Shadowfane

by Janny Wurts

  With the canvas propped awkwardly over her head and shoulders, Taen told him everything, not sparing Maelgrim's threats against the six companies under the captain's command.

  Corley considered her keenly as she finished. 'You've chosen to fight, yes?'

  Taen nodded. Abruptly recalled to the fact that she had thrown off her overrobe, she flushed bright pink and groped over the ridgepole for her leathers.

  The Kielmark's most trusted captain dropped the tent flap without apology for his intrusion. 'You'll have our full support,' he said bluntly. Taen chose not to delay as he called rapid orders to his sailhands, but burrowed in panic under slack canvas to locate her tunic and boots. Her haste proved unnecessary. No man came to tease or to pack her tent until after she emerged, fully clothed.

  * * *

  The company moved north, and the wind grew blustery. Flat clouds lifted to admit sunlight, and in time the warmth of an overdue spring softened the frost from the ground. But while the men became suntanned and robust, Taen grew careworn, withdrawn, and pale.

  By day she dream-wove defences, intricate patterns of energy bound into wards to protect the men at arms whose ready vigilance kept her safe from assault by demons. By night she engaged in deep trance. With painstaking care she reviewed the scattered inhabitants of Keithland's north wilderness, from newborn babes in untamed circles of clansmen, to the work-weary minds of steaders. The predations of Maelgrim Dark-dreamer continued, relentlessly. In time, through repeated failure, the Dreamweaver who opposed him came to understand his Thienz-clever tricks: traps that sprung and struck her blind, or false feints that eroded her strength. Plainly, Maelgrim intended to exhaust her, then slash around her wards and take command. But the Vaere never chose the fainthearted for the training meted out to so few. As long as resource remained, Taen fought. She gained experience, and a few victories, and snatched rest in catnaps while the men made camp and cut firewood.

  Corley woke her each evening an hour after sundown, and stayed through her meal of hot barley cakes, sausage, and soup.

  'You can hardly keep on like this,' he remarked when for the second day she pushed her bowl aside, barely touched.

  Taen looked at him. Her eyes seemed the only thing alive in her elfin face. 'I must. No one in Keithland can help these people. If I stop, the peril will spread.'

  Corley stifled an urge to argue; the fact the girl was right did nothing to ease his frustration. Abruptly he lost enthusiasm for the contest at darts started among the men by the fireside. He stamped off instead to inspect the picket lines, while the Dreamweaver settled yet again to ply her talents through the night.

  Maelgrim and his Thienz never opposed her directly. Catlike, they preferred to toy with her, harrying her resources with snares and false threats. Then, in the depths of the dark when her concentration waned from weariness, they would choose an isolated camp or farmstead, and smash the defences so laboriously strengthened each night.

  Taen always sensed the destruction of her wards. Sweating in the throes of trance, she knew an answering flare of pain as her energies unravelled into chaos. Such times she rallied what resources remained and strove to block the evil dreams that Maelgrim wove about the minds of his victims. Power ebbed and flooded, pulled like tidal surge between opposing factions. Sometimes Maelgrim fashioned nightmares for the collective presence of a family; other nights he attacked a child, or someone's cherished elder, and broke their minds like twigs before an avalanche of terror.

  Taen lacked the resources to rout such nightmares directly. Maelgrim could draw endlessly upon the reserves of his Thienz; through their support, he could outlast her endurance, sour her efforts with despair. At best Taen slowed his work, blurred his focus, and dissipated the potency of his imagery; occasionally her intervention enabled his stronger victims to survive. Far more often, conflict ended with the loss of a life. Grapevines might flower with spring, and sunshine return each morning, but the backlands of northern Hallowild became cursed with terror and madness.

  In the chill grey hour before dawn, Corley returned to Taen's side. Invariably he found her shivering in the extremity of exhaustion, yet never would he let her see the depth of his concern. Each morning he affirmed her faith in life with carefully tempered banter. Toward the fourth week, when the release of laughter began to fail, he gathered her up and held her until she slept like a child in the hollow of his shoulder. Then he wrapped her slack form in blankets, settled her in a horse litter, and yelled for the camp to pack up. Risk increased so near the borders of the fells. The best defence was to keep moving, that demons could engineer no ambush upon his position.

  Constantly shifting camp, the company traversed the orchards of northern Morbrith. Taen's exhaustion deepened. The day came when she did not waken until the column rested at noon. Frowning, irritable, she kicked free of her blankets and waspishly upbraided Corley for not rousing her sooner.

  Dismounted to loosen his gelding's girth, the captain unwisely neglected to watch his back. 'Fires, witch, you didn't miss a damn thing.'

  'The boatswain says differently,' accused the Dreamweaver.

  Corley rolled his eyes. 'That man lies to his soup at night. Will you let be? All we saw was a priest who groused that Cliffhaven's rabble appeared to be trampling territory belonging to Morbrith apples.'

  Taen's annoyance changed to interest. 'What did you do to him?'

  The grey snapped. Too late, Corley delivered a ringing slap on its muzzle. 'Sent him galloping back to the Brotherhood with arrows sticking through his cowl. Now go eat. I don't want to answer to the Kielmark if you waste away to bones.'

  Taen departed, leaving the captain cursing the grey, who had inconsiderately ripped his last pair of leggings; suddenly the Dreamweaver's exhaustion became excuse enough to camp early. Irritable at the last, Corley stripped to skin and knife sheaths and tore into the baggage looking for awl and spare thongs. Men at arms gathered around him like vultures. They speculated heatedly over the number and anatomical location of the insect bites their captain was sure to suffer, and presently debate gave rise to an exchange of spirited wagers. But the betting lost impetus when the man who listed sums and odds got assigned to waxing bowstrings. Grumbling and irrepressible, the Kielmark's company settled for the night.

  Taen completed her defence wards and rolled in a blanket to nap. Although her bones ached with weariness, rest eluded her. The fields of her Dreamweaver's awareness remained tuned and wary; even the chirp of spring peepers added to her restlessness. She shifted in her blankets, eyes open to the twilight that seeped through her tent flap. By nightfall, Maelgrim Dark-dreamer would choose another victim and strike. His strength grew steadily with the passage of time, while her own resources dwindled, overtaxed by exhaustion. Very soon she would be unable to cope. The day would come when nothing remained but to tell the Kielmark's stalwart captains to order a retreat to the south.

  Hopes of Jaric and the Cycle of Fire only fuelled her despair. Surely no man of his sensitivity could weather the agonies she had sensed in Corlin market; one bitter moment, Taen had glimpsed understanding of Ivain's crazed malice. That Keithland's need required such suffering of the son was cause for deepest grief. Weary to the heart, the Dreamweaver felt the burden of Jaric's sacrifice as a sorrow more tragic than death.

  Daylight seeped from the sky. The inside of the tent darkened to blackness unrelieved by any star. Taen lay sleepless, listening to the wind. At any moment the Dark-dreamer would tumble her wards.

  Yet this time the attack came with none of the usual warning. Energy slashed Taen's thoughts with the splintering force of a lightning bolt. Slammed into dirt as she flung herself clear of her blankets, the girl recoiled in defence. Barriers bristled reflexively across her mind before she realized this intrusion held no trace of Maelgrim's malice. Raw energy continued to prickle across her skin. Confused, the Dreamweaver probed with her talents.

  Light stabbed her eyes. Dazzled nearly to blindness, Taen squinted. Etched in painful gla
re, she beheld a bird of prey ringed with fire. The image echoed the configuration of Anskiere's stormfalcon, and sudden revelation caught her breath in a sob.

  'Jaric!'

  Her cry opened contact. Swept into thundering torrents of power, Taen screamed aloud. Her spirit was wrenched across an abyss of time and space, to meld with another that inhabited a flaming crucible of agony. Racked by torment that burned the spirit to a febrile spark of consciousness, Taen beheld the branching nexus of choice presently confronting Ivainson Jaric on the Isle of the Vaere.

  One path led to darkness and oblivion; but the death at the end was illusion. Sathid would conquer before life was extinguished. Although suffering battered his thoughts to shapes unimaginably severe, Jaric rejected self-immolation. Neither did he reason as mortal man might; as Taen shared his passage, she perceived the defence that hopeless suffering drove him to consider. Like Ivain before him, Jaric understood that life might continue if mortal emotion were cancelled. Fire could be endured, pain overcome, the unthinkable ignored, if he let himself feel nothing at all, not joy, not compassion, not love. He would yield his humanity. But in turn the Sathid would lose all his vulnerabilities to exploit; it must surrender to his will and reward him with power beyond measure.

  Thus had Ivain conquered the Cycle of Fire; pressured to the limit of endurance, Jaric fought but found no alternative. Stripped of pride and grace, at the last he appealed to the peer he cherished for forgiveness, since the madness he must inherit to survive could not help but cause her sorrow.

  Taen's control crumbled away, and the falcon's graceful form splintered through a lens of tears.

  'Jaric, don't!' Protest was futile. She felt Ivainson's fiery presence begin to withdraw, even as she spoke. Grief prompted her to act.

  Once, when Anskiere's geas had forced Jaric to untenable suffering, Taen had used dream-sense to weave him a haven; now experience gained in conflict with Maelgrim made her adept at turning nightmares and suffering aside. Swiftly, surely, the Dreamweaver fashioned a shelter for Jaric's beleaguered mind. She shaped peace where the Sathid could not reach, numbed the hurt of burned and lacerated nerves. Her work took immediate effect. Jaric yielded gratefully to exhaustion. Punished beyond thought, he slipped into deepest sleep, while the Sathid striving for conquest hammered vainly against Taen's bastion of wards.

  The Dreamweaver realized then that Jaric's humanity did not have to be lost. With her help, he might recover equilibrium, even escape the madness inherent in the Cycle of Fire. Excited to hope, Taen forgot caution. Her discipline slackened for one preoccupied instant; and the crystals paired to Jaric gathered force, then turned poisonously against the source of interference.

  The attack caught Taen woefully unprepared. Her Sathid-based powers as Dreamweaver resonated in sympathetic response; in an instant, her own crystal could cross-link and join the raging conflict with Jaric. Taen knew fear like the plunge of a knife. Should such a melding occur, the combined strength of the Sathid would expand in exponential proportions; battered by a ninefold increase in force, Dreamweaver and Firelord's heir would find their wills pinched out like candle flame.

  Taen struggled to restore separation and balance. Immediately she sensed she would fail. Ivainson could not help; with his matrix-based powers still in dispute, he had no control to apply. And since the dream-link that bound him to the Dreamweaver skewed through time as well as space, the energies were tenuous and difficult to maintain. No enchantress who commanded the resources of a single crystal could hope to repel attack by wild Sathid within so fragile a framework. Power stabbed Taen's defences. She countered, barely in time. Her bond-crystal quivered, half-wakened to rebellion, as backlash deflected like sparks.

  Disaster awaited if she lingered through a second such shock. No choice remained except to release contact with Jaric, cleanly and at once. But the cruelty of that expedient marred judgement. Taen hesitated, and the untamed Sathid struck again.

  Energy whirled her off centre. Flayed by a vortex intense as a cyclone, the Dreamweaver screamed. In desperation she collapsed the wards protecting Jaric. Fire tore him awake with a heartrending cry of agony. He all but lost his grip upon life as mingled awareness revealed the extent of Taen's peril. Overwhelmed by fear for her, he reached for the only available recourse. Only the madness of Ivain would enable him to bridle his Sathid before the Dreamweaver he loved suffered harm.

  'Jaric, no!' Taen's cry crackled across widening veils of distance. 'Jaric, hold firm. I will disengage. If I journey to the Isle of the Vaere, I believe I can help you with safety. Wait for me . . . fish-brains, please wait. . .'

  V

  Deliverance

  The contact dimmed and snapped. Taen roused, shuddering, and broke into stormy tears. Returned to darkness and her blankets in northern Hallowild, she blinked eyes stinging yet with the light-falcon's afterimage. No means existed to determine whether Jaric had heeded her plea. Her dream-sense roiled like current disturbed by tide, and she needed every shred of concentration to settle her half-roused Sathid. The upheaval slowly subsided. Restored to emotional balance, Taen started as mail jangled suddenly beyond the tent flap. A swordblade slashed the ties. Canvas gaped open to reveal a flood of torchlight and men at arms, with Corley in the lead in his steel cap and armour.

  'What's happened?' The captain's tone held no inflection, as if he anticipated killing. With a shock Taen realized the sentry on duty had heard her outcry and gone on to muster camp in expectation of attack.

  She answered quickly to disarm the tension. 'I had a vision, but not from Shadowfane. Jaric struggles to master the Cycle of Fire. If I journey at once to the Isle of the Vaere, quite possibly I can spare him the madness that destroyed Ivain.'

  Corley passed his lantern to the nearest man at arms. His eyes gleamed hard and dark as shield studs as he sheathed his sword. 'If we go, the north will be left defenceless against the Dark-dreamer.'

  Taen met his expression, her features white with empathy. She well understood the consequences of her suggestion, and her honesty was painful to observe. 'I cannot stay Maelgrim once his command of Thienz-linked power matures.'

  The tent flickered into shadow as wind winnowed the lantern flame. The man holding the light shifted uneasily.

  Only Corley stood like a rock, the beads of reflection on his helm so still they might have been nailed in place. 'I think no option exists. Whether you misjudge or not, we risk Morbrith. But if Jaric fails, all hope is lost for Keithland.'

  Relief broke Taen's composure; seeming suddenly, poignantly frail, she bent and buried her face in her hands. Jolted by recollection that her chronological age did not match her maturity, Corley disbanded his swordsmen with curt orders to break camp. Speed and protection were the only comforts he could offer the Dreamweaver under his care; but for beleaguered Morbrith, dependent on priesthood and prayers, he intended a last brave gesture.

  Corley stooped and gently raised Taen's chin. Tears dampened his knuckles, twisting at his heart, but still he managed a lopsided grin. 'Dress for the saddle, little witch. We've a task to finish before Moonless strains her stays for the sake of Ivainson Firelord.'

  * * *

  Bits chinked in the darkness, counterpointed by the grimmer chime of mail and weaponry. The Kielmark's sailhands turned soldier mounted with none of their usual cursing as they began their southward march through Morbrith. To Taen, riding behind Corley's grey, the freshening beauty of spring seemed displaced by wrongness sensed elsewhere. Here moonlight might silver the apple blossoms like lace against star-strewn skies; but northward the Dark-dreamer remained free to dismember the minds of children at will, and the man with potential to check him writhed in agonies of flame on the Isle of the Vaere to the south. Though surrounded by fresh new life, Taen could not escape her burden of care.

  The company seemed to reflect her mood. Scouts rode out at the alert, as if threatened by hostile territory, and the brisk pace set by the vanguard soon mingled the pungency of horse sweat with the
fragrance of the orchards. Taen sat uneasily to the rhythm of her mare's stride. Dulled by concern, she failed at first to notice that Corley's second-in-command, captain of Shearfish, had reined up, blocking the head of the column.

  Slit-eyed and large, the man bristled with belligerence even in the best of tempers. Usually he restrained his moods enough to avoid challenging his commander, but tonight's tension appeared to have upset his judgement. 'You're going to Corlin by road. Man, are you crazy?'

  Corley regarded his subordinate with fixed lack of expression. 'The road is the fastest route to the port. Now, if that horse isn't lame, you'd better make it trot.'

  The officer pressed on heedlessly. 'Fires, you'd ride through Morbrith? Priests'll be on to you like wasps.'

  'I know.' A subtle change in the captain's manner made Taen start with chills.

  The officer also saw; he swore and kicked his mount into stride alongside Corley's. 'Priests hate the Kielmark. You know that.' Jostled as his horse ducked the teeth of the grey, the man resumed without minding his superior's warning. 'You ride past Morbrith keep, you'll start a battle. Road won't take you anywhere quick then.'

  'So,' Corley said equably. He did nothing apparent but flick his reins. Yet his grey sidled violently and bashed the insubordinate officer's mount into a tree. Taen saw metal flash in the moonlight. There followed an abbreviated thunk; and the officer reined up short, the handle of Corley's belt knife quivering in bark beneath his chin.

  For a moment the two men glared at each other, breathing hard. Then Corley spat. 'Since when has any captain of the Kielmark's taken orders from Kordane's Brotherhood? Get back into line.'

  Only then did Taen notice that a second knife waited, gripped in a hand held steady to throw. The officer's lips curled back from his teeth in an animal display of anger; but he spun his horse and abruptly rejoined his company.

  At the head of the column, Corley twisted in his saddle. As he jerked his blade from the tree trunk, Taen glimpsed his expression; witnessed firsthand, the force of personality required to maintain discipline among a band of renegades made her gut wrench. She might have sympathized with the priests, except that the preternatural alertness of the men who rode beside her suggested danger. Very likely the officer's complaint was just. Still, the Kielmark's first captain proceeded southeast, straight for Morbrith keep.