The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  His mind jabbered as they plummeted down toward the forest canopy.

  He did not even have enough control to pick where they were going to hit.

  Below him, he thought Blade was screaming; he couldn’t hear her through the pounding in his ears. His vision went red with the strain…

  Then they hit the trees.

  That slowed them. As they crashed through the treetops, he felt the basket lighten a little; and for a moment he had hope that the springy boughs might actually catch and hold them.

  But the basket was too heavy, and the branches not strong nor thick enough. As the basket dragged him down into the gloom, he realized belatedly that hitting trees with wings spread wide was not a good idea for a flying creature.

  He was jerked a little sideways as the basket encountered more branches, which was not good for him; instead of dropping through the hole the basket made, he hit undamaged tree limbs with an open wing.

  Pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning.

  Then, there was only darkness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For some reason, Blade had never been the kind who sat frozen with shock when something dreadful happened. She had always acted; there was an even chance that whatever she did in an emergency, it would be the right thing. Without even thinking about it, Blade had her crossdraw knife out in an attempt to cut Tad free as they all plummeted toward the tree canopy below. She sawed frantically at the ropes holding him a helpless prisoner of gravity, but it was obviously of no use; they were falling too fast and there were too many ropes to cut.

  We’re dead, she thought absently, but her body wasn’t convinced of that, and just before they hit the treetops, she dropped into the bottom of the basket, curled into a protective ball.

  The basket lurched about as they hit tree limbs and broke through them. As wood crashed and splintered all around her, she was thrown around in the basket among all the lashed-down equipment like another loose piece of junk. Something hit her shoulder hard and she heard herself scream. The pain was like an explosion of stars in her head.

  Then, mercifully, she blacked out.

  * * *

  Her head hurt. Her head hurt a lot. And her shoulder hurt even more; with every beat of her heart it throbbed black agony, and every time she took a breath or made the tiniest movement, it lanced red fire down her arm and side. She concentrated on that pain without opening her eyes; if she couldn’t get that under control, she wouldn’t be able to move. If she couldn’t move, she, and probably Tad, would lie here until something came to eat them.

  Surround the pain and isolate it. Then accept it. Stop fighting it. Don’t fear it. Pain is only information, it is up to you how you wish to interpret it. You control it. Her father’s lessons came back as she controlled her breathing; she hadn’t ever used them on anything worse than a sprained wrist before, but to her surprise, they worked just as well on this serious injury.

  Make it a part of you. An unimportant part. Now let the body numb it, let the body flood it with its own defenses. Blade knew the body could produce its own painkillers; the trick was to convince it to produce enough of them. And to convince it that at the moment, pain was getting in the way of survival…

  Slowly—too slowly—it worked. She opened her eyes.

  The basket was on its side, a couple of wagon-lengths away from her. It looked as if she had been tossed free when, or just before, it hit the ground. Fortunately her lashings holding the cargo in place had held, or she probably would have been killed by her own equipment.

  The basket lay in a mess of broken branches, wilting leaves draped everywhere. It didn’t look like it was ever going to be useful for anything again.

  Probably a fair share of the equipment is worthless now, too, she thought dispassionately. It was easy to be dispassionate; she was still in shock. I’m alive. That’s more than I thought a few moments ago.

  She sat up slowly, being very careful of whatever injury made her shoulder hurt so badly. With her good hand, her left, she probed delicately at her shoulder and bit her lip, drawing blood, when her fingers touched loose bone that grated.

  Broken collarbone. I’ll have to immobilize the right arm. No wonder it hurts like the Haighlei hells! Well, so much for doing any lifting or wielding any weapons.

  Her questing fingers ran over her face and head without encountering anything worse than a goose-egg knot on her skull and more spatters of congealing blood. With the same care as before, she stretched out her right leg, then her left.

  Bruises. Lots and lots of bruises, which just at the moment she couldn’t feel at all.

  I must be black and blue from head to toe. That could be bad; she’d start to stiffen up soon, and in the morning it would be worse.

  She cradled her right arm in her left hand, and worked her legs until they were under her and she was in a kneeling position. She couldn’t see anything but the basket at the moment, but from the direction that the ropes went, Tad should be right behind her.

  She was almost afraid to look. If he were dead—

  She turned, slowly and carefully, and let out a sob of relief as she saw him—and saw his sides heaving. He wasn’t dead! He wasn’t in good shape, but he was still breathing!

  He lay sprawled atop a tangle of crushed bushes, still unconscious. His left wing was doubled up underneath him at an angle that was not natural, with his primary feathers pointing forward instead of back, most of them shredded and snapped. So he had one broken wing for certain, and that meant that he would not be flying off anywhere for help.

  As she shifted again, trying to get to her feet, his eyes opened, and his beak parted. A thin moan came from him, and he blinked dazedly.

  “Don’t move,” she called sharply. “Let me get over there and help you first.”

  “Wing—” That came out in a harsh whisper, and he panted with pain.

  “I know, I can see it. Just hold still and let me get to you.” Gritting her teeth, she worked her right arm inside her tunic and belted the garment tightly, using only her left hand. That would do for immobilizing the shoulder for now.

  She stood up with the aid of the debris around her, and worked her way over to Tad. Once there, she stared at him for a moment, deciding where to begin. The rain forest was unnervingly quiet.

  “Can you wiggle the toes on your left hind foot?” she asked.

  He did so, then repeated the gesture with his right, then his foreclaws. “The right rear hurts when I move, but not as if something is broken,” he offered, and she heaved a sigh of relief.

  “All right, your back isn’t broken, and neither are your legs; that’s better than we had any right to expect.” The knife she had been trying to use to get him free was gone, but now she could reach all the snap-hooks holding the ropes to his harness. Hissing with pain every time her shoulder was jarred in the least, she knelt down in the debris of crushed branches and scratchy twigs and began unsnapping him.

  “I think I’m one big bruise,” he said, as she worked her hand under him to free as many of the ropes as she could without having him move.

  “That makes two of us,” she told him, straining to reach one last set of snap-hooks. He knew better than to stir until she told him to; any movement at all might tear fragile blood vessels in the wings where the skin was thinnest, and he would bleed to death before she could do anything to help him.

  Finally, she had to give up on that last set. She moved back to his head, and studied his pupils. Was one a little smaller than the other? Without a light to make them react, she couldn’t tell. “You might have a concussion,” she said doubtfully.

  “You might, too,” he offered, which she really could have done without hearing. I can’t wait for the concussion-headache to set in.

  “Just lie there,” she advised him. “I’m going after the medical gear.”

  If I can find the medical gear. If it’s still worth anything.

  It had been packed on top of the supplies, even though that meant it h
ad to be offloaded and set aside every time they stopped for the night. Now she was glad that she had retained the packing order that the supply sergeant had ordained for the basket; they would have been in worse shape if she’d had to move foodstuffs, camping gear, and the tent to get at it!

  The only question is, did everything fall on top of it!

  She worked her way over to the basket again, to find to her great relief that the medical supplies were still “on top”—or rather, since the basket was on its side, they were still the things easiest to reach.

  Although “easiest to reach” was only in a relative sense…

  She studied the situation before she did anything. The basket was lying in a heap of broken branches; the supplies had tumbled out sideways and now were strewn in an arc through that same tangle of branches. The medical supplies were apparently caught in a forked sapling at about shoulder height, but there was a lot of debris around that sapling. It would be very easy to take a wrong step and wind up twisting or even breaking an ankle—and she only had one hand to use to catch herself. And then, the fall could knock her out again, or damage her collarbone even worse—or both.

  But they needed those supplies; they needed them before they could do anything else.

  I’ll just have to be very, very careful. She couldn’t see any other way of reaching the package.

  “Tad? Tad, can you concentrate enough to use a moving spell?”

  All she got back was a croaked “No…” and a moan of pain.

  Well… it wasn’t a very good idea anyway. A delirious gryphon casting a spell nearby is more risky for me than if I tried running up that tree!

  It looked like she would have to make it by foot. It was an agonizing journey; she studied each step before she took it, and she made certain that her footing was absolutely secure before she made the next move. She was sweating like a foundered horse before she reached the sapling, both with the strain and with the pain. It took everything she had to reach up, pull the package loose, then numbly toss it in the direction of the clear space beside Tad. It was heavier than it looked—because of the bonesetting kit, of course. She nearly passed out again from the pain when she did so—but it landed very nearly where she wanted it to, well out of the way of any more debris.

  She clung to the sapling, breathing shallowly, until the pain subsided enough that she thought she could venture back the way she had come. Her sweat had turned cold by now, or at least that was how it felt, and some of it ran underneath the crusting scabs of dried blood and added a stinging counterpoint to her heartbeat.

  When she reached the spot beside her precious package, she simply collapsed beside it, resting her head on it as she shuddered all over with pain and exertion. But every time she shook, her shoulder awoke to new pain, so it was not so much a moment of respite as it was merely a chance to catch her breath.

  With the aid of teeth and her short boot knife she wrestled the package open, and the first thing she seized was one of the vials of pain-killing yellow-orchid extract. She swallowed the bitter potion down without a grimace, and waited for it to take effect.

  She’d only had it once before, when she’d broken a toe, and in a much lighter dose. This time, however, it did not send her into lightheaded giddiness. It numbed the pain to the point where it was bearable, but no more than that. Another relief; the pain must be bad enough to counteract most of the euphoric effect of the drug.

  There was another drug that did the same service for gryphons; she dragged the pack of supplies nearer to Tad, fumbled out a larger vial, and handed it to him. He tilted his head back just enough that he would be able to swallow, and poured the contents into his beak, clamping it shut instantly so as not to waste a single bitter drop.

  She knew the moment it took effect; his limbs all relaxed, and his breathing eased. “Now what?” he asked. “You can see what’s wrong better than I can.”

  “First you are going to have to help me,” she told him. “I can’t try to move you until this collarbone is set and immobilized. If I try, I think I might pass out again—”

  “A bad idea, you shouldn’t do that,” he agreed, and flexed his forelimbs experimentally. “I think I can do that. Sit there, and we’ll try.”

  He was deft and gentle, and she still blacked out twice before he was finished amidst his jabbered apologies for each mistake. When he was done, though, her arm and shoulder were bound up in a tight, ugly but effective package, and the collarbone had been set. Hopefully, it would remain set; they had no way to put a rigid cast on a collarbone. Only a mage could do that; the Healers hadn’t even figured out a way to do so.

  Then it was his turn.

  It could not have been any easier for him, although he did not lose consciousness as she rolled him off the broken wing, set it, and bound it in place. This time she did use the bonesetting kit; the splints and bandages that hardened into rigid forms when first soaked, then dried. She was no trondi’irn, but she had learned as much as she could from her mother, once it became obvious to her that her old playmate Tad was going to be her permanent partner. Besides that, though, she guessed. She didn’t know enough of the finer points of gryphon physiology to know if what she did now would cause lifelong crippling. Thin moans escaped Tad’s clenched beak from time to time, however, and he did ask her to pause three times during the operation.

  Finally they both staggered free of the ruins, collapsed on the thick leaf mold of the forest floor, and waited for the pain to subside beneath the ministrations of their potions.

  It felt like forever before she was able to think of anything except the fiery throbbing of her shoulder, but gradually the potion took greater hold, or else the binding eased some of the strain. The forest canopy was still preternaturally silent; their plunge through it had frightened away most of the inhabitants, and the birds and animals had not yet regained their courage. She was intermittently aware of odd things, as different senses sharpened for an instant, and her mind overloaded with scent or sound. The sharp, sour smell of broken wood—the call of one insect stupid enough to be oblivious to them—the unexpected note of vivid red of a single, wilting flower they had brought down with them—

  “What happened?” she asked quietly, into the strange stillness. It was an obvious question; one moment, they were flying along and all was well, and the next moment, they were plummeting like arrowshot ducks.

  His eyes clouded, and the nictitating membrane came down over them for a moment, giving him a wall-eyed look. “I don’t know,” he said, slowly, haltingly. “Honestly. I can’t tell you anything except what’s obvious, that the magic keeping the basket at a manageable weight just—dissolved, disappeared. I don’t know why, or how.”

  She felt her stomach turn over. Not the most comforting answer in the world. Up until now, she had not been afraid, but now…

  I can’t let this eat at me. We don’t know what happened, remember? It could still all be an accident. “Could there have been a mage-storm?” she persisted. “A small one, or a localized one perhaps?”

  He flattened his ear-tufts and shook his head emphatically. “No. No, I’m sure of it. Gryphons are sensitive to mage-storms, the way that anyone with joint swellings is sensitive to damp or real, physical storms. No, there was no mage-storm; I would know if one struck.”

  Her heart thudded painfully, and her stomach twisted again. If it wasn’t a “natural” event… “An attack?” she began—but he shook his head again.

  But he looked more puzzled than fearful. “It wasn’t an attack either,” he insisted. “At least, it wasn’t anything I’d recognize as an attack. It wasn’t anything offensive that I’d recognize.” He gazed past her shoulder as if he was searching for words to describe what he had felt. “It was more like—like suddenly having your bucket spring a leak. The magic just drained out, but suddenly. And I don’t know how or why. All the magic just—just went away.”

  All the magic just went away.… Suddenly, the chill hand of panic that she had been fighti
ng seized the back of her neck, and she lurched to her feet. If the magic in the basket had drained away, what about all the other magic?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, as she stumbled toward the wreckage of the basket and the tumbled piles of supplies.

  “Nothing—I hope!” she called back, with an edge in her voice. What’s closest? The firestarter! Yes—there it is! The firestarter was something every Apprentice mage made by the dozen; they were easy to create, once the disciplines of creating an object had been mastered. It was good practice, making them. They were also useful, and since their average life was about six months, you could always barter them to anyone in the city once you’d made them. Anyone could use one; you didn’t have to be a mage to activate it—most were always ready, and to use one you simply used whatever simple trigger the mage had built in. The one in their supplies was fresh; Tad had just made it himself before they left.

  It didn’t look like much; just a long metal tube with a wick protruding from one end. You were supposed to squeeze a little polished piece of stone set into the other end with your thumb, and the wick would light.

  You could manipulate it with one hand if you had to, and of course, she had to. Hoping that her hunch had been wrong, she fumbled the now-dented tube out of a tangle of ropes and cooking gear, and thumbed the end.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried it again, several times, then brought it back to

  Tad. “This isn’t working,” she said tightly. “What’s wrong with it?”

  He took it from her and examined it, his eyes almost crossing as he peered at it closely. “The—the magic’s gone,” he said hesitantly. “It’s not a firestarter anymore, just a tube of metal with a wick in it.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” Grimly she returned to the tumbled supplies, and pawed through them, looking for anything that had once been magical in nature. Every movement rewoke the pain in her shoulder, but she forced herself to ignore it. The way that the supplies had tumbled out aided her; the last things into the basket had been on top, and that meant they were still accessible.