He turned and headed south, following the shallow valley between two hills away from whatever the things were. But he'd seen how fast they were moving. Unless he found somewhere to hide, they'd be on him in no time. He figured he'd gone almost a quarter mile when he saw a ghostly shape pass him several dozen paces off to his right-and two more off to his left. They were surrounding him. He glanced behind him and saw five others a hundred paces behind him. None were close enough for Jalan to make out distinct features, but he could tell that they were large-pony-sized at least. The ones to the sides began to close in, and soon Jalan could hear them panting. Like dogs. One of the two to his left put on a sudden burst of speed, ran ahead, and stopped a stone's throw from Jalan. It was the biggest wolf Jalan had ever seen.
His first impression had misjudged it. This thing was far larger than the Tuigan ponies. Its shoulders were easily the height of the famed Hiloar stallions that were the source of wealth for his mother's family. The wolf, its head low to the ground, stood still, watching Jalan, a deep growl rumbling from its throat. Jalan stopped and fell to his knees. Part of him was glad. He'd seen wolves take down prey before. It wasn't pretty, and unless they managed to snap the creature's neck, it looked extremely painful. But it was still better than suffering whatever fate the northerners and their cold leader had meant for him. The huge wolves circled him, pacing and watching and drawing their circle closer until the nearest was no more than five or six paces away. Their breath formed a nimbus of cloud around them. The stink of them hit Jalan and he coughed. Sweat poured freely from his skin, but now that he'd stopped running, he realized how cold it was.
He'd slept many times out on the steppe, and the autumn nights often left a covering of ice on water by morning, but this cold was far worse. An uncontrollable shivering seized Jalan's body, and he realized what it meant. "Oh, no." The wolves to his left parted for the figure in the ash-colored cloak as he approached Jalan. The grass crunched and crackled beneath his feet, like the breaking of minuscule icicles. Jalan's tears froze on his cheeks. The figure stopped in front of Jalan and looked down on him. "Our mounts have arrived," he said. The man's voice made Jalan cover his ears. It was not unlovely, but there was something altogether wrong with it. Not just unusual, but twisted, like a choir of voices where half the voices sang off key. "Good of you to come and welcome them."
CHAPTER SIX
Arzhan Island, the Lake of Mists in the lands of the Khassidi
"He's awake."
Amira started. She was sitting by the lakeshore, her open spellbook in her lap, so absorbed in her studies that she hadn't heard the man come up behind her. Gyaidun, his name was. She should've heard him coming, but the big brute moved with a panther's grace. That and this damnable fog. It seemed to cloud her other senses as much as it hid everything from sight. It unnerved her. The lake, the woods around it, and the entire damnable Wastes… she hated them. Her home seemed very far away.
"It's about time." Amira snapped her book shut and pushed herself to her feet. Evening was coming on anyway, and she'd soon need the fire to read. "I felt fine a long ago."
Gyaidun scowled. "You were brought in before he was."
Amira said nothing. She knew the elf called Lendri had been clinging to life when Gyaidun carried him in. It had taken all of the belkagen's skills to heal him, and for a while even he had feared the younger elf might not pull through. He'd been unconscious all day, which meant he was sorely hurt indeed, for unlike other races, elves did not sleep.
The big man was still scowling. "Lendri nearly died saving your son," he said.
"Saving my son? Really? And where is my son?" Amira clenched her jaw and glared. She had to take deep breaths to keep the tears back.
Gyaidun looked away, but he seemed more angry than apologetic.
"You wish to speak to him? This way."
"I know the way." She pushed past him and headed back to camp.
Despite her words, she almost did get lost on the way back. It was not a large island, but the mists off the lake were thick as wet wool, and this late in the day she couldn't see more than twenty paces in any direction. The trees and the iron-gray boulders strewn about the island were little more than indistinct shadows. She caught the pale nimbus of the campfire off to her right and realized she was passing the camp. She spared a sidelong glance at Gyaidun. He said nothing, but she saw the amusement in his eyes.
Lendri was sitting next to the fire, swathed in a thick hide blanket. One naked arm stuck out, holding a wooden bowl filled with a steaming liquid. He sipped at it and winced. For the first time, Amira noticed that Lendri had the same odd scars on his face that Gyaidun did-three long slashes down each cheek and a fourth cutting through them. He had even more tattoos than the big man. They twined about his arm, neck, and even around his eyes, and they seemed very dark against his pale skin. A huge gray wolf lay on the ground not far away, its head resting on its paws and its eyes closed. Mingan, the belkagen had called it.
The belkagen sat not far away. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged. He'd been busy since Gyaidun brought Amira in the night before, using all his arts and herblore to heal her and Lendri. He looked up as Amira approached the fire.
"You are still feeling well, Lady?" he asked.
"I'm fine." Amira sat down across from him. "You should rest. You look as if you're about to fall over."
A faint smile. "I will seek my dreams soon. But first we must make amrulugek. 'Hold council,' as you westerners would say."
Amira cast a quick glance at Gyaidun, then fixed her gaze on Lendri. "You… tried to save my son. Thank you. I am in your debt."
Lendri bowed his head but said nothing.
"Gyaidun," said the belkagen. "Sit. We have much to discuss."
The big man gave the belkagen a hard look, and it was the elf who looked away first, his eyes downcast. Amira didn't know if it was the weariness or merely the odd behavior of these easterners, but she could've sworn the belkagen looked… guilty. Gyaidun definitely looked angry as he sat, his movements stiff, his jaw clenched, and his nostrils flaring like a stallion about to kick his way out of the stall.
Amira held her tongue, deciding that in the tense atmosphere it was better to let one of the others speak first. She busied herself wrapping the leather cord around her spellbook and stuffing it into one of her shirt's many deep pockets. The belkagen had given Amira one of his old shirts. It was shaped much like the Tuigan kalats, but rather than being made of cotton or wool, it had been stitched from elkhide with fur trim. It was far too large for her, but it had deep pockets.
Still no one spoke. Lendri sat sipping whatever was in the bowl, the belkagen stared into the fire, and Gyaidun sat feeding small strips of meat to his raven, which bobbed up and down on his lap.
Damn it all. Amira decided to break the silence. "When you and Jalan, when you were attacked, how many were there?"
Lendri took another sip from the bowl, then fixed Amira with his gaze. She shivered, again feeling as if she were a rabbit being sized up by a hungry predator. "The boy," said Lendri, his voice low and hoarse. "Jalan. He told me…" He glanced at Gyaidun and the belkagen.
"Told you what?" Amira asked.
"I told him you were here, that I would bring him to you. 'She is not my mother,' he said."
Now all three men were staring at her, the belkagen looking surprised and the big man's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Even the raven stopped eating and fixed its black eyes on her.
Amira straightened, taking on the regal pose she'd been taught by her mother. "I have no husband," she said. "I am sworn to Cormyr, my life one of service. Jalan is not a child of my body, true enough, but I raised him from a babe. I loved-" A sob threatened to break out.
Amira felt tears flooding behind her eyes. She bit her lower lip, took a deep breath, and swiped her sleeve across her eyes. "I love him as my own."
There was a long silence, then the belkagen spoke. "Among the Vil Adanrath, one who cares for a child,
who loves and feeds a child, who would die and kill for a child… this is the parent."
Amira nodded her thanks.
"Then why would the boy say such a thing to Lendri?" asked Gyaidun.
Amira shot him a venomous glance. "As you may have noticed"-she looked to Lendri-"Jalan is not Cormyrean."
Lendri said nothing. Didn't even nod. Just kept those predator's eyes fixed on her.
"I am a war wizard," Amira said. "I serve the crown of Cormyr and have done so for almost twenty years, since I was a girl. When the Horde invaded fifteen years ago, I fought for my people. I was at Phsant and Inkar, but mostly my company roamed, harrying the Horde's flanks, killing scouts, and raiding supply lines. I killed. I watched friends die." She closed her eyes, not to relive the memories, but to concentrate on pushing them away. "During one battle… gods, we'd been fighting since dawn with no rest. The sun was setting when my company came upon the remains of a Tuigan camp. The warriors fled, for we had won the day. They… they slaughtered captives and their own slaves- men, women, children-rather than have them freed. But in their haste to be gone from us, they missed one. A boy, not even walking yet. My captain found him crying over the body of his dead mother, covered in her blood."
Gyaidun spat a curse in a language she didn't recognize, and when she looked up, she saw fury in the man's eyes.
"I was young," she continued, "little more than a girl myself. My captain gave the child into my keeping. I balked at first." Amira smiled. These were the few memories of the war that did not wake her in a cold sweat at the darkest time of the night. "But I grew fond of him. Fondness grew to love. Months later when a suitable mother was found, my captain relieved me of my duty to the child. I told him that if he took the child he'd experience the wrath of a war wizard firsthand. I named him Jalan, after my older brother who'd died in the war."
"Why does he not claim you as his mother?" Lendri asked. The hardness was gone from his eyes. He seemed genuinely confused.
"Jalan is fourteen." Amira shrugged and tried to put lightness in her voice, but even she heard the bitter tone. "And growing up in House Hiloar is not easy, even for one born into the House. For someone who looks… 'eastern,' especially after the bloodiest war in generations with the eastern hordes… well, many among my family were less than kind to Jalan."
"The boy does not have Tuigan features," said Lendri. "He's far too lean, and his eyes-"
"Tell that to my mother," said Amira. "After the invasion of the Horde, all easterners are savages to many of my people. I shielded him as much as I could, but my duties as a war wizard often sent me abroad, and I had no choice but to leave him with my family. Their treatment of him ranged from coldly polite to cruel. It was… not the best childhood for him."
"You allowed this?" asked Lendri.
"What choice did I have?" A cold edge tinged Amira's words.
"Among our people-"
The belkagen cut him off. "She is not of our people, Lendri. The bonds of duty to family and clan are not always easy to bear. This we know."
Lendri looked down. "The belkagen speaks wisely," he said. "I ask your forgiveness, Lady."
Amira acknowledged his apology with a nod. She glanced at Gyaidun.
Was he blushing?
"To answer your question, Lendri, Jalan is on the verge of manhood. He often chafes at his mother's influence- especially the past few years. I fear he blames me for many of the insults and cruelties he suffered from my family. Perhaps the blame is not altogether undeserved."
There was a long silence, then the belkagen spoke. "You are from Cormyr. A war wizard, you said. How did you come to be out here, a captive of slavers?"
"Last year I was sent to High Horn. You've heard of it?"
The men shook their heads.
"It is a castle in the far west of Cormyr. In the mountains. A hard, cold place. Those sent there are either the most skilled warriors and wizards, sent there to make them the best of the best. Or they're considered trouble and are sent there to be disciplined."
"And which are you?" asked Gyaidun. "The best or trouble?"
"I'm both."
Gyaidun smirked and looked away, but the belkagen chuckled.
"We'd been there a few tendays when I was sent out into the field.
Some patrols had gone missing, and the knights looking for them wanted a wizard on hand in case they ran into more trouble than they could handle. We found the patrol in a valley, all dead, but only two died of obvious wounds. Scavengers had been at all of them, but using my arts I was able to determine how they died. It was early summer, still cool in the mountains but not cold, and yet-"
"They were frozen," said Gyaidun, his eyes bright and… hungry.
"Like those slavers. Weren't they?"
Amira nodded. "We gathered the bodies and returned to High Horn.
While we were gone, there was an attack. A dozen or so made it inside the castle. Several died. Good men and women. Friends. And the raiders took my son."
"A dozen or so?" said the belkagen. "How could so few breach a castle filled with your kingdom's best and escape?"
"Most of the raiders were pale-skinned men. Warriors. But one… it was… uh…"
"A thing of darkness and cold malice," said Lendri, his voice low.
"Hooded in an ash-gray cloak."
"Yes," said Amira. "How…?"
"I saw him last night-or one very like him."
"Him?" asked the belkagen.
"Him… it, I don't know," said Lendri. "His presence made my skin crawl and froze the air around me, but I heard him speak the words to his spell, and it was a man's voice." He took another sip from his bowl and swallowed hard. "But something was… wrong with the voice.
Something twisted, as if the man were not used to speaking."
"He was alone?" asked Amira.
"No," said Lendri. "Others were with him. The whiteskins you spoke of. They are known here in the Wastes. And feared. Siksin Neneweth, my people name them."
Amira's brow creased. "I don't know the word."
The belkagen broke in. "Damarans call them Aikulen Jain, and the Tuigan Shen Ghel. Ice Walkers, Frost Folk it means."
"In the attack on High Horn, three of the raiders died. Two were Tuigan, but the other was one of these pale-skinned barbarians you speak of, these 'Frost Folk.' The senior war wizard at High Horn examined them, probing their minds. The Tuigan were just mercenaries, hired swords. Saelthos said he could read nothing from the other… only a sense of cold and frost. But he said he thought the man was Sossrim, not… Frost Folk."
The belkagen threw another log on the fire, sending sparks spiraling upward, where they were quickly snuffed out in the heavy fog. "Sossrim they once were," he said. "But now they dwell farther north than Sossal, in the endless ice where months do not see the sun.
You've heard of the Raumathari Empire in your Cormyr?"
"Of course."
"In the years of war between Raumathar and Narfell, many from Sossal allied themselves with Raumathar against the demon hordes of Narfell. But in their desperation, some even among the Raumathari sought power where they should not. I have heard it told that in those ancient days some of the Sossrim swore loyalty to Raumathari wizards who sought power with demons, devils, and other foul beings from the outer darkness. Their own folk shunned them, and so they have lived in the far north, performing their vile rites. In the darkest winters, sometimes they raid far south, taking plunder and captives. But I have never heard of them striking all the way into Cormyr. So far… never have I heard of such a thing. And Jalan was all they took?"
"Yes. They slaughtered any who stood in their way, and the… uh, the dark one called down a killing frost, but they took no plunder.
Only my son."
"Why?" asked the belkagen. "Why travel more than a thousand miles through foreign lands for one boy?"
"I don't know. I wish I did. I only want my son back."
"Have you ever noticed anything special about the boy?"<
br />
"You're asking a mother?"
The belkagen smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. "You study the arcane. You know what I mean."
"Dreams."
Both the belkagen and Lendri seemed to tense at this. "Dreams…?" asked the belkagen.
"Jalan was always a vivid dreamer, even as a small child. I can only remember images and words from dreams, but Jalan… he could recall sounds, shapes, even smells and touch in solid detail. And he said he often dreamed of a shining song."
"A shining song?"
Amira shrugged. "Only a dream. I never thought about it much."
The belkagen and Lendri shared a look. "The elves do not sleep like other folk of the world. We rest and"-he seemed to be searching for the word-"walk the dreamroad. Dreams can be very powerful and hold great meaning."
"I sometimes dream I can fly," said Amira. "It doesn't make me a bird."
"What did you do?" Lendri broke in.
"About birds?"
"About your son. When you returned to the High Horn and found him gone."
"In Cormyr," said Amira, "the war with the Horde is still fresh in the minds of many, especially among the knights and wizards. I don't know any who didn't lose someone. When it was discovered that Tuigan and other easterners had penetrated one of our westernmost outposts … well, it was treated with extreme concern.
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