Kindred and Wings

by Philippa Ballantine

  Ysel kept up with him, but also remained silent until they reached a comfortable stone only yards from the front door. It still had a splendid view of the ceaseless sea. “You know,” Finn began, “I used to sit here when I was a boy about your age, and wonder about my family.”

  “You have all the answers now,” Ysel said, hitching himself up on the rock in exactly the way Finn once had. “Father. Mother. Brother.”

  Finn rubbed his hand on the rock, and looked askance at Ysel. “Not quite all. I don’t have the why. Why did Putorae lie down with the Caisah? Scions are supposed to be barren, and Vaerli are not supposed to be able to produce children, so why did she think . . .”

  His brother let out a small laugh. “She saw us, Finn. By looking into the future and seeing it was possible, she made it possible.”

  Anything to do with seers, Finn was beginning to realize, was mind-bending. “If she could see all that . . . then she knew he would kill her, too.”

  Ysel folded his hands on his knee. “Yes, but she must have thought it was worth it. That is what it means to be a seer, after all: to be able to do what needs to be done. Our mother was the first seer in a long time that actually did it, though.”

  Finn thought of what Putorae had said to him, about the Vaerli and their fear. It seemed perfectly understandable to him; the White Void was a place most fled from. It had left even the Caisah a tattered mess. No one who went into it ever came out the same. Now without the Vaerli presence in it, it would tear worlds apart.

  He cleared his throat. “Can we stop it, Ysel?”

  The boy leaned on his knees, staring out to sea, and looked suddenly very young. “I cannot stop it. The Vaerli cannot stop it. Even the Kindred or your dragon cannot stop it for long.” He turned and looked at Finn, examining him with a critical eye. “However, you can draw everything together.” He folded his legs under him. “Do you have the thread you used to find me?”

  It was a strange request after so many strange days, but Finn nonetheless fished out the piece of tatty string that he had kept in his pocket all this time. It did not look like much to hang the future of all worlds upon. He held it out to his brother, his face folded with a confused frown.

  Ysel shook his head, and did not take it from him. “It is your gift, brother, not mine. I haven’t been in this world long enough to develop one. While Fida looked after me, I did try.” He shrugged, and then a tiny smile flickered on the edges of his mouth. “I guess, though everyone thought you had failed, you just took longer to develop those skills.”

  Finn had to remind himself that this was no ordinary child, but like himself, a son of a seer and a scion. He wasn’t offended by the assumption he was a failure; it was, after all what he had thought of himself for most of his life.

  Amazing how that small voice had been quelled by the arrival of a dragon. He held up the simple loop of yarn and looked at his brother through it. It had been how he found Ysel in the first place. “What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked.

  His brother shrugged. “Look forward, find what must be done.”

  Talyn rode Syris until her muscles burned and her vision blurred with tears. It had to have been days that she stayed in the saddle. The nykur would run forever, chasing himself deeper and deeper into Conhaero. The world of chaos and madness that was their inheritance sped into nothing around them.

  She knew where they were, could feel it in her bones. They were drawing toward the sea and its relentless pull. The power of the land was giving way to it. When Talyn finally called a stop to the race, she was the one left gasping, draped over Syris’ shoulders. Every muscle burned, and she felt as though movement and emotion had wrung her out.

  The White Void was coming. That was an inescapable fact. Even though she had run from it, it was still there. The roar of the ocean might be loud, but it would not drive away fact. The nykur stood motionless as Talyn slid from his back. Though she landed on her feet, they quickly gave way, and the woman feared by so many in Conhaero ended up crumpling to the ground.

  She lay there for a long time, with the sky her only view and the sea the only sound. A large part of Talyn just wanted to stay there, to give up, and let her bones go back to the earth. Did she have the will not to move? Sooner or later even a Vaerli would die without food and water. Her father was gone, she knew that. Byre was a stranger to her, a dream of a little boy she had once known. Finn was . . .

  Talyn sat up so abruptly on her elbows that her head spun. Suddenly she realized she had spent a long time trying not to think about Finn. Her own tarnished memories of him, and the feelings they caused in her, had blinded her to the wonder of what had happened.

  He had Named a Kindred. He had created a dragon. What, by the flame, could that mean?

  Syris leaned down and brushed his nose against her hair. Such a gesture was a rare thing from the beast of chaos. Blindly she reached up and laid her palm on his muzzle. His breath ran hotter than any mere horse, but he was not out of breath in the least. The hint of the nykur’s teeth against her skin reminded her how lucky she was to have him as companion. Better than a human or even a Vaerli. Syris would never give up on her. So what right did she have to do that same thing?

  Shaking slightly, Talyn got to her feet. “Finn,” she whispered to herself, “what could Finn be, to do all that I saw?”

  Only one answer could be possible: Vaerli. Yet, he could not be, because the only flames that had come between them had been of passion. So . . . Vaerli, but not Vaerli. At least, he had Vaerli powers, but the Harrowing had not fallen on him. Perhaps then only half-Vaerli.

  Talyn leaned against Syris and rolled that thought around in her head. Could Finn be the product of some Vaerli and one of the Manesto? Certainly there had never been such a thing, but perhaps someone had found a way. She stuffed down her disbelief. This was a man she had seen with a Named Kindred, after all, and this was the only explanation that she could think of. The Kindred would not have given the gifts to others, not without trials completed by someone like Ellyria.

  Her legs seemed to have finally regained some of their strength. Pushing away from Syris, she walked carefully to the edge of the cliff, and looked down. It was a long way to the ocean, smashing itself on the rocks below. This line of cliffs was another of the fixed points in Conhaero, but this one had not been made for the Vaerli. The Kindred had their reasons for it, no doubt, but the Folded Edge was still something of a mystery.

  It was here she had met Finnbarr the Fox, and dallied with him awhile. The Phage had said he would go where he had been the happiest. This surely had to be the place, then, for it was here that they had spent the happiest of times.

  The memories he had forced back onto her told her that. Back then, there had been a fishing village in the high caves of the Folded Edge. When she squinted her eyes shut she could make them out even now. The Caisah had ferreted the fisher folk out of there shortly after the trysts between them. She had caused that to happen.

  Another guilt to lay on her already hefty burden.

  She was so enmeshed in these uncomfortable memories that her usually sharp senses were not tuned toward anything but melancholy. It was only Syris’ sharp nudge in her back that alerted her to a bitter wind coming in from the mountains, and what it brought with it.

  The Vaerli whirled around and looked up. The forest at her back was being bent by the gales racing down from the peaks. A few broken tree limbs and disturbed leaves were not all that came with the change in the weather.

  It was the Swoop. For a moment a smile lit Talyn’s lips. The feathered servants of the Lady of Wings were numbered among the few of her friends. She considered Azrul, their leader and her closest confidante, whom she had not seen since Talyn left V’nae Rae. When Talyn first laid eyes on the flock of predatory birds sweeping down from the mountains on the edge of the wind, her heart actually lifted.

  Then she remembered. She was no longer one of their friends. They belonged to the Caisah, and she to the Phage. On
the wings of that realization, Talyn leapt onto the back of the nykur, bent low over his shoulders, and let him have his head.

  The beast pounded along the razor’s edge of the cliffs, unable to blur into chaos and lose the Swoop unless he turned deeper into the land. Talyn kept a firm grip on his body with her thighs, and would not let him turn. She would not be chased off her mission—even by Azrul and her feathered compatriots.

  The smell of the nykur filled her nostrils and his hair cut her face, buried as it was directly in the path of his mane. The birds soon caught up with them, and now she could hear their shrieks, high and piercing, coming at her.

  Talyn hunkered down lower, her face almost crushed against the nykur’s massive flexing shoulder, but the eagles and hawks continued to dive at her. She dared not take the bait and sit up. Flailing at them with her sword would only likely unseat her, and then they could reach her eyes.

  The cliffs were dangerous places for the nykur to run. Twice the edge gave way under his feet, and only with a surge of his hind legs did he get free of it. The path down to the sea and the caves seemed to be a long way off, while the fluttering of the wings and the screaming seemed to get louder.

  Syris surged up and lashed out with his front feet, his mouth gaping and full of saber-like teeth. None of the Swoop seemed ready to fly directly at the dangerous end of the nykur. Instead they surrounded Syris and Talyn, flapping, calling, and diving at them.

  The once-Hunter sat up straight and looked fiercely up at her once-friends. She did not draw her blade on them, though exactly why that was, she didn’t immediately know. The circling cloud of predators did not attack.

  When the Whitefoam eagle dropped out of the flock and transformed herself into her human form, Talyn was not surprised. Instead, she was almost grateful. Azrul still wore the shining armor of the Swoop, and she still filled it well. If there was one person in all of Conhaero that Talyn knew deserved her respect, it was the woman with the kind brown eyes standing before her. But Talyn did not take the kindness in those eyes for granted. She had seen Azrul in battle, and she was a formidable opponent.

  Was this how death would finally find her, Talyn wondered as she slipped down from Syris’ back. Her hand didn’t stray toward her sword or her pistol. If the end was going to come, then perhaps it would be best from Azrul. Maybe it could even help Talyn’s friend.

  The leader of the Swoop looked down at Talyn from her greater height, and there was none of the usual smile on her lips. “You shouldn’t have run,” was all she said.

  The Vaerli shrugged. “I thought you and your kin liked a little bit of a chase.” She could not meet Azrul’s eyes, so instead she looked out over the ocean. “I suppose he has asked for my head . . .”

  “The shackles have been broken,” her friend replied, and then her smile broke through. “The Swoop no longer answers to the Caisah. We no longer do his bidding.”

  Talyn blinked, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. The Swoop had been his for almost as long as the Harrowing had been on her own people. Talyn let out a whoop of delight and threw herself at Azrul.

  The sudden embrace must have caught the leader of the Swoop a little off guard—and truthfully it had done the same to Talyn—but soon Azrul was hugging her back.

  “Something good . . . finally,” the Vaerli said, finding herself laughing. “You have broken your shackles, and so have I.”

  They hugged, and pounded each other on the back for a long time. When they finally let go of each other, the rest of the Swoop had dropped to the ground and taken up their human forms. Each of the armored women viewed them with steely glances. The Vaerli understood their looks. She was not exactly beloved by all of the Swoop—after all as far as they knew, she was chained to the Caisah and his hound. Even when she told them the truth, she doubted it would change much.

  Azrul swung Talyn around by her arm. “See here, sisters, another has found a way to free herself of the evil of the Caisah. Truly One-eyed Baraca has made this miracle.”

  Talyn’s smile froze on her face. “Did you say One—”

  “Yes,” Azrul said, grinning at her as if they were both children. “A true scion has found his way back to Conhaero. The Swoop has sworn allegiance to him.”

  “A scion?” Talyn pushed her dark hair out of her eyes. “Are you sure?” She knew her friend had a need to believe.

  A flicker of a frown passed over Azrul’s face. “I know a scion when I meet one, Talyn. The mark of the White Void is unmistakable—but tell me, how did you get free of the Caisah?”

  Suddenly the Vaerli was ashamed of what she had become. “I had help,” she said lightly. “It turned out to be easier to accomplish than I thought.” The image of the circling, trapped Kindred heads flashed in her mind, and she knew she had to change the subject quickly.

  “So, what are you and the Swoop doing out here on the edge of nowhere?” she asked, hoping her voice betrayed nothing more than interest. Azrul might be kind, but she was also prone to sharp observations.

  “We are heading toward the talespinners of Elraban Island,” the Swoop leader replied, though there was a suggestion of a frown on her face.

  The talespinners! Talyn felt another memory open like an unwelcome flower within her. Finn had trained there for many years. They had met shortly after he had finished that same training. She swallowed and contemplated an uncomfortable possibility: perhaps this was not the place where Finn had been happiest.

  The Phage had many cruel ways, and not all of them were physical attacks. In many ways, they were worse than the Caisah had been. When he had held her leash, her greatest pain had been the embarrassment of her predicament. The shattered remnants of her people had deliberately used her memories and her love for Finn against her.

  “Talyn?” Azrul’s smile faded from her lips.

  It was too much to share. Talyn wanted there to be just one person in the whole of Conhaero that thought well of her. If her friend knew that she had merely traded her slavery to the Caisah for another—perhaps worse—master, then at best she might think Talyn a fool, at worst she would be a monster.

  So the Vaerli did something she was ill used to doing; she lied.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking of my brother; he always did love a good tale.” Her eyes drifted to her saddlebags and the tall scroll of paper that was visible from it. She had stolen it from the Caisah, that was true, but probably One-eyed Baraca would also have been interested in it. Smoothly, Talyn slid herself between Syris and Azrul. “What is your business at Elraban Island? Not many people visit the talespinners.”

  Azrul shrugged. “Baraca has been having dreams. Dreams of the . . .” She stopped, struggling with something. “He’s been having dreams of the White Void. Some of the dreams are not even when he is asleep.”

  “A scion having wakening dreams of the Void?” Talyn nodded calmly, as if every nerve in her body was not thrumming with fear. “And you go to consult the talespinners? All of you?”

  “The Caisah has not attacked Elraban,” Azrul said, “but he could. They hold much knowledge in their memory that has been lost to the ages . . . even from the Vaerli.” She crooked an eye at Talyn. “Since our paths appear to be in the same direction, Talyn, would you care to have an escort there?”

  Her friend could not imagine what awaited them there, but Talyn would not deny it would be good to share some time with Azrul. “I can think of no finer escort than the Swoop.”

  Syris, perhaps to show his usefulness to this collection of women, bent his knee so that Talyn could mount up easily. When he surged to his feet the tables were turned; the Vaerli towered over Azrul. A smile cracked on her face, and it was no lie. “Remember how we used to race?”

  The leader of the Swoop was already gathering herself to spring into the air. “We are the masters of the sky, old friend. I think you are over estimating how fast that creature can carry you.”

  Talyn thought of the dragon that Finn had conjured, and barked out a laugh. “You
think you are the masters of the sky. Let us see if that is true.”

  She did not need to urge Syris at all. He leapt through the air, bounding away like a hound released after a rabbit. Talyn decided she was going to enjoy this brief moment. The cliff was high and terrifying, but it was nothing compared with what was to come.

  As the three unlikely companions walked down the salt-carved steps and into the Bastion, Byre nursed the need for vengeance for a moment, rolling about in his head the memory of his father crumpling to the floor and the tales of what his sister had done at the Caisah’s command. The knife at his belt felt like it was calling to him.

  At his side Pelanor drew in her breath, and he understood her shock. He himself felt numbed by this turn of events. Yet, her reaction reminded him of another thing: he was not the only person who had scores with the Caisah. Was it right of him to take the chance, when there were even more citizens of Conhaero who could not?

  Swallowing back his initial reaction, Byre crouched down next to the new arrival. A strange smell lingered around the man, like a breath of winter in the baking heat of the Salt. Even as he examined the man, it was burning off and disappearing. Byre wondered what it could mean.

  As it dissipated, they were at last left with the man himself. Byre carefully examined the clothing he wore; this was an opportunity to understand the Caisah in a new way.

  He wore armor and a long red cloak. The series of iron plates over his front, back and down each arm were articulated and would have slowed even the stoutest blow. They were, like the helmet, totally alien. Byre, in his time of wandering, had seen many, many things—but none like this. Carefully he ran his fingertips over the armor. The warmth of the Salt was beating down on the metal, but he could still discern the freezing cold that it had been exposed to.

  The White Void was supposed to be more frigid than anywhere in Conhaero, and it was the only way to travel between places. It made a kind of sense. The Caisah was not Vaerli—he could not have made it through the Salt’s defences otherwise. However, that meant that the Kindred had helped him, opening the way to the heart of Vaerli society. It could hardly be believed, but the Kindred, who were in a sacred pact with the Vaerli in this moment of time, had delivered their greatest enemy into the heart of their kingdom from the White Void itself.