Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

by Maggie Furey

  Hellorin would not die, and was apparently on the road to recovery – though that wasn’t necessarily such a comfortable thought. She shuddered to think what he would say about all the mistakes she’d made since the future of the realm had been thrust into her unready hands. But he loved her, didn’t he? He would understand, surely? Surely. Especially since she was saving his beloved horses for him. And she would save them. Now that she knew what Corisand and the others were planning she could be on her guard. The Xandim could be scattered, hidden . . .

  At that moment, they finally came in sight of the stables, the barns and buildings neat and tidy amid their patchwork of surrounding paddocks and meadows. But what was this? Why were there so many animals here? Tiolani’s heart almost stopped beating. Everywhere she looked there were horses. Stallions, geldings, mares and foals; grey, black, chestnut, brown, roan and dun. All of the Xandim – surely it must be all of them – gathered together in one place. A lure, a temptation and a target. Easy pickings. Cordain had done half of Corisand’s work for her already.

  Furious, she rounded on the counsellor. ‘What have you done, you fool? What have you done?’

  He was still justifying his actions, defensive and more than a little annoyed, as they descended towards the stables and the crowded fields below. ‘The animals were too vulnerable, scattered as they were between this place, the outlying meadows and the northern pastures where we rest them in the summer. Here, all together, they can be safeguarded. I have warriors hidden all around the perimeter . . .’ He droned on, smug and complacent, until Tiolani itched to slap him.

  ‘Don’t you see what you’ve done?’ she interrupted. ‘The way things were before, the Wizard’s biggest problem was collecting the horses all together. She might have taken some of them, but it was virtually impossible to get them all.’

  ‘The point is,’ Cordain cut across her, ‘we don’t want the Wizard to get any of them. Even if she captured a few, she’d still have the start of a breeding herd, then the Phaerie would lose all of their airborne supremacy over our foes. The only way to guard against that happening is to keep the horses together.’

  While they’d been speaking they had landed, and now that they’d dismounted, he reached across and patted her arm in a condescending way that had Tiolani grinding her teeth. ‘Now don’t you worry about it, my dear. You are young as yet, and untrained in strategy. Just leave these annoying details to me and everything will be fine. I promise I won’t let anyone take your father’s horses.’

  She had trapped herself, of course. Cordain had based his strategy on the lie she’d told him: that Iriana wanted to steal the Phaerie horses as breeding stock to give the Wizards an advantage in warfare. He had no idea, because she couldn’t tell him, about the true identity of the Xandim steeds, and the fact that Corisand planned to rescue her people – all of them. And thanks to Cordain, here they were. Tiolani thought quickly. ‘But what if the Wizard comes,’ she protested. ‘You’ve put all our eggs in one basket, and crowded together like this, they make a perfect target.’

  ‘Of course they do.’ Cordain beamed at her. ‘Too perfect. Irresistible, in fact.’ He gave her a toothy smile. ‘A target, a temptation – and bait for the perfect trap.’

  Tiolani stared him, dismayed by such arrogance, such complacency. ‘You’re taking a dreadful risk,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re right. For all our sakes, you’d better be.’

  ‘The fool! The idiot! The thrice-cursed imbecile!’ Hellorin stormed. With an oath he tore his attention away from the patch of clear ice on the floor of Aerillia’s throne room, and got to his feet.

  The Moldan sat on her throne at the far end of her immense hall of ice regarding him dispassionately. ‘I don’t know why you keep watching.’ Her voice came to him echoingly across the great stretches of blue-white shining floor. ‘It only makes you angry and frustrated. When I provided the ice-mirror so that you could scry into your own world, I didn’t realise that you would become so obsessed.’

  ‘Not so much obsessed as desperate,’ Hellorin snarled. ‘And can you blame me? While I am trapped here, my kingdom is falling into ruin. Tiolani and Cordain can’t even make one good ruler between them, while I am forced to sit there and watch them make mistake after mistake.’ He smote his fist into his palm. ‘I must get back. I have to! Ten thousand curses on that Windeye for taking the Fialan and leaving me here to rot. She robbed me of the only chance I had.’

  A gigantic figure on her throne of ice, Aerillia looked at him, considering. Despite their former alliance, it was unfortunate that Hellorin had ever been allowed to return to the Elsewhere. He no longer belonged here. He caused nothing but trouble, spreading ripples of unease and unrest throughout the sensitive atmosphere of this world where the Old Magic ruled, and the repercussions from the slightest action might set in motion a devastating chain of events.

  At least the Fialan had been taken from the Elsewhere, much to Aerillia’s relief. The Windeye and her Wizard friend had achieved the impossible. But that still left Hellorin and Ghabal, now recovered from the damage they had taken in the battle for the Stone of Fate, here in this world, with a mammoth grudge still festering between them. All too soon they would be back at one another’s throats. It was inevitable.

  She wanted them gone, with all the problems and danger that came with them. Let the mundane world have them both and be damned to the consequences! She knew a way – risky, uncertain but a chance at least – to use the Fialan as a gateway one more time, and if she told Hellorin how to wrest such a portal open, then Ghabal would surely follow. Everyone here in the Elsewhere would be better off without them. She must take one final risk of helping the Forest Lord, and hope and pray that her idea worked.

  Aerillia came out of her thoughts and looked across the vast expanse of her throne room, to where the Lord of the Phaerie was still muttering and cursing over the scrying mirror of ice. She took a deep breath and gambled all.

  ‘Hellorin, listen to me. There may be a chance, just one slim chance, for you to get back to your own world and regain everything you’ve lost.’

  Hellorin scrambled to his feet and charged towards her. ‘You know a way?’ he roared. ‘Why in all perdition didn’t you tell me sooner?’

  She held up a hand and he stopped dead, as though he had run into a wall of stone. He was held there, helpless, raging soundlessly.

  When Aerillia answered, the chill of a thousand winters was in her voice. ‘You may have power, Lord of the Phaerie, but if you take that tone with me, here on my own ground, death will find you swiftly. There are few indeed with the power to end your life, but you had better believe that I am one of them. I did not tell you before because this possibility has only just occurred to me. I hesitate to tell you now, because it is only a slender hope, and depends on your enemy the Windeye making one mistake. Everything hinges on Corisand’s use of the Fialan . . .’

  Hellorin forgot his rage and listened carefully as the Moldan of Aerillia outlined her idea. One chance, one opening, one mistake from the Windeye was all he’d need.

  26

  ~

  OLD FRIENDS

  In the new hiding place that Taine had found for them, Iriana’s companions were beginning to despair. The journey here had almost finished the Wizard, who’d been desperately weakened by blood loss from the wound she had taken.

  They were now concealed in the centre of a dense thicket. Taine, with his part-Wizard heritage, had managed a spell to persuade the bushes to part, allowing access for the companions and their mounts. Once they were safe inside, the undergrowth had closed back into place and grown over the top of their campsite in a domelike covering that protected them from the worst of the weather, and also from being seen by any Phaerie flying over in search of them. Corisand, now back in her humanoid form, had made a roof for it; an invisible shield of solid air that kept out the rain and wind, while preventing the heat from their fire from dissipating. Aelwen, just to be on the safe side, had cloaked the area wit
h a spell of glamourie, to prevent the light from their fire being seen from above. Here they did what they could for Iriana, applying what simple healing spells Taine and Kaldath knew between them, while Corisand worked her spells upon the air to keep it flowing in and out of the Wizard’s lungs.

  All two dreadful days, Corisand had watched over her friend, scarcely moving from her side and accompanied by Taine, Kaldath and Dael, who cradled a wretched-looking Melik in his lap, while Aelwen did her best to make the rough shelter as comfortable as possible and the Dwelven kept guard around the perimeter of the thicket in case any enemy should come near. Boreas and his mate kept watch from a tree nearby.

  Corisand’s only focus was her friend. As the sun went down and the shadows gathered she kept her ceaseless vigil over Iriana, pouring all her energy and will to live into that still, pale form. At some point during the night she must have dozed, for suddenly she opened her eyes and found that she was no longer in that dark, cramped little lair amid the thorny thicket. It was no longer dark but daylight. She seemed to float, suspended in the air above an ocean inlet that twisted and turned, with one gigantic precipice after another dropping into the water from the hills on either side. Small, tough evergreens, scrubby bushes, ferns and vivid green moss clung tenaciously to the steep crags, taking advantage of every tiny ledge and crevice to find a foothold, cloaking the tough old bones of the rock in a tattered patchwork of viridian and emerald. Long, slender waterfalls plunged endlessly down; gleaming threads of silver against the dark grey basalt cliffs. Beneath the Windeye the calm, rippling water murmured its ancient song, and all around her the air was shimmering with an opalescent mist interlaced with rainbows.

  Corisand’s heart warmed and glowed within her. Her spirits, weighed down by weariness and worry, soared like eagles. The land was alive; she could feel its energy, its massive, powerful life force that poured into her from all around. She was back in the Elsewhere – that much she knew. But where was this unfamiliar place?

  Looking at the intricate, meandering coastline, she judged it to be somewhere near the tall, rocky pinnacle of the Moldan Basileus, but he was situated out in the open ocean, and she could not see him from where she was. In case he was somewhere close, she tried calling out to him in mindspeech, but he did not answer.

  But someone did.

  Above the Windeye, on her left as she faced towards the inner part of the fjord, was a massive eminence with a rounded summit. The crags and ledges nearest to her had a strange trick of structure, a combination of shadow, light and plant growth that resembled a face, but no human features were these. It reminded Corisand of no creature that she had ever seen – it was simply the visage of some strange, primeval being that was essentially and powerfully itself. Then a voice, deep and rumbling like the roar of a distant avalanche, with a power that shook the Windeye to her bones, came into her ears and mind.

  ‘Welcome, Windeye. We’ve been expecting you. I have heard much about you from Taku and Aurora, and all to the good. I am Denali, the Great One, the Earth mother of the Evanesar.’ Her voice softened with a little humour. ‘I believe the others may have mentioned me.’

  ‘Indeed they did, O Great One.’ Corisand found her voice falling naturally into the formal cadences of the Evanesar speech. ‘I should have realised where I was, for Taku once described your beautiful home to me. He called it the Labyrinth of the Mists, and hoped that one day I might be able to see it for myself.’

  ‘And now that you have?’

  ‘I can see that he did not exaggerate. In fact he described it perfectly, and with such wistful longing: “Oh, the beauty! The calm, shining ocean; the miles upon miles of convoluted cliffs and islands twisting and twining back upon one another to form bays and deep inlets; the thousands of slender waterfalls cascading down the cliffs in sprays of silver, and the mists glowing softly with ever-changing rainbows.” I don’t know why you have brought me here, but it is an honour and a joy that I will never forget.’

  Corisand took a deep breath. ‘But by your grace, O Great One, I cannot linger at this time. My friend Iriana, who was here with me before and helped me defeat Ghabal and Hellorin, is wounded in my own world, and may be dying—’

  ‘Fear not, friend Windeye.’ On hearing the new voice Corisand spun around and there, where there had previously been an inlet of shimmering water, was the great ice-serpent glacier form of Taku. ‘Why do you think we brought you here this time? Iriana is also with us, and we will give her all the aid we can.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t actually think we would just leave the poor creature to perish, did you?’ The sharper tones came from above, and there, stretching across the sky, its outspread wings made of ever-changing, scintillating colour, was the great eagle form of Aurora.

  ‘Look,’ Taku commanded. ‘Look closely, Windeye. Look into my heart.’

  And when Corisand peered down at the glacier, there lay Iriana, frozen into a cocoon of clear blue ice. Unable to stop herself, she gave a cry of distress.

  ‘Oh, come now, Corisand,’ Aurora said. ‘You might have a little more faith in us. You should know we would never do anything to hurt your friend.’

  ‘I do know that – of course I do. It’s just that she looks so—’

  ‘Dead? No, I have her safe.’ Taku’s voice was more sympathetic. ‘Though when we brought her across she was hovering on the very boundary. But my Cold magic has kept her life suspended by a slender thread, and we are here because the Great Mother of the Evanesar has offered her gift of healing.’

  ‘I will bestow it gladly,’ Denali said. ‘You did us a great service, far greater than you will ever know, in removing the Fialan from our world. We owe you this favour, and more.’

  Corisand detected an odd note in the Great One’s voice, and had an uncomfortable feeling that there was something she was not being told, but right now, Iriana was her only concern. Anything else could wait.

  In her deep, rumbling voice, Denali began to chant; an ancient song with no discernible words, as old as the bones of the very earth itself. The shell of blazing cyan-blue ice that enclosed the Wizard began to pulse and glow, brighter and brighter as the energy built, until the radiance was blinding; piercing the soul and overwhelming the mind until Corisand was sure she could endure no more; that she must fly apart and explode into a thousand pieces.

  Then suddenly it was over. Silence fell; so profound that it beat against Corisand’s ears and she could hear the whisper of her own blood in her veins – and into that stillness, a small, wondering voice said: ‘Oh.’

  The Windeye blinked the last of the dazzle from her eyes to see Iriana, standing on the broad, rough surface of the glacier that was Taku and gazing up wide-eyed, with her own vision, at the extraordinary alien face of Denali in the cliffs above. Corisand, about to call out, longing to rush over and hug her friend, found herself halted by the expression of profound respect on the Wizard’s face.

  Iriana bowed deeply. ‘Madam.’ Her voice rang out across the gulf of air between herself and the ancient being. ‘Like calls to like, and I know it was your elemental Earth powers that forged the link with my own Wizardly Earth magic and brought me back. I am honoured to be in your presence, and deeply grateful that you saved my life.’

  ‘Child of the Wizardfolk, you are more than welcome,’ came Denali’s reply.

  ‘Well, there’s gratitude for you.’ Aurora shattered the gravity of the moment. ‘Don’t mind us, will you? Taku and I – though we brought you here in the first place – didn’t have a thing to do with it at all.’

  Iriana laughed, and held up her arms outstretched towards the mighty shimmering figure in the sky. ‘Aurora, I love you.’

  ‘What?’ For once the great Evanesar of the Air seemed at a loss for words. ‘Now, let’s not get carried away, Wizard.’

  Iriana laughed once more, and knelt to lay a hand on the white, sharp-ridged surface of the ice serpent’s back. ‘And I love you too, dear Taku. I’m more than grateful that you brought me
here and saved my life. I felt that I had gone away on a long, long journey, then I heard you calling me.’

  Then she leapt across the intervening space between herself and Corisand, and hugged the Windeye tightly. ‘Corisand, my best, my dearest friend. All the while I was slipping away I knew you were there, unmoving, unresting, holding me to the world with the sheer force of your will.’ She laughed. ‘You weren’t about to let me go anywhere.’

  ‘Not if I could help it.’ Corisand laughed too. ‘You promised to help me save my people, remember? I wasn’t going to let you get out of that so easily.’

  ‘You speak more truthfully than you know,’ Taku said. ‘It was your need, Windeye, that called to us, and though it would not normally be our policy to intervene in Death’s realm, you and Iriana need one another, and we, here in the Elsewhere, need both of you.’

  The great serpent’s head, with its vivid blue eyes, reared above them, and Corisand could feel the concern in that steady gaze. ‘You must beware, my friends. Hellorin has regained his strength and is plotting again. We know that he is seeking a gateway back into your world – and even worse, our own brother, Katmai, the Evanesar of Fire, has been moved to pity by the plight of the Ghabal. His quarrel with us, the rest of his Elemental family, has been long and bitter, for he always felt that we should have intervened in the matter of the Fialan, and found a way to take it for ourselves. Now he has allied himself with the Mad One. If the Lord of the Phaerie finds a way back to your world then Ghabal will surely follow, and with Katmai’s power added to his own, there is no limit to the damage he could wreak.’