“Do you think we have the power to manage a sioros?” Lorth asked. By his tone, Eaglin guessed that he too had seen a sioros at some point in his life, or at least knew enough about the immortal predators to be worried.
“Between the two of you,” Caelfar said, “you may be able to work the paths to Maern. The only thing keeping the sioros under control is some kind of agreement between the Old One and,” he hesitated with a breath, “a madwoman.”
“A madwoman,” Eaglin echoed. He worked to untangle Caelfar’s words from the briar bushes of emotions around him; plainly, this involved more than what appeared on the surface. And Eaglin couldn’t shake the sensation of thin, a pale gray shadow hovering in the cells of the old wizard’s flesh.
Lorth stood with his feet planted apart and his hands folded before him. In a gentle voice that belied his expression, he said, “Perhaps you can start from the beginning, so we know what we’re dealing with—besides a sioros.”
Caelfar leaned back. “Are you familiar with a Keeper of the Order of Owl named Kalein?”
Lorth lifted a brow in question as Eaglin searched his memory. “She lived some sixty years ago,” he said. “An exceptionally gifted shapeshifter who slipped too far out of focus and eventually became her transformations. Her story is taught in Eyrie to wizards studying the art of shapeshifting. As a warning.”
Caelfar nodded sadly. “She loved the forest, Kalein. Once, she loved me—but the forest was her greater love, as it appealed to the wilder, untamed part of her nature.” He fell silent for some moments. “When she got with child, she resented it so deeply that she left me, refused my help, or anything to do with me. By the Wizard’s Code, I couldn’t force her. But I watched over her in the form of apparitions.”
“That’s a delicate interpretation of the Code,” Lorth noted.
Eaglin didn’t bother to expand on the comment. He knew from personal experience how far the Wizard’s Code could be bent before it broke.
Caelfar’s expression grew more pained as he continued. “Kalein bore a daughter, Alera, who grew up knowing that I existed but not much else, I think. She fell in love with a wizard, as her mother had. She bore two daughters by him. The first she named Aradia, and the second, to whom she died giving birth, she named Ana. Kalein raised them.
“Ana refused the path of magic. The older, Aradia, learned everything her grandmother would teach her—against the tenets of the Eye—and became every bit the shapeshifter Kalein was, only more wild and unmanageable. Aradia is the woman I mentioned.”
Lorth shifted on his feet. Orphaned as a small child, he had been taken in by Icaros, an exiled Raven who raised and trained him in the arts of magic. This schism had given the hunter his identity, but it also created tension between him and Eaglin. Though Lorth upheld the Order of Raven in the finest way, part of him would always remain wild and not entirely loyal to the codes of wizards. Yet, as Eaglin knew how far the Wizard’s Code could be bent, he also knew the limitations of structure. The Old One had taught him that; through Lorth, she continued her uncomfortable lessons.
Sensing their discomfort, Caelfar said, “I don’t mean to expound upon the problems of learning wizardry without the Eye. It happens, and depending on the teacher, it doesn’t always turn out as badly as this has.”
Eaglin asked, “You said Alera loved a wizard, Aradia’s father. What of him?”
“He abandoned her. He was Order of Osprey. Unfortunately, Alera had no love for the ways of wizards, and she drove him off just as her mother had me. I learned years later that he died in Asmoralin of some sickness.
“Under Kalein’s influence, Aradia didn’t involve herself with a man as her mother and grandmother had; she remained a maiden. Her sister Ana, however, did, with a Keeper of the Crafts, Order of Albatross.”
Eaglin grimaced. “A sailor.”
Lorth lowered his head in his hand and rubbed his temples.
“Aye,” Caelfar grumbled. “You see the way of this? Again, the cycle turned. But this is where my troubles begin, and the reason I’ve called to you for help.”
“You mentioned a sioros,” Lorth said.
“I’m getting to that. Only recently, I discovered Ana bore a daughter named Tansel. She’s a woman, now, and came to my attention when a foolish apprentice of mine named Maetor violated Code by tipping the seasons’ balance in an attempt to bend her to his will.” Lorth made a sound in his throat. “She called me using an old nickname Aradia had told her.”
“What of Maetor?” Eaglin asked.
“I gave him to the Destroyer,” the old wizard replied with all the warmth of killing frost. The Old One, as mortals knew her, appeared as aspects of maiden, mother and crone, symbolizing the forces of birth, life and death. The Destroyer, her most terrible aspect, kept nature’s balance through change and transformation. High wizards respected her most of all, as their power required the finest balance—and the highest price for breaking it.
Eaglin didn’t have to guess that Caelfar’s anguish over having had to leave Kalein alone at her own request had driven his wrath on Maetor for interfering with Tansel.
Caelfar continued, “That aside, there was Tansel, frightened, alone, motherless and, I unwittingly discovered, in possession of a sioros voidstone.”
“Impossible,” Eaglin said. “A sioros would never let it out of his sight.”
Caelfar nodded as if appreciating the observation, and then added, “She had hidden it under a rock in her garden.” Eaglin snorted in astonishment. “I took the stone and brought her to Muin. Then I went after Aradia for answers.”
“Why Aradia?” Lorth asked.
“Aradia gave her the stone,” Caelfar said, staring into the distance. “Tansel’s mother Ana was killed by a sioros seven years ago, when Tansel was twelve. Aradia was with Ana when it happened. She told me, as she changed shape to escape, that she found the stone in the earth. She didn’t understand that it belonged to him and that he only came after her to reclaim it. Somehow, she eluded him—and that should be proof enough of her skill in the art of changing shape, if anything is.”
Eaglin rubbed his face as he imagined what it would take to shapeshift out of the clutches of an immortal with the power to move between dimensions.
Lorth said, “She must have figured out how to use the blind spots. Immortals are above the time-space matrix, but they can’t see everything. I learned this in the Gray Isles, when I went up against a loerfalos.”
“She wouldn’t have escaped him otherwise,” Eaglin said.
“Aye, well that isn’t all she did,” Caelfar continued bleakly. “She made a bargain with the Old One to protect Tansel from the sioros.”
“Why would she do that?” Eaglin said. “The sioros wouldn’t claim Tansel unless she was marked.”
“Aradia may not have known that. She didn’t know that he wouldn’t have hurt her; so she must have feared for Tansel as well.”
“Maern knows,” Eaglin said.
“That’s what worries me. Maern wouldn’t have made that bargain with Aradia unless Tansel were indeed in danger.”
Lorth cleared his throat. “I suggest we not assume what the Old One would or wouldn’t do.” He leveled his wolf’s gaze on Caelfar. “What was the bargain?”
“She said the Old One bade her to give the voidstone to Tansel. But there was something else she wouldn’t tell me, and I couldn’t wrest it from her before she slipped into shape. I don’t have the strength to follow and bind someone skillful enough to elude a sioros.”
He rose from his chair, approached Eaglin and took his hands. “I must find out what Aradia promised Maern for my great granddaughter’s life. I need a master shapeshifter to do that. Moreover, for the sake of my realm, I must return the voidstone to its rightful owner. I don’t trust Aradia. I fear whatever is holding the sioros will not hold him for long.”
“The power of cycles will undo it eventually,” Eaglin agreed.
Caelfar bowed his head. When he lifted his gaze again,
his eyes were watery. “Tansel has power. She holds the very spring in her hands; she can sing life from the earth with the voice of Maern. But she is innocent. I cannot bear to lose her. She’s all I have.”
Eaglin tightened his grip comfortingly around the old Raven’s hands. “We’ll be here by the next new moon.”
“A fortnight,” Caelfar said to himself, as if to calculate the time he had.
Eaglin guided him back to the Source. “I’ll keep my channels open. If you need us, merge with me in mindspeak.”
Caelfar nodded as the rift appeared around him. “May the Light of All be with you.”
“And you,” the wizards said as he withdrew into the light from which he came.
*
Eaglin took a deep breath as the Oculus came into focus. “Well,” he remarked. “This ought to be interesting.”
Lorth rolled his shoulders and walked towards the door. “My apprentices aren’t going to be happy. I’ll have to give them to Barenus until I return. He’s mean.”
“But not as creepy.” As Eaglin followed him down the stairs, he added, “If you return.”
The hunter pointed to a scar on his neck that he had received in the southlands of Tarth as a younger man: a red, five-rayed scar left by the bite of a deadly spider. “I’ve already been touched by the Destroyer. It’s your turn.”
“I’ve seen a sioros. If he didn’t take me then, I’m probably safe.”
Lorth laughed. “You won’t be safe if you get between him and a flowering maiden.”
“That’ll be your job. I am going after the madwoman, remember?”
On the following day, when the sun rode high in the sky above yellow-white clouds, Eaglin stepped from the arched entrance of Eyrie’s stables. He wore his sword, a bow and quiver and his travel cloak, black with dark green knot patterns on the edges. He carried several small packs of food and supplies.
He drew his horse around, a jet-black stallion with a sculptured nose. Eaglin’s mother, being very skilled with beasts, had trained the horse and given him to the Aenmos as a gift. His name, Sefae, meant “wild one” in Aenspeak. His muscles rippled gracefully under his coat, and he had a white mark in the shape of a diamond directly in the center of his chest. Eaglin spoke to the beast soothingly as he began to fasten his things to the saddle.
Lorth strode out of the stables leading his horse Freya, a white mare dappled with sooty black. He wore a ratty, silvery green cloak that had once belonged to Icaros, his master and the man who had raised him. “You’re bringing Sefae?” he asked. “Brave, that.”
Eaglin made a face. “Mad as a hare,” he agreed. “But he’s swift and sensitive. I can guide him more directly.”
“And he’ll detect a sioros before we do,” Lorth added as he checked the straps on his saddlebags.
Eaglin leaned around, placed his hand on the stallion’s neck and looked into his dark, uneasy eye.
Lorth knelt and rifled through his pack for something. “Have you decided on a route yet?”
“The way north from here is rough, but if we head out of the city to the east and hug the foothills, there are roads.”
Lorth closed his pack and stood up. “What sort of roads?”
“Roads.”
Lorth laughed. “Some roads indeed, to make it to Crowharrow in a fortnight. Why in the name of Maern did you tell Caelfar that? Muin is five hundred miles from here. I was thinking more along the lines of midsummer.”
Eaglin shrugged. “It may be that. But we should try to get there sooner. For one thing, the summer solstice is a powerful portal in the year, a time when something like a bargain with the Old One could end, or change. I also don’t want Caelfar casting any more apparitions than he has to. His airy body looked like...well, air.”
“It’s more than that,” Lorth said. Before he could continue, a voice rang out into the passage, causing them to turn.
“Masters!” A young man ran up to them, out of breath. He had pale blonde, shoulder-length hair and eyes the color of hemlock needles. He wore a cerulean cloak of the Order of Osprey. “I heard you were leaving.”
“Freil,” said Eaglin in greeting.
“Why aren’t you in the training yards?” inquired Lorth. “Did you forget your sword?”
Eaglin hid a smile. He and Lorth had known Freil since he was a child. The hunter had history with Freil as a troublemaking scamp, and often joked that he would never tire of getting his revenge.
Freil grinned. “Forget my sword with Master Barenus? He would throw me from the South Quadrant tower. Na, I wanted to see you off. Where are you going?”
“North,” Eaglin said.
Lorth threw him a glance and said, “Crowharrow.”
At the mention of his homeland, Freil’s eyes lit up. “Crowharrow! Let me come.”
“No bloody chance,” Eaglin said. He grabbed Sefae’s reins, drew the beast around and started walking. Lorth accompanied him leading Freya. Clopping hooves echoed down the street.
“Eaglin,” Freil pressed, running up alongside them. “At least tell me why you’re going.”
“That’s Master Eaglin to you,” the Raven returned. Lorth smiled. Freil and Eaglin were as close as brothers, and the younger wizard rarely observed formality. Soon, he wouldn’t need to. Though young, Freil had great skill; within a turn of the sun, he would take the Darkstar to his cloak and enter into rigorous training for the Order of Raven.
“We’re going to help the great granddaughter of the Raven of Muin,” Lorth said.
“Ah,” Freil said with a lifted brow. “What’s her name?”
“Tansel,” Eaglin replied. “And she’s too green for you.”
“I could help with that,” Freil said with a rakish grin.
Lorth muttered something rugged under his breath regarding the relationship between male sexual parts and sense.
Eaglin gazed at the sky beyond the cluttered roofs of the narrow way. “Do you know an Eagle named Maetor?”
Freil eyed him suspiciously, recognizing the tone. “I met him once or twice. He’s in Muin under Master Caelfar, is he not?”
“He was, until Caelfar called the Destroyer down on him for pursuing Tansel.”
“You jest.”
“He did violate the Wizard’s Code,” Lorth put in.
“And where did that start?” Eaglin growled sidelong.
In reply, the hunter reached down and grabbed his crotch. Then he casually added, “She’s also been sioros-marked.”
All the color left Freil’s face.
“Still want to come?” Eaglin asked him.
“I think I’ll take my chances with Master Barenus.”
Eaglin nodded. “Good lad.” Then he had an idea. “There is something you can do, if you want to help.”
“Sure, as long as it doesn’t involve a sioros.”
Lorth leaned aside. “Think I broke the spell.”
Smiling, Eaglin said, “Tansel’s father is in the Order of Albatross. I would like you to find out where he is.”
“What’s his name?” Freil asked.
“We don’t know. He’d have been in Loralin some twenty years ago.”
Lorth said, “Tansel’s mother was called Ana.”
“‘Was?’”
“Sioros took her,” Eaglin informed him. “If you find the Albatross, use the Eye to contact us.” He flipped the reins over Sefae’s neck. “Under no circumstances are you to journey north. Clear?”
Freil nodded. He came forward and embraced Eaglin tightly, then did the same with Lorth. “I shall do what you ask. Light keep you both.”
“And you,” Lorth said, and then mounted. Eaglin whispered to Sefae and leapt up. The stallion whirled around a couple of times before Eaglin got him under control.
They rode in a rhythmic clatter down the winding road to the east. As they rounded a corner, Eaglin raised his voice over the clamor of hoof beats. “I wasn’t going to mention the sioros. We don’t actually know if Tansel is marked.”
�
��Och! Good for Freil to learn some respect for the darker powers in the world, if he’s to take on the Darkstar. Speaking of which, that was a nice move on your part, asking him to look for her father.”
“I dare not say that good could come of it.”
“At least you ordered him to stay here. I could see that going off.”
They came to a busy intersection in the stone-paved street. One way led to a noisy market square. The other, a wide dirt path, wound down the mountain into the valley that edged the sea. Clouds cast moving shadows over the forested landscape.
“Full moon tonight,” Lorth said. “I suggest we avoid towns and take to the wilds.”
Eaglin nodded as they pressed their mounts onto the rocky way. Normally, the start of a journey and the voices of the wilds would lift his spirits. But today, it only deepened the shadow on his heart.
Maiden’s Hand
Tansel lay on her pallet beneath the Bright Moon beaming through the narrow window. The cottage remained a mess from when she had raked through it the day before, looking for life. In the evening, when she had finally arrived at the edge of her garden faintly lit by moonlight, her heart filled with fresh dismay. She had hoped the previous day was a dream and that she would find her garden fresh and growing as before. But nothing had changed.
Mushroom slept contentedly on the hearthstones. Using the word she had learned from Sigen, Tansel had managed, in time-consuming stops and starts, to convince the cat to follow her home. The command didn’t have the same power of persuasion as the one the Raven of Muin—or whatever he was—had used on their previous journey. But they made it. Tansel had snuck into the kitchen on her way out of Muin and gathered a sack of food for herself and the cat. It wouldn’t last very long, but she was good at foraging.
She turned over on her pallet and gazed at the crackling fire. Her dead garden closed around the cottage like a legion of weeping specters. Nothing felt the same anymore, as if Maetor had not only changed the seasons but also her as well. Maybe she should have had tea with him by the river and been done. She could have avoided all this with that one simple thing. Could it have been so bad?
The Winged Hunter Page 5
