bolt before he could twist to evade it. He fell forward with a shock onto—

Falconsbane felt his rage ebbing, along with his power, and a great surge of bitter disappointment, just as the first wave of pain hit him.

—when suddenly Nyara cried out desperately, “A gryphon! Somebody make a gryphon, one he can see! He’s about to get away!”

Taken by surprise, with no illusion ready, he could only fumble after a bit of power to obey her.

Skif thrust his hands up in front of the lantern, as if he were doing a shadow-puppet play, and writhed his clever fingers into something that cast an amazingly lifelike shadow of a nodding gryphon on the back wall of the tent. The lower mandible opened and closed in a remarkable imitation of a gryphon talking, and his fingers made wingtips.

He got his answer a breath later, as something—someone—shrieked with towering rage, then terrible power burned through the canvas and Falconsbane stood there—hands blazing, eyes afire with madness, teeth bared in an animalistic growl as if he would rend them apart like a beast of the forest or one of his own monsters.

He faced Nyara, his hands aglow with raw power; she brought Need up into a guard position. From the way her stance changed, Skif knew she had given control of her body over to the old woman.

But magic does not need a blade to strike, and can kill from afar. Only Need had the ability to destroy the Adept. But if Falconsbane did not find a target other than his daughter, she might not survive to close with him.

Fear acted on him like a drug, sharpening his own reflexes, and making it seem as if everyone else moved at a crawl while he ran. Firesong was only now bringing up his hands to strike at the Adept, and he would be too late to stop the first attack on Nyara unless Skif redirected it.

He reached for his own blade, knowing he stood no chance against Falconsbane—but at least he could defend Nyara. Even if he died doing so—

:No, Chosen!: There was an equine scream and a flurry of hoofbeats. Cymry loomed up out of the darkness and rushed into Falconsbane. Mornelithe stumbled forward, face gone blank with surprise.

They had expected a combat, with Firesong taking on Falconsbane’s magic, and Nyara striking at a moment of distraction.

She continued her rush right into the tent, and shoved the Adept right up onto the blade, impaling him on its full length.

Somehow, Nyara held steady, under the double impact of his body and the surprise that their clever foe had been so incredibly stupid.

Mornelithe gathered his power, instinctively grasping after the one thing he still controlled.

Nyara braced herself against him, but even so, she staggered back. He was half again her weight, after all. The force of the shove had carried him halfway up the blade; he stared stupidly at her, face-to-face. Pain took him as a triumphant conqueror, and death beckoned. His eyes flitted to the blade as his power ran away along with his own life-force and his red, red blood, flowing into the ground before him.

His power was draining away, and so was his life. This body was dying, very quickly.

He could use what was left to have revenge on them—or he could escape and get his revenge another time.

He chose as he had always chosen, laughing in spite of the terrible pain that wracked this latest body he had stolen.

—and now, completely in control, he stared down with his own eyes. Pain seized him as a dog would seize a rag doll, and shook him, and he screamed as his vision failed and darkness came down around him—darkness, and despair—

The Moonpaths! It was the old woman, standing on the Moonpaths, with a black abyss between him and her. She held out a hand to him.

A thousand thoughts flitted through his mind, but uppermost was that this must also be an Avatar of the Goddess, one that had cloaked Herself in the seeming of an old woman—yes, that made sense, for how else could he have spoken with Her? No human woman could have touched his mind on the Moonpaths!

—yes, and wasn’t the last face of the Goddess that of the Crone? She who gave life and death?

And She clung to him, and held him out of the abyss even as it opened up under his feet.

Skif caught the crumpling body, lowering it to the ground far more gently than he would have if he hadn’t seen the ghost of a frightened child looking out of the eyes just before the body fell. Nyara’s eyes were closed, her face a wooden mask of concentration.

:Hold onto him, son. I’ll be leeching a lot of your energy for this. Keep him steady. Nyara is going to have to pull me out a hair at a time.:

He stared at the wound; at the ashen face of what had been Falconsbane. Surely, Need could not save anything this time!

:Hush, fool. I have to Heal it all in my wake, but I can do it. I’ve Healed worse, once, and I wasn’t even awake at the time. ‘Course, I did have help.

He had to close his eyes; a wave of dizziness came over him and did not pass, but only got worse. It felt like that moment, years ago, when he and Cymry had gotten washed over that cliff, and fell, and fell—

It was Cymry; he caught her presence and held her, even as he was holding Falconsbane—

:An’desha, Chosen. Never Falconsbane again. Don’t worry, I can hold you forever, if I must. My strength is yours. Take whatever is there for your own. With you always.:

Nyara stood beside him, leaning on the blade, panting as if she had just run for miles. There was no sign of the wound except the dark slit in An’desha’s shirt, and the blood soaking into the ground. The chest rose and fell with full, even breaths, and under his hand the pulse was strong and steady. And even as he stared down at the miracle in his arms, the eyes opened, and looked up into his.

An’desha looked up into the face of the stranger, the one who had been making shadow-gryphons with his fingers, and who now held him carefully, with no sign of the hatred he must feel toward Falconsbane. He looked over at Nyara, who leaned heavily and wearily on a sword but took a moment to smile encouragingly.

:You lied to me!: he wailed, as he started to shake, still held in the terror of near-death.

:I never told you I was your Goddess,: came the tart reply. :I only asked if you trusted Her.:

Firesong was hot on Falconsbane’s trail, flying through the spirit-realms, a silver falcon. The traces faded with preternatural speed, and Firesong poured even more of his own life into tracing Falconsbane back to the little pocket of the Nether Planes where he had made his hiding place, his place of refuge, where death and time could not touch him. Through the swirling colors and chaos of the paths of power, he followed the spark that was Falconsbane, until he watched it dive into a pocket of blackness, an opening into a greater darkness. Small wonder he had not gone mad when trapped in the Gate’s greater Void! He had practice, after all, in coping with such things.

Falconsbane reached the shelter of his refuge, fled inside, and sealed it up from within. If you had not seen the rabbit dive into its warren, you would never have noticed it. Clever, clever Falconsbane, to have seen that the Void held all in stasis, and to realize that in the shifting swirls of the paths of power, no one would ever notice a little flaw, a seam, where none should be.

He paused for a moment, then allowed himself a grim smile. He had told Elspeth and Darkwind that there would be a sign when it was time to attack Ancar. And here was all that energy, so much, in such a tiny and compressed package. Granted, it was blood and death energy, and too tainted for a Healing Adept to actually use. But it would be a shame to get rid of Falconsbane and allow it all to go to waste, drifting back into the currents of energy and fading away…

So it was, and it was time to sing. He seized the shelter in fiery hands—talons—of energy.

As he tore open the walls Falconsbane had built, he sensed an instant of surprise, followed by pure panic.

In passion, he took on the aspect of his firebird, and used every last bit of his powers to sink talonlike fingers and sharp, silvery-white beak into Falconsbane, shelter and all, tearing them into motes and ribbons and sparks, flinging them across the sky of Hardorn in a burst of fireworks that would be seen for leagues—

Every mote, every ribbon, every spark, he personally and completely purified with his own soul’s fire while he sang in triumphant ecstasy. He wiped it all clean of every sickening memory, every jot of personality, and scattered it far and wide into the bitter night air.

Firesong burned away the last little bit of the shelter within the Void, released the magical “ash” of it into the flow of the Void, and then sank back into his own body.

He opened his eyes to find himself on the ground, with Nyara propping him up, and Skif and Fal—no, An’desha—staring at him intently. It was An’desha; Falconsbane would never, ever have had traces of tears on his cheeks. Falconsbane would never have Nyara’s hand resting on his shoulder in a gesture of protective comfort.

It was An’desha who broke the waiting silence, as outside, people still exclaimed over the fading fireworks.

An’desha stared at him for a moment, and then, unexpectedly, began weeping again; hoarse, racking sobs of long-pent and terrible grief.

Firesong hesitated for a moment. Was there anything he could offer this poor boy? Would he believe comfort coming from another Adept such as his tormenter had been? Yet—oh, how he wanted to offer comfort and have it taken!

:You’re a Healing Adept, boy,: Need reminded him, gruffly. :But you don’t need magic to Heal. Just words. And kindness, and care.:

Firesong shakily levered himself up off the ground, knelt beside An’desha, and offered his arms tentatively.

An’desha folded into them as into a haven of safety. Firesong cradled the boy carefully, murmuring into his ear.

“It’s all right, An’desha. It’s all right now. He can never hurt anyone again. You beat him. You are safe now, and we will always be here to help you. I will always be here to help you…”

The sky overhead erupted into a garden of fiery flowers. Darkwind jerked up his head like a startled horse, and he stared at the odd-colored flashes, showers of sparks, and soundless lightning playing across the sky and lighting up the clouds.

“Damned showman,” he muttered under his breath. “That ‘Pandemonium’ persona is rubbing off on him!”

Darkwind was on a horse he’d stolen from the stable of an inn; the horse, if not the current rider, belonged to Ancar’s Elite. Elspeth was on Gwena, still cloaked in her illusion. Both of them were in stolen uniforms, with Elspeth’s hair tucked up under her uniform hat, and her breasts bound flat, so that she looked like a very slender man. The uniforms hadn’t been very difficult to get; there were plenty of troopers getting drunk in the city taverns, and if two of them woke up in the morning to find themselves stark naked, bound and gagged—well, it probably wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. And by then, he and Elspeth would either be long gone, or no longer in a position to worry about the consequences of being identified.

He had cobbled together something that looked enough like a messenger pouch to pass at a distance, supposedly containing dispatches from the front lines. That had gotten them as far as the courtyard; they were about to dismount, when the fires in the sky began, and the currents of power around them bucked and heaved like a herd of startled dyheli.

To anyone with a scrap of mage-sense, it was distressing. He had never felt quite so violent a disturbance in the energy-currents before.

:Ancar can’t possibly miss this!: Elspeth cried, as they both tried to look as if everything was normal—except for the fireworks, of course; she shouted and pointed upward as all the ordinary people on the walls and in the courtyard were doing. :And I can feel a mage-storm building very fast. People are probably getting nosebleeds all over the city—: Even now, a huge anvil-shaped cloud was boiling up over the city seemingly from nowhere.

And now every man guarding the walls and the gates, every servant that heard the cries of surprise, and every stableboy came running out to gape at the skies like a parcel of fools. Their cries brought others.

He could hardly have missed the upheavals in the magic-currents, and given how many spells he had tied into Falconsbane, he must have been knocked metaphorically head-over-arse when they snapped back on him at the Beast’s death. But they had never, in all their wildest hopes, imagined he would come running out onto the landing in front of the main doors of his palace like any other fool, just to look up at the sky!

And no one, no one, was paying any attention to Elspeth and Darkwind in the middle of the courtyard.

They didn’t even pause to think; as one, they drew strung bows and a pair of arrows from the cases on their saddles. As one, they nocked and fired and followed the first arrows with a second, then snatched for a third while the first two were still in the air.

Ancar was a mage; he was likely to be shielded against a magical attack, but not necessarily a physical one…

So they hoped, anyway. It was the best chance for a physical attack that they were likely to get. Darkwind watched the arrows arc toward the oblivious King and held his breath, not even daring to mutter a prayer for success, his whole being straining after the streaking shafts.

All four arrows hit the edge of a mage-shield set against physical attacks, and disintegrated in a shower of sparks.

Well, that certainly got his attention, he thought fleetingly as Ancar spotted them.

Ancar’s eyes slid right over Darkwind and fixed on Elspeth. And even from halfway across the courtyard, there was no doubt in Darkwind’s mind that he recognized Elspeth. There was an instant of frozen shock, and his lips moved as his eyes widened. He knew. Somehow, through disguise and illusion, he knew who it was who came to kill him wearing the cold mask of diamond-pure Vengeance. Elspeth was an arrow of justice sped from the hand of the Queen and the bow of Valdemar.

Ancar seemed to go mad then, his eyes blazing with anger. His hands flared up in an instant with blood-red mage-energy. Rather than stunning him, the shock of recognition seemed to galvanize him into sudden action. Darkwind and Elspeth both dropped their useless bows; Darkwind ducked over his horse’s neck and kicked free of his stirrups, just as Ancar let fly a mage-bolt that passed through the space where he had been and shattered the pavestones, making Darkwind’s stolen horse buck and jump sideways. The Hawkbrother rolled out of the way, shoulder against the hard stone.

Elspeth tumbled in a more controlled manner off Gwena’s back. Darkwind reached out an ephemeral “hand” to her; the two of them meshed powers with the ease of long practice, joining shields, just as a second mage-bolt crashed into their united defenses.

They were not given a chance to breathe—bolt after bolt of raw power crashed into them, burning away outer shields and forcing them to devote all of their attention to defenses…

Nor was that all; the death of Falconsbane, the battle, all these had tipped the precarious balance over Hardorn’s capital. For too long Ancar and his mages had worked their magics without regard for the world around them, throwing it further and further out of balance.

Now something had thrown it too far, as Firesong had warned might happen. Nature went as berserk as the King.

As Ancar cast his deadly bolts of power, another equally deadly bolt lanced down out of the clouds overhead and struck somewhere in the back of the palace. It hung, shattering the night as it lanced from the skies and lingered, momentarily deafening and blinding them, signaling the worst lightning-storm Darkwind had ever seen. It easily surpassed the storm they had triggered over Ashkevron Manor with their Gate for sheer fury.

Twice, as they bowed beneath the battering of Ancar’s mage-bolts, lightning hit the palace itself, setting fires on the roof. Ancar seemed oblivious to it all, intent only on pounding the two of them into red dust on the cobbles of the courtyard.

Then a third bolt struck the doors behind the King. The bolt’s thinnest tendrils—enough to split huge trees—licked Ancar’s shields, then the charred, exploding doors knocked Ancar to the courtyard itself. It left his clothes singed, but it didn’t seem to affect his concentration; he came to his feet immediately and resumed his attack, even as Darkwind was still trying to clear his vision from the flash. Vree and Gwena were nowhere to be seen.

He could not imagine where Ancar was getting all this power! The man couldn’t be more than a Master—how was he holding off two Adepts?

“He’s mad!” Elspeth cried out, as another bolt of lightning struck and exploded the wall above the metal gates, scattering bricks and bodies down onto the pavement below. Another bolt followed it, and by its light, Darkwind caught a good look at Ancar’s face.

He realized that she was, literally, right. Ancar had bitten through his own lip and hadn’t even noticed. He was mad; mad enough to burn himself out, crazed enough not to care, using himself up in a prolonged version of a mage’s final strike. What was more, the King was insane enough to use the lightning-power. Darkwind felt his skin prickle, his only warning of a bolt coming in the next instant. He leapt to catch Elspeth’s wrist, and jerked her aside only to see a bolt of lightning sear the stones where they had just been.

And Ancar laughed, a high-pitched cackle that held nothing of sanity in it, his eyes so wide that the white showed all around, reflecting hellish-red from the blazing mage-energy of his hands. He pointed his finger at them; this time it was Elspeth who shoved Darkwind, and once again they evaded a lightning-strike by no more than a few arms’ lengths.

Ancar pointed again—in the flash of a secondary strike behind him, Darkwind saw all of Ancar’s hair standing on end as he absorbed the chaotic power of the storm. His aim was improving with every strike, and this time they were both flat on the ground. They would never get out of the way in time!

Two ghostly shapes moved on the scene. One fell from the sky, pale compared to the lightning, but almost as swift.

Gwena reared up out of the shadows of the staircase where she had been hidden. Vree dove at Ancar and struck, clawing the King’s face to distract him, tearing huge furrows in his scalp and forehead to keep him from seeing the Companion.

Gwena came down on Ancar with all the force of her powerful body behind her forehooves and knocked him to the ground. The bones of his shoulders shattered audibly even above the thunder.

Ancar screamed again, first in pain and anger, then in sheer terror, as he saw the hooves coming down on him where he lay.

A single blow of those silver hooves to his head would have killed him instantly, and with a malicious intent Darkwind would never have credited if he had not seen it himself, she deliberately avoided such a blow. No—perhaps it was to avoid striking Vree, who struggled from where he’d bound to Ancar’s scalp and flapped away, wing-wrenched and upset, but alive. In a frenzy of rage nearly as mad as Ancar’s, Gwena trampled him, dancing on him with all four hooves until the screaming stopped, and he was nothing more than red pulp seeping into flagstones.

:That!: Her mind-voice was a scream, and she was still pounding the inert meat with her wet, red hooves. :That! That’s for Talia! That’s for Kris! That’s for—:

“Laugh now, horse!” came a shout from the palace, and a mage-bolt took Gwena in the side, lifting her right off the ground with the force. Gwena hit the ground, hooves slipping beneath her, and landed on her side with a thud.

That was the only person it could be, even though the woman was dressed in servants’ livery, and was as wild-eyed as Ancar had been.

“Go ahead and laugh at this—” the woman cried, raising her hands for another blow. Darkwind erected hasty shields over Gwena, who moved her legs feebly and flailed her head as she tried to rise.

Behind Hulda, a man grabbed her arm, distracting her for a moment. “Don’t be a fool!” he shouted in oddly accented Hardornen over the roar of the thunder. “We have to get out of here! Leave these idiots!”

She pulled away from him and started to build power for another attack—but once again he pulled her away, this time succeeding in drawing her back inside.

Darkwind was not going to let her escape—and there was no sign that anyone was going to interfere at this point. The mage-storms and lightning had driven everyone out of the courtyard and off the walls.

He scrambled to his feet and ran up to the sundered stairs, then hooked his fingers around stonework, climbing to reach the balcony. :Go!: he shouted at Elspeth, :Get inside and cut them off from below!:

This kind of climb was nothing to a Tayledras. As Elspeth dashed into the doors below him, his hand reached the balcony itself, and he pulled himself up and over the railing.

And just as he burst into the ravaged room, he felt the unmistakable shivering in the power-currents of someone building a Gate nearby…

They had all studied the plans of Ancar’s palace until they could have walked the place blindfolded. Elspeth remembered a stair going right up into the hallway above, just inside the main doors. The place was deserted; everyone had either gone off to fight the fires or fled in terror when the mage-battle began. She ran up the stairs two at a time, and as she reached the top and the corridor that it led to, she heard the sound of a fight on the other side of the second door along the corridor.

She didn’t stop to think; she just gathered power and blasted, disintegrating the door and running through the hole while the dust was still raining down.

And she stumbled to a halt as she hit something that felt like a web, a net that closed around her in a heartbeat and held her immobile.

But her eyes still worked, and the very first thing she saw, by the white light of pure power, was the man that had pulled Hulda inside.

—was building a Gate! He already had the framework up. He wasn’t even using a real door as his anchor, he was simply building the thing in midair!

Darkwind knelt on the floor, beside the shattered doors to the balcony, cringing beneath his shields as Hulda rained blow after fiery blow down on him. So far, Hulda hadn’t even noticed her. The hinged splinters of the balcony doors slammed against the wall, as the rainless mage-storm raged outside, whitening the room in flashes from the lightning. Thunder roared, drowning out any other sounds, and smoke crept in the window from the fires outside.

Suddenly, the darkness in the Gate brightened—and became a hole in the air, a hole leading to a brightly lit room somewhere, filled with furnishings in a sinuous style Elspeth had never seen before.

The man turned toward Hulda. “Are you coming?” he snarled. “Or are you enjoying yourself too much to leave?”

Elspeth realized his lips had not moved with his words. He had projected them in open Mindspeech so strong that anyone, Gifted or not, would have Heard him. As his attention wavered for a moment, split between the Gate and Hulda, so did the bonds holding her. She freed one hand, and shook a knife from her sleeve down into it—her old, reliable, predictable, material knives. No pottery to hurl this time…

As Hulda turned to answer him, Elspeth cast the knife, knowing that if the envoy went down, the Gate would go with him.

He was not expecting a physical attack; the knife caught him in the throat. It buried itself to the hilt. Blood spurted from a severed artery, a fountain of ebony-red in the hellish white light. The envoy’s face convulsed; both hands clutched at his throat. He staggered backward, across the threshold, and through the Gate itself.

Elspeth readied a mage-bolt of her own, but Hulda was faster. And Hulda was trapped, with nowhere to escape to; Darkwind was between her and the balcony, Elspeth was between her and the hallway. So she fought with all the desperate strength of any cornered creature, and with the stores of energy she had drained from the land of Hardorn for all these past years…

She was an Adept, easily the equivalent of Falconsbane—and she was not handicapped by having an agent in her own mind, or by a disintegrating personality.

Within moments, Elspeth knew with rising panic that stole her breath that she was in trouble, trying to hold eroded shields against a barrage of mage winds, each of them geared to a specific energy, that began to eat their way down through her protections. They circled her in a whirlwind that caught up papers, bits of wood, shattered glass, and other debris, pelting her with physical as well as magical weapons.

But panic made her mind clearer, and a sudden memory matched the whirlwind. Firesong—the lesson—

She spun her shields until they mated with the whirlwinds; then reached through them, and began to absorb the energies of the attack into her own. But the instant Hulda realized that she had found a counter, the woman set the winds on Darkwind, and attacked Elspeth with—

Creatures of shadow and teeth boiled up from the floor, and a hundred taloned hands reached for her. Fear sent arcs of cold down her limbs. Elspeth backpedaled and came up against the wall; for a moment, she was lost in panic. She had no counter to this—

Panicked, until in the next heartbeat, she remembered that these might be illusions. Illusions vanished if challenged! She pulled her sword, forgotten until now, and swung.

The “demons” vanished without a sound. Hulda then flung a wall of fire at her. Her confidence increased. This she could handle! Perhaps Hulda was not so formidable after all!

Hulda’s reply was drowned out by another thunderclap; there was a trace of real fear in her eyes, and her face was like a stone mask. Elspeth laughed hysterically. Hulda was afraid! Afraid of her! They could take the bitch, they could!

But Hulda evidently decided that if she was doomed, she would take her enemies with her.

Hulda reached out with her powers in a thrust that knocked Elspeth back into the wall again, and with great shudders of power that shook her body as they shook the walls, she began to tear the building down around them.

The walls and ceiling screamed with the shrieks of tortured stone and wood. Elspeth dodged a falling chandelier that brought a quarter of the ceiling down with it—

—just in time to see Darkwind falling beneath the outer wall, going down under a cascade of stone and burning wall-maps that buried him completely in an instant.

“No!” she screamed, reaching for him with mind, heart, and powers, forgetting her own peril—

Only to receive, not an answer, but a flood of energy. Energy that felt—final, as if it was all he had.

She shook her arm and felt her other knife fall into her hand. She screamed again, a wordless howl of rage and anguish; invested every last bit of power in the second knife—and threw it.

Hulda collapsed in a boneless heap, her howling winds collapsing at the same instant, leaving behind an echoing silence filled only by thunder, and the crunch of an occasional brick falling. A glittering knife-hilt shone from her left eye socket.

Elspeth turned and stared at the heap of broken stones, her throat choked with grief so all-consuming that she could not think, could not even weep. She stumbled a step or two toward the pile—

And Vree came winging in out of the darkness, through the gaping, broken wall. He landed beside the stones, and hopped over to them—to the only part of Darkwind that she could see, his hand. He nibbled the fingers, as if to try to coax life into them, and Elspeth’s grief overflowed into scalding tears that blurred her vision. Her throat closed, and she sobbed, then moaned with pain.

He was gone. She was alone. Hulda had won, after all. His loss was an ache that would never be healed.

She shook her head, frantically wiping at her eyes to clear them, then ran to the pile of stones and began to pull them off of him. Vree hopped excitedly beside her, making odd creaking sounds, as she managed to clear his head and shoulders of debris.

He looked terrible, bruised and bleeding from a dozen small cuts, and she trembled to think how many bones might be broken. But he was alive!

:Gods.: He opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them. :I feel… awful. Like… a wall… just fell on me.:

Her heart overflowing, she resumed pulling stones from his body, ignoring splitting nails and sharp edges that cut her hands, thankful that the winds had snuffed out the earlier fires. Finally she came to a thick slab of wood—a strategic map, showing invasion plans. A map of Valdemar.

It had protected Darkwind from the heaviest of the stones, prevented his lungs and ribs from being crushed. Paint flaked from the board as she twisted it free of him, and troop-counters fell like rain from the “Losses” box she found propping up one end of it. She kept having to shake her head to clear her eyes of tears as she pulled debris away from him, trying to figure out how badly he had been hurt.

:Wait. Check Gwena…: he began, his thoughts coming to her from a haze of generalized pain.

:No need,: Gwena said weakly. :I’m going to live. And there’s no one down here to bother me while I decide if I still want to. No bones broken, I don’t think—some burns, and bruises that go to the bone. Keep him from fading, I’ll call Cymry. And you send Vree for him, in case I can’t reach him!:

Although that was somewhat confused, Elspeth had no trouble figuring out which “he” Gwena meant. :Vree,: she said intently, turning to the falcon, concentrating on trying to impress him with her urgency. :Vree, we need Skif. Find Skif. Bring him here quickly!:

Vree bobbed his head once, then nibbled Darkwind’s finger, spread his wings, and flapped heavily off into the darkness again.

“Just stay with me,” she said aloud, fiercely, starting with that hand to check for broken bones, since it was the piece of him least likely to cause problems if she accidentally moved it. Or held it. “Don’t pass out on me.”

“Stop that!” she snapped, still rubbing away tears. “Stay awake, stop fading! Or—or I’ll tell you Hawkbrother jokes! How many Hawkbrothers does it take for a mating circle?”

When Skif arrived, he brought Nyara and Need with him, and his expression betrayed his relief at finding the situation nowhere near as desperate as he had feared from Gwena’s weak Mindcall. He told Elspeth that he’d seen worse injuries than Darkwind’s out in the field, when miners or builders had been trapped under collapsing walls. Darkwind would not only live, he would do so with all organs and limbs intact…

That gave her some measure of comfort and calmed her shattered nerves a little. And although at some point she would be mad with impatience to hear his side of the story, and the confrontation with Falconsbane, at the moment there was enough on her plate to worry about. They still had to get out of here.

They laid Need down beside Darkwind with his hand on the hilt—her complaining the whole time that she had done enough Healing for one day—and carefully lifted the last of the stones from Darkwind’s back and legs. By the time they finished, people were drifting back into the palace, and coming to stare curiously at the wreckage in the room.

But Elspeth and Darkwind still wore their purloined uniforms, and when Elspeth turned and barked “Out!” at the onlookers, they quickly found something else to do.

They limped their way out of the building without being stopped, carrying Darkwind on the map that had saved him, using it as a stretcher. Skif did pause long enough to look down at Hulda and make a tsking sound.

She thought about hitting him, but she was just too weary—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

He reached down for the offending object, cleaning it on his none-too-clean sleeve and handed it back to her. “Where’s the other one?” he asked, as she slipped it into her arm sheath and pulled her sleeve back down over it.

“In the throat of the Eastern Envoy—who is, I suppose, back in his Master’s domain,” she replied. “He was building a Gate, I got him with the knife, and he fell through it.”

Another curious onlooker peeked in the door but vanished before she could even snarl at him.

“Falling dead, with a knife bearing the crest of Valdemar on the pommel-nut,” he said dryly. “Very subtle, Elspeth. Couldn’t you have sent a more direct message to the Emperor? Like, perhaps, ‘Your father won the Horse Faire. Your mother tracks rabbits by scent. Love and kisses, Elspeth of Valdemar.’”

A bit of the ceiling dropped, breaking the silence, followed by the sound of someone picking his way across the floor upstairs. She growled at him, at the end of her patience. “I didn’t exactly have much choice,” she pointed out. “And if we’re going to get out of here before someone names us the assassins of the King, we’d better move now!”

“A good point,” he acknowledged, and picked up his end of the board holding Darkwind. “Need—Gwena’s rather handicapped at the moment. I don’t suppose—”

:Right. Bring logic into this.: Elspeth could have sworn that the sword sighed. :All right. Bring on the horses.:

Skif helped Darkwind up into Cymry’s saddle. Gwena’s worst injuries were mostly to muscle, and easily within Need’s purview; Darkwind’s to bone, which took several days to Heal, and the best Need could do was set them and hold them in place. With Gwena Healed enough to carry her own weight, Elspeth elected to put Darkwind on Cymry’s back and walk, with her on one side, steadying him, and Nyara on the other.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Skif told them. “You get back to the carnival and warn everyone that—let’s see—” He thought quickly. “Falconsbane and Hulda tried to kill Ancar; he got both of them, but not before they called up a demon that mashed him to a pulp. Anyway, tell them all that, and tell them it’s going to be hell around here when everyone realizes all three top people are gone. They may want to get out.”

“They may want to stay and loot,” Elspeth pointed out, tilting her head at the number of people trickling out of the palace carrying things—and the growing stream going in, unhindered by threat of fire, lightning, or remaining guards.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me; they’ll just be getting back some of what Ancar’s been taking, indirectly. There’s just a few things of Ancar’s I want to make sure don’t survive.”

Elspeth looked at him curiously, one hand on Darkwind’s leg, supporting him. “What, documents? How could you know where—” Then she shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know how you know. We’ll get ourselves ready for fast travel and meet you at the camp.”

Cymry started forward, through what was left of the main gates. Gwena limped along behind.

By the time he slipped back out of the doors, there were people looting already—running through the hall, grabbing whatever they could carry, and dashing back out again. Most of those people wore the uniforms of Ancar’s Elite Guard, which didn’t surprise him in the least. None of them offered any kind of hindrance to him, once they saw he wasn’t carrying any choice bits of loot. And every once in a while, he saw one of the political prisoners or kidnapped girls he’d just freed from the dungeons making for the city, some bauble or valuable in hand.

Behind him, one room and all its contents were burning merrily. One more small fire among the other three or four started by the lightning, anyone would assume. It was likely that looters would add to those fires before the night was over.

He stopped long enough at the royal stables to steal a pair of strong, fast horses, and a small carriage; they’d need both for An’desha and Darkwind. Some of the stable hands seemed to have had the same idea, for the really fine horseflesh and the royal carriages were all gone. As an afterthought, he stopped long enough in the courtyard to pitch a kind of souvenir into the back of the wagon he’d appropriated—the map that had saved Darkwind. He thought Elspeth would like to have it.

And as he passed through the gates, he was already making plans for the fastest route out, one that passed through the fewest number of towns that might hold garrisons. Getting to the border was going to be tricky.

Maybe we ought to see if old Firesong has one more trick in him. Or maybe Elspeth? A Gate into Valdemar would be damned useful about now…

Pires Nieth settled himself gingerly into Ancar’s throne. To say that he was exhausted was understating the case, but he dared not allow that to show. He had only taken control of the chaotic situation by the thinnest of margins, and only because the commanders of the Elite were more afraid of mages than they were greedy. His illusions of demons alone had been enough to convince them that he held all the power of his late master; if he’d had to produce more than illusions, he’d have been in desperate trouble.

Fortunately, the commanders had taken the illusion for the real thing, and had brought their men back under control. Now the palace was completely cleared of looters, the city was rapidly being pacified, and he was the man who was going to inherit Ancar’s rather damaged crown. Once anyone thought to contest him for it, well, it would be too late.

Hardorn was not what it had been—but it was more than he had ever owned before.

The throne was mostly intact, a few semiprecious stones missing. The throne-room itself was smoke-stained and bore the muddy footprints of looters. But it was still a throne and an audience chamber, and there were plenty of servants to repair both.

Oh, you’ve done very well by yourself, Pires, he congratulated himself as his cowed and frightened sheep—ah, courtiers and mages—gathered to pay him their homage officially. You have done very well by yourself, and all by being clever, watching everything, knowing when to play your hand—

A commotion at the end of the room made him frown. The courtiers swirled like little fish disturbed by the passing of a larger, hungry fish. What now?

A battered and disheveled messenger came pushing through the crowd, his eyes wild, his face sweat-and dirt-streaked. “The border!” he panted, frantically. “An attack on the border!”

Damn—the Valdemarans—well, I have no quarrel with them, I can simply make a truce—“What are the Valdemarans doing?” he asked. “Who’s the commander in charge? How quickly can he retreat from—”

“Not the western border!” the man wailed. “The eastern border! The towers just relayed a message from the eastern border! There’s an army there, a huge army, it outnumbers us by a hundred to one, and it’s rolling over everything!”

It was at this time that Pires Nieth realized his throne might not be valuable for very much longer. And he tried to think of who he could go to that would trade Ancar’s flattened crown for a fast horse.

Treyvan mantled his wings over the youngsters, cradling gryphlet and human alike. The salle was warm and bright, but the little ones took no notice of the sunlight, nor of the toys piled all around them. All four were distressed, for all four knew that their parents were going away, and where they were going, people got hurt.

He was making soothing little sounds, when suddenly his feathers all stood on end, and he felt the unique trembling in the forces of magic that signaled a Gate forming in this very room.

His first thought was that Falconsbane had found a way to build a Gate here, to attack the children. He shoved them all behind him, turning with foreclaws outstretched, building his shields and his powers to strike at anything that struck at him. His action took the two Heralds on guard entirely by surprise, but they reacted with the speed of superbly trained fighters, drawing their weapons and facing the direction he faced.

A haze of power shimmered in the doorway to the salle. Then—the door vanished, to be replaced by a meadow of sad, yellowed grasses—

And Firesong and Elspeth came stumbling through, followed by Nyara and Skif, the dyheli, the birds, and the two Companions, one of whom carried Darkwind on her back, and dragged a slab of wood. The other Companion carried someone else, wrapped up in so much cloth as to be unidentifiable.

The Gate came down immediately. So did Firesong, collapsing where he stood. Darkwind looked none too good either.

“Get a Healerrrr!” Treyvan snapped; one of the Heralds sheathed her blade and took off at a dead run before he even finished the sentence. The other joined him at Firesong’s side.

“We got Falconsbane, Ancar, and Hulda, in that order, yesterday,” Elspeth replied, helping Darkwind down off Gwena’s back. “All hell broke loose over there. We’ll probably see the effects of it on the border, in a day or a week, depending on if anyone thinks to use the relay-towers to get word to the front lines. There was rioting in the city as we left, and we traveled just long enough for Firesong to get back the strength to Gate us home. The unrest was spreading faster than we could move.”

Darkwind chuckled weakly, still clearly in some pain. “A trophy. A lifesaver of a trophy.”

Just then, the first Herald returned with not one, but three Healers, and right behind them were Selenay and Prince Daren and their bodyguards, followed by a runner from one of the Valdemaran relay-towers. It looked as if the man had been bringing an urgent message, had seen the Queen and her consort running like dyheli for the salle, and had followed them instead of going to the Palace.

He nearly got skewered by the bodyguards until he flung up both hands, showing himself weaponless, and panted out, “Message from the border!”

“Ten to one it’s starting—” Treyvan heard Skif mutter to Nyara, who nodded wisely, as she aided the unknown down from the second Companion’s saddle. He, she, or it also simply slumped down to the floor, but not until Firesong had gotten to his (her?) side with one of the Healers.

Some of Ancar’s army—the Elite—continued to attack. Most were fleeing. Even Ancar’s mages were no longer a factor, for they were actually fighting among themselves.

“We need to get out there,” Selenay said, immediately. “All of us. Companion-back it shouldn’t take that long.”

Elspeth shook her head. “I’m still in good shape, Mother. I can build a Gate for you. The only reason Firesong brought us here was because of the distance; it isn’t even half that far to Landon Castle, and that should be right near the front.” She grinned wanly. “I certainly saw enough of that place the last time Ancar hit us to put a Gate in the chapel door.”

“Done,” Selenay said instantly, and turned to Treyvan. He waved a claw at her. “Fearrr not, Lady. We shall be rrrready. Hydona and I can deal with sssuch magessss asss may get thisss farrr.”

“Be here in a candlemark with whoever and whatever you want to take with you,” Elspeth said, and looked at Darkwind. “I should go, too.”

Selenay shook her head. “No, love, not really. Daren and I will go because there will be decisions on what must be done with Hardorn, but now—this is hardly more than a matter of cleaning up.”

Darkwind nodded agreement. “The danger will not be to you. The dangers are all in a disorderly retreat, to keep the forces from hurting each other. Your people know you; you are the one in charge. And they no longer need an Adept out there.”

“My thoughtsss exactly.” Treyvan nodded. Selenay was not going to waste time or words; she and Daren hurried back out, trailed by guards, messengers, and Heralds.

Selenay and Daren returned with their Companions, all armed and provisioned, and a guard of six Heralds and six Royal Guardsmen. They were ready, Elspeth was ready—Treyvan was very proud of his young human pupil, who was showing her true mettle. He gently reminded her of how the Gate Spell worked, and stood ready to guide her “hands.”

Treyvan watched her with the critical eye of a teacher but could find nothing to criticize. She had not needed his aid at all; she had done her work flawlessly. The portal filled with the image of a dark, ill-lit, stone-walled room. “That old miser never will buy enough candles to light that great barn properly,” Selenay muttered, covering her amazement with the rather flippant remark. Treyvan thought it rather brave of her, when she did not ask, “Is it safe?” but rather, “Is everything ready?”

A chorus of “ayes” answered her, and the Queen herself, with her Companion, was the first one through the Gate. Two by two, the entourage went through.

Elspeth dissolved the Gate—and sat down herself, abruptly. Treyvan was expecting it, however, and helped her to sit, waving away the Healer who had been tending Firesong. “It isss wearrrinesss, only,” he assured the woman. “Gate-enerrrgy.”

He bent over Elspeth. :Silly child,: he chided, mind-to-mind. :You have all of the Heartstone to regain your energies! Use it! Firesong assuredly is!:

:Oh,: she replied sheepishly. :I—ah—forgot: And only then did the Healer tending the unknown persuade her (him?) to remove the cloak swathing his face and body.

Treyvan flashed into “kill” stance, shoving the youngsters behind him with his outstretched wings. :Falconsbane!:

Then, before anyone could do or say anything, he looked deeply into the creature’s eyes and saw there, not the ages-old tyrant, but a young and vulnerable boy.

He relaxed, flattening his feathers, and tucking his wings in with a flip. “Ssso,” he said, “and who isss thiss, that wearrrsss the body of ourrr old foe?”

It was Firesong who answered, with one hand protectively on the boy’s shoulder. “This is An’desha, old friend. And—”

:And he has earned more than the reward he sought.: The mental voice boomed through his head, resonating in his bones. Every feather on Treyvan’s body stood on end, as he felt the stirrings of energies deeper and stranger than the local mage-currents. Light filled the room, a warm and sourceless light as bright as sunlight on a summer day. A faint scent of sun-warmed grasses wafted across the salle—

The light collected behind An’desha; more light formed into an identical column behind a very startled Nyara. The columns of light spread huge, fiery wings over the two; Treyvan’s skin tingled and Darkwind and Firesong gasped.

:These twain have given selflessly. It is the will of the Warrior that what was stolen from them be returned.:

A female voice this time—and Darkwind reached toward the pillar of light behind Nyara as if he recognized it, and soundlessly mouthed a name. Treyvan realized that, no, these were not winged columns of golden light, but a pair of huge golden birds, shining so brightly that Treyvan squinted and the humans’ eyes watered. But the birds had human eyes—eyes as black as night, but spangled with stars.

:So let the balance be restored.: Both voices called, in glorious harmony, a peal of trumpets, the cry of hawks—

The light flared, and Treyvan cried out involuntarily, blinded, deafened, able to see only the light and hear only the joined and wordless song of those two voices, which went on, and on—

He blinked, his beak still agape. The light was gone, and with it the two huge hawks of light—

Then his beak gaped even farther as he looked down at what had been An’desha/Mornelithe.

A young, bewildered, and clearly human man sat there now; as he looked up in shock and wonder at Treyvan, his golden skin betrayed his Shin’a’in blood, although his golden-brown hair spoke of an outClan parent somewhere. His eyes were still green-gold and slitted like a cat’s, and there was still a feline cast to his features; his build was still powerful and his fingernails still talonlike—but no one would ever look askance at him in a crowd now.

Treyvan looked quickly to Nyara, who was staring at An’desha, and saw that similar changes had been made to her. She looked down at her hands, at skin that no longer bore a coat of sleek, short fur—and burst into tears.

It took a while for Skif and Treyvan to understand her distress, and longer for Skif to persuade Nyara that he still would love her now that she was no longer so exotic. Treyvan advised the blade Need to stay out of it; wisely, she did.

An’desha was simply overjoyed. He had never expected to look human again—he had only wanted a body back, not necessarily the original body Mornelithe had taken. It was from him that they learned what the two fiery birds were—“Avatars of the Shin’a’in Warrior”—and who—“A shaman of my people, Tre’valen, and his lady, Dawnfire.”

Darkwind nodded as if he had expected something of the sort; he and Elspeth shared a warm and secret smile of pleasure. Firesong looked as if he had gotten a revelation from the gods. The gryphlets and children, who had been quiet witnesses to all of this, simply watched with wide, delighted eyes.

Finally, they packed themselves back up to the palace, silent, awestruck youngsters and all. Treyvan was simply afire by then with impatience. “I mussst know!” he exclaimed as they settled into the gryphons’ rooms, and another small army of Healers and servants descended on them. “I ssssee that thisss An’desssha isss not Falconsssbane, but how, how, did he become Falconsssbane? Orrrr did Falconsssbane become him?”

Firesong had his arm about the young man’s shoulders, in a gesture both protective and proprietary. “Falconsbane became him, old bird,” the Adept replied. “And how he got there is a very, very, long story.”

:A long story? A long story?: Rris came bounding up at last, dashing in from the hallway, ears and tail high. :Knowledge is good! History is better! Tell me! Tell me all!:

Treyvan grinned to himself. Once the kyree discovered what he had missed witnessing, they were never going to hear the last of it!

Firesong laughed tiredly; An’desha stared at the kyree in utter fascination, and Treyvan only shook his head and sighed at Rris’ unbounded enthusiasm.

“We will have time enough to tell you all you wish, Rris,” Firesong said. “An’desha and Darkwind and I are the most weary of this company, and I think—”

“If you think that we’re going to order the lot of you to stay here and recover, you’re right!” snapped one of the Healers. “You’re in no shape to go haring around on a battlefield.” He turned back to An’desha, muttering something about “Heralds.”

“Well, Rris,” Elspeth said with a smile, getting up off the floor to go sit with Darkwind. She leaned gingerly into his shoulder, “It looks as if you’re going to have all of us at your disposal for some time.”

:Yes!: Rris replied, bounding in place. :Yes! I will make histories of all of it!: And he abruptly settled, fixed Darkwind with his direct and intelligent gaze, and demanded, :Now. You, Darkwind. Begin at the beginning, and leave nothing out.:

Darkwind slowly picked up the battered map of Valdemar and threatened Rris with it.

Elspeth burst into laughter, laughing until tears came to her eyes. “Don’t kill him, ashke; he’s a Bard and has immunity here.”

“Impudence, you mean,” Darkwind muttered. Then smiled, and gently put the map back down.

“It all began,” he said, as if he were a master storyteller, “on the day we left home.”

“No,” Darkwind replied, his eyes on Elspeth and not the kyree. “Home. Valdemar.”

Treyvan thought that the blinding light of the Avatars could never be matched. But it was challenged and eclipsed then, by the light in Elspeth’s eyes.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

No one works in a vacuum; a creation can only reach people with the help of more than merely the creator. In the case of a book, the reader seldom sees all those people, often never knows that they exist.

At DAW Books, it all began with tireless First Reader, Peter Stampfel, a fine musician in his own right (catch him and his group, the Bottle Caps, when you’re in New York). He is the man who reads hundreds, if not thousands, of manuscripts every year and picks out those he thinks the editors would like to see. One of the ones he picked out was Arrows of the Queen, for which I owe him eternal gratitude.

Then comes Editor in Chief, Elizabeth Wollheim, whose critique has made what had been good books into much, much better books, and who also has taken the courageous steps of publishing a trilogy with a shaych hero and of putting illustrations back into books. No one could ever want a better editor; no one could ever have an editor who was easier to work with. Without her, Valdemar would never have been what it has become. Without her, I would not be the writer I am today. A good writer never stops learning, and I could have no better teacher than Elizabeth Wollheim.

Also entering the fray, in the times when Betsy was juggling too many red-hot pokers to manage another, is Sheila Gilbert. This is the lady who has been bringing you the fine work of Tanya Huff as well.

Of course I can’t fail to mention Elsie Wollheim and her late husband Don, without whom there would not be a DAW Books, and very likely would not be a Heralds of Valdemar series. Elsie and Don discovered far too many science fiction talents to ever list here, and with their unfailing honesty and determination to “do right” by their writers, have won the admiration and love of so many of us.

The stalwart centurion of the copy-editing line, Paula Greenberg, makes certain that all my capitalizations and spellings match and imparts as much consistency as anyone can to someone as chaotic as I am.

The patient Joe Schaumburger ensures that none of us forget anything, keeping track of it all, occasionally proofreading, reminding us that we haven’t sent our proof corrections, and a million other things, all at once. I can only conclude he has a monumental memory, as well as a charming personality, and it is always a pleasure to hear from him.

Out in the “field” are all the booksellers—the independents, who start so many careers, and the chains, who nourish careers. We have the American Booksellers Association to thank for the fact that there is scarcely a town in the United States that does not have a bookstore, which was not the case when I was a youngster. We have the ABA to thank for crusading tirelessly against those who would have books taken off the shelves, censored, and banned.

And we have the American Library Association, who make certain that those who can’t afford to buy all the books they want can still read them!

On the home front, I have my personal set of High Flight folks to thank, and very first and foremost is Larry Dixon. A talented artist and writer, he also is my “first editor;” everything he has touched has always been immeasurably better for it. He is the best partner anyone could want; he has also become my husband which makes it even better! Interestingly, we began with a working relationship, he as artist, I as writer. It was a collaboration begun the first weekend we met, called “Ties Never Binding.” It evolved into the “Winds” trilogy.

Another co-writer, Mark Shepherd, is our secretary in addition to being my protégé. He is the one who keeps track of fan mail, release forms for fan-fiction, insurance papers, correspondence, schedules, and all the rest. Without his help, we would be in a far greater mess than we are!

And riding tail-guard at the Aerie is Victor Wren, Larry’s assistant and computer guru extraordinaire. It is Victor’s expertise that makes it possible for us to bring you the images you have seen in this book; Larry’s pencil drawings are scanned into their computer imaging system, Larry and Victor retouch them there, add special effects, then print them out as camera-ready halftones.

We have had the help of fellow wildlife rehabbers, fellow members of NAFA (North American Falconry Association), and others who devote themselves to preserving the wild for future generations.

There are our friends in the field—Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey, Ellen Guon, Holly Lisle, Josepha Sherman, Martin Greenberg, Mike Resnick, Judith Tarr, Esther Friesner, Lisa Waters, Ru Emerson, Tanya Huff, Elizabeth Moon, C.J. Cherryh, Terri Lee, Nancy Asire, and many others.

Last, and surely the best, are the fans. “Herald House-Mother,” Judith Louvis, who runs the fan club “Queen’s Own,” all of the editors and contributors of the fanzines, the folk in “Queen’s Own Online—Modems of the Queen” on GEnie, and all of you who have enjoyed these stories and keep asking for more. This is a heartfelt acknowledgment and sincere thanks to all of you. We will be writing of Heralds and Companions, Shin’a’in, Tayledras, and Kaled’a’in, the past and future of Valdemar—oh yes, and the Eastern Empire—for as long as you care to read the stories.

Zhai’helleva!

Mercedes Lackey

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AUTHOR’S NOTE