Heritage Of The Xandim

by Maggie Furey

  But this was no wild creature, and there was no way it could have come right into the darkest heart of the forest by itself. So who had brought it here? Where were its owners, and what had happened to them?

  She had almost forgotten the mysterious light. When she had stopped it had paused with her, hovering in place about three feet away. Now it came closer, zooming and swerving wildly through the air, right in front of her nose. With a muttered curse, she drew her cloak over the cat so that it wouldn’t be frightened, and set off after the impatiently bobbing globe. She began to wonder if, perhaps, this strange light belonged to the owners of the feline. She knew little of Wizards’ magic - could they produce something like this?

  As she rode, she couldn’t help speculating about what was happening in Eliorand following her escape. Tiolani already knew they had fled, taking three of Hellorin’s precious bloodstock with them . . . The Horsemistress shivered. The furious ruler would stop at nothing in her attempts to hunt them down. So where was the Hunt? And where was Kelon? Again she called in mindspeech, hoping against hope that he would answer this time, but there was no reply.

  ‘What’s that?’ Aelwen pulled up her horse. The breeze had picked up a little, blowing into her face. It carried a wonderful smell of woodsmoke and fried bacon. As if on cue, the red sphere in front of her vanished. Through the trees she heard the sound of voices.

  32

  THE CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY

  Since Corisand had succumbed so quickly and completely to exhaustion, they had left her to rest until morning. When the first of the birds started singing to usher in the new day, and Taine emerged from Esmon’s tent and went to seek Iriana, who was crowded very tightly into the same tent with Avithan. She was sleeping, curled up in a way that could not be comfortable, lying across the feet of her wounded companion. Taine took one look at her pale, strained face, and decided to let her get what little repose she could.

  The morning was cool, damp and grey, and he very much wanted some taillin, and something hot to eat, but all the wood was soaked through from the rains of the night before, and he found it impossible to get the fire started. Eventually he was forced to awaken Iriana after all because he needed her rather specialised powers.

  Grumbling under her breath, obviously not awake enough yet to hold a conversation, she emerged bleary-eyed from the tent and stumbled across to the fireplace. With a careless gesture, she launched a sizzling little ball of yellow fire into the midst of the pile of kindling, which immediately burst into spluttering, rather smoky flames. He would never have believed it, had he not seen it with his own eyes. A Wizard with the powers of all the elements - as far as he knew, such a thing had never happened before. He wondered uneasily if this was some kind of omen - a sign that the catastrophe foreseen by Cyran was not far away . . .

  In the meantime, however, life went on. Iriana, still using Esmon’s black horse as her eyes, tended the animals while Taine fried bacon, then Corisand joined them, with the warhorse standing nearby.

  While they ate, Taine watched with bemusement as Iriana and Corisand - the grey horse that apparently was not a horse - exchanged histories and information. The Wizard had had a hard time convincing him that this creature - for no matter how magnificent it was, it still looked like a simple horse to him - was one of the legendary Xandim, and that all of Hellorin’s precious steeds were descendants of the same long-lost race, enslaved aeons ago by the Forest Lord’s magic. He wondered whether Aelwen had ever guessed.

  However, there was no denying Corisand’s tidings from Eliorand. Her tale, as relayed by Iriana, filled him with increasing alarm; he heard with dismay of Tiolani’s deteriorating mental state. For a moment his thoughts drifted away from Iriana’s words as he imagined bringing this bad news to Cyran, who would already be devastated by Avithan’s fate. The Archwizard had trusted Taine to guard and help his son. What would he say in the face of such abject, terrible failure?

  Through the night, Avithan had slipped further and further away, until Taine and Iriana had to face the fact that they were losing him. Out of sheer desperation they had cobbled together a time spell - a risk in itself, for Taine had never attempted time magic, and Iriana, though she had read the theory, was similarly lacking in experience. Nevertheless, it had been Avithan’s only chance. Now he lay in the tent, unmoving beneath the magic’s eye-defying shimmer, and until they got him back - somehow - to Tyrineld, and the spell could be removed, they would not know whether they had saved or killed him.

  Looking at Iriana now, Taine marvelled anew at her courage. For a little while the previous night, before they had performed the spell, she had sobbed broken-heartedly and he had tried in vain to comfort her. Having given vent to her grief and anxiety, she had pulled herself together and set about doing what needed to be done. He had nothing but admiration for the young Wizard. When she spoke of Esmon’s death, Taine had realised how deeply she was grieving for the murdered Warrior. The loss of her animals had affected her profoundly, both emotionally and practically, and he sympathised with her frustration that she could no longer see unless the stallion was near, or be of much practical assistance to her companion. Yet she had remained capable and steadfast throughout her ordeal. He felt humbled by her courage. How would he have managed, sightless, bereft and in peril from both assailant and storm?

  All at once, his wandering attention snapped back to her words, as she translated Corisand’s thoughts: ‘And then Tiolani threatened Aelwen, Hellorin’s Horsemistress. So Aelwen decided to flee, and I decided we should escape together, along with—’

  ‘What? What?’ Taine all but pounced on Corisand. ‘Say that again. What about Aelwen? She escaped? Where is she? Is she all right?’

  He leapt to his feet, pacing the clearing, scarcely able to contain himself as Corisand’s narrative continued. When he heard that his beloved had been lost in the storm, his heart turned over. So close. He had come so close, and now she might be dead.

  Iriana had stopped speaking and was watching him open-mouthed. Even Corisand looked astonished, and he realised that he must have been babbling out loud. ‘We have to find her.’ His voice grew urgent as he rounded on Corisand. ‘Tell me again - I mean, tell Iriana. Tell us exactly what happened. How far away from her were you? What direction was she moving in, when you went down?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Taine, but I have no notion.’ Corisand’s words came back through Iriana. ‘Too much was happening - we were a goodly distance apart, and as well as the storm, I had Ferimon and that accursed Huntsman to deal with. You have no idea what it was like up there. The wind hurled us around so much, I had no idea of anyone’s direction. Aelwen could be anywhere - close by, or fifty miles away. We can’t possibly hope to find her.’

  ‘And what about Avithan?’ Iriana laid a hand on his arm. ‘We must get him home now. We must take him back to the healers.’

  In his heart Taine knew she was right, and that only made it worse. But how could he leave Aelwen?

  ‘Taine, we can’t stay here,’ Iriana said urgently. ‘The Phaerie—’

  ‘But Corisand said she threw her rider,’ Taine protested. ‘If Tiolani has fallen, there will be no flying magic. It will take them two or three days to come out this far - and even then, this is a big forest to search. If they cannot see us from the air, they can’t find us. We have a little time left, surely?’

  ‘But there is something I didn’t tell you. Cyran may know very soon that we’re in trouble. Last night, when I was running from the assassin who killed Esmon, I sent out a cry for help in mindspeech. I think the distance was too great, but I was desperate. I called to Challan, my foster-father in Nexis. We had such a close bond once, I thought there might be a chance. If he heard, he could have sent a message through by carrier bird—’

  Taine sighed. ‘Iriana, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your foster-father can’t have heard you, because he wasn’t in Nexis. I met a Wizard called Challan on the road a few days ago. He was going to Tyrineld, to searc
h for his daughter. She had run away, apparently, after some sort of family quarrel.’

  He wondered at the bitter look that crossed her face. ‘Chiannala,’ she muttered, then he saw her square her shoulders, shrugging away whatever had upset her. ‘All right. So Cyran can’t know of our danger. But Corisand also said the others tried to catch Tiolani, and she didn’t see whether they succeeded or not. She may not be dead, or even badly hurt. What if she’s planning, right now, to bring the Hunt out after Corisand and Aelwen and her friend? We must get away, as far and fast as we can—’

  ‘There is no need to run away. I will protect you.’

  She had come out of nowhere, the woman with the face of ageless beauty and the fine-spun silver hair that glowed around her head like an aureole.

  Taine and Iriana leapt to their feet, she with a cry of astonishment, and he with a curse. Corisand’s head snaked out aggressively, her ears going back flat to her head. Swiftly though Taine snatched at his weapon, the stranger was faster. His hand closed on emptiness as the blade sailed through the air and thudded to earth on the far side of the clearing.

  ‘See? I can protect myself, too,’ the woman smiled wryly. ‘But you have nothing to fear from me, Iriana, Corisand, Taine.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’ Taine demanded.

  ‘How do you know our names?’ Iriana asked at the same time.

  ‘I am not from this world, and I am here to help.’ She smiled as their jaws dropped at this bald statement. ‘You may call me Athina, or the Cailleach. Trust me. The fate of your world is truly hanging in the balance, and I know that your Archwizard has also foreseen this, Iriana. I have, shall we say, a very great interest in your world, and I am trying to save it from utter destruction. I too believe that the crisis is nearly upon us. I have had my own visions. I know that the future lies in the hands of a very small group of people: one is Hellorin’s daughter—’

  ‘Her?’ said Corisand. ‘Are you insane? That must be wrong.’

  Even as Iriana began to translate, the woman held up her hand. ‘There’s no need for that, Iriana. I understand the Windeye of the Xandim perfectly. Which is just as well, because you, Corisand, and you, Iriana, were the others in my vision.’

  A storm of protest broke out, with everyone speaking at once. All but the strange woman, who stood quietly and let their words break around her like waves. ‘Then let me prove it.’ Her quiet words were suffused with such powerful compulsion that the others were silenced as effectively as if she had shouted at the top of her lungs. ‘Both you, Iriana, and you, Taine, are yearning for missing companions.’ She turned to the trees behind her, and cast her arm out in a sweeping gesture. ‘Behold, I restore them to you.’

  There was a snapping of twigs in the underbrush, then out of the trees stepped Aelwen, riding her midnight stallion.

  Her face was drawn with weariness and her hair hung down in tangles, snarled with leaves and twigs. She was shivering, Taine noticed, and her clothing had been darkened by the soaking rain. The linen shirt under her leather jerkin clung to her body in sodden wrinkles, and was ripped down one sleeve. There were bruised shadows under her eyes, a scratch on her forehead and a long smudge of green bark down one cheek.

  He had never seen anyone so beautiful.

  She froze, staring at him with wide, stunned, vulnerable eyes. He could see the emotions chasing across her face: disbelief, amazement, joy. A mirror of his own feelings. For Taine, time stopped. For a moment they simply stared, utterly transfixed, drinking in the sight of one another like desert travellers who, parched with thirst, reach an oasis at long, long last.

  Their absorption was broken abruptly by a cry from Iriana. ‘Melik! Oh, my Melik.’ As she ran forward, the cat struggled out of Aelwen’s unresisting arms and was scooped up into the Wizard’s familiar, safe embrace. Though tears ran in profusion down Iriana’s cheeks, her face was radiant with happiness. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she sobbed as she stroked the soft fur. ‘I thought I had lost you too.’

  Iriana’s reunion with her cherished companion broke the enthralment that had held the other two. Even as Aelwen slid down from her horse, her beloved ran forward with a choking cry. Then they were in each other’s arms, and to Taine, it was as if all those years of loneliness, of yearning, of not belonging, had never been.

  ‘Oh, my love—’

  ‘I thought I would never see you again—’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s true—’ They were both talking at once, their words tangling with kisses.

  The Cailleach stood to one side and smiled. The joys of bringing such happiness far transcended Uriel’s threats and warnings - whatever the cost to herself.

  Kelon walked along in a daze of weariness and unreality that had come in the wake of his fight with Ferimon. In one way he regretted parting from Danel and her outlaws. Now that he was on his own once more, he was very lonely without them. But he could not desert Aelwen, though how he could ever hope to find her in this vast tract of wilderness, he did not know. The glowing sphere floated on ahead of him, tantalisingly out of reach, luring him towards some unimaginable fate.

  Hunger gnawed at him and fatigue dragged at his bones. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open, so when he heard the sound of voices, he wondered if he was dreaming. He followed the globe forward to where the undergrowth thinned - and walked into a nightmare. A clearing, a lake, light and horses. A young woman embracing a cat, an old woman looking on with a benign expression: all of these details were noted and forgotten in an eyeblink. He only had eyes for the couple embracing in the centre of the clearing.

  Aelwen had found her lost love - and all Kelon’s dreams and hopes crashed down in ruin.

  The sight of them together seared into his mind like poison. Oh, she had never been his; had never given him any encouragement but good, honest friendship. He had always known where he stood. And yet . . . How could he be blamed for yearning, for wanting, for hungering? So he had persuaded himself that given time, he must succeed with her. Taine had been gone for years - how much longer would she continue to wait for a lover who clearly would never return? Chances were that the wretch was dead. He was almost certainly dead. So Kelon had told himself over and over until, eventually, he had come to believe it.

  The truth almost brought him to his knees.

  There had never been anyone else for him - and for Aelwen, there had never been anyone but Taine. He was a fool. He should have known better. A crimson mist of anger boiled up from some dark place inside him - though he knew not whether he was more angry with Aelwen for not loving him, or with himself for his folly in loving a woman who would never return his love. Alil, sensing his mood as horses were wont to do, squealed out a strident challenge to the unknown black warhorse in the clearing. Aelwen tore her eyes from Taine’s face, and saw Kelon.

  He had been watching her for so many years now that he recognised every emotion that chased across those expressive lips and wide, green eyes. Surprise; delight at seeing him safe; dismay that he should have the joy of their reunion tarnished. But the pity was by far the worst - and in that instant, Kelon knew he could not stay, could not bear to watch them happy together, hour after hour, day after day. Every time he looked at Aelwen, worked with her, spoke with her, it would be plain that she felt sorry for him. Even their friendship could no longer exist now, for with the sudden appearance of Taine, everything had changed.

  Better to go, and keep his pride. It was all he had left.

  Aelwen, who had recovered her equilibrium, hastened towards him, her hand outstretched. ‘Kelon, thank providence you’re safe. It’s good to see you, my friend.’

  ‘I can no longer be just your friend.’ Coldly, Kelon knocked the proffered hand away.

  Hurt and anger flashed in her eyes, tightened her mouth. ‘I never led you to believe you could be otherwise.’

  Despite all his rancour, how could he deny it? And seeing her standing there, her eyes stormy with distress, how could he hate he
r? ‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘I know. You can’t help who you love, any more than I can.’ Then he glanced across at Taine, who was watching the exchange, wary and alert as some forest animal whose mate is threatened. Kelon had no trouble hating him.

  His mouth thinned to a bitter line as the future seemed to unroll before him: sooner or later there would be words exchanged between himself and Taine, then blows - there was a chance that one of them would die. And he still would not have Aelwen’s heart.

  ‘I can’t stay.’ The words were out of his mouth almost before he realised what he was saying.