Mornelithe Falconsbane had always hated gryphons, just as a general rule, although she was not aware that he had ever had contact with the species. Not directly, at least. But he had been very interested in Treyvan and Hydona, to the extent of pulling every detail she knew about them out of her. She had the horrible feeling, fast growing into certainty, that he and no other was behind this attack.
And yet a direct attack was so unlike him. Mornelithe never did anything directly; he always layered everything he did in secrecy, weaving plots and counterplots into a net not even a spider could untangle. Why would he send someone to shoot at them? And why would he send someone armed with the crudest of amulets, a protection that was bound to fail? It made no sense at all....
The hertasi Healer passed the mouth of her cave. Gesta paused a moment, peering shortsightedly into the doorway. "Nyara?" she said, softly. "Are you there? Are you awake?"
Nyara blinked in surprise. "Yes," she responded. "Yes... I could not get to sleep. Is there something you need from me?"
Gesta coughed politely. "A favor, perhaps. The winged ones are better, but they need a full night's sleep. Yet they are fearful to sleep, fearing another hunter, this time in the dark. You, I think, can see well in the dark, no?"
"Yes, I can," Nyara responded, and in spite of her worries, a pleased little smile curled the corners of her mouth. They trust me—or Gesta does, anyway—and they're willing to give me something to do. "I think I see where you're tending. You want me to guard them, do you not? So that the winged ones may have some sleep."
"Yes," Gesta breathed, in what sounded like relief. "You need not defend them; you need only stand watch and pledge to rouse them if danger comes. You can do that, I think, without harm to yourself. And they asked after you, saying you were a friend. We would, but—"
The thin little figure silhouetted against the twilight sky shrugged, and leaned against its walking stick.
"But you do not see or move well by darkness, I know," Nyara responded. "I should be happy to attend them." She uncoiled from her mat and glided silently out to the hertasi, who blinked at her sudden appearance.
"Do you go across the swamp?" Gesta asked, taking an involuntary step backward and looking up at her. Nyara realized then that this was the first time the hertasi Healer had seen her on her feet. Her slight build might have deceived the little lizard into thinking she was shorter than she actually was. In reality, she was perhaps a thumb-length shorter than Darkwind, but certainly no more than that.
"No," she replied, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the thought of slogging through all that mud and water—and in the dark, no less. "No—if I go around about the edge, I shall find the ruins, no?"
"It will be longer that way," Gesta warned.
"But swifter if I need not feel my way through water in the dark," Nyara chuckled. "I go, good Healer. Thank you for giving me the task."
She slipped down to the path that led to the edge of the marsh before the hertasi could reply. And once out of sight of the hertasi village, she slipped into the easy run she had been bred and altered for, a ground-devouring lope that would have surprised anyone except those who were familiar with the Plains grass-cats on which she had been modeled.
While she ran, she had a chance to think; it was odd, but running always freed her thoughts, as if putting her body to work could make her mind work as well.
She thought mostly upon the notion that her father might have been involved in this attack upon the gryphons. If he was, what was she to do about it?
Treyvan and Hydona are my friends, she thought, unhappily. They are, perhaps, the only true friends I have ever had. And Darkwind—oh, I wish that Father had not ordered me to seduce him! He makes my blood hot, my skin tingle. Never have I desired anyone as I desire him—not even Father. Father I hate and need—Darkwind I only need—
The very thought of Darkwind, of his strong, gentle hands, of his melancholy eyes, of his graceful body, made her both want to melt into his arms, and to pounce on him and wrestle him to the ground, preparatory to another kind of wrestling altogether.
But Mornelithe has ordered me to take him—and therefore—I will not. She set her chin stubbornly, tucked her head down, and picked up her pace a bit.
But what if Mornelithe were behind this; what then?
I think it may depend upon if he sends more creatures against them tonight. Or if he has left a taint of himself that I can read. If I find nothing, I shall be silent. But if I find traces—then if I can—I must speak.
The decision seemed easy until she realized that she had actually made it. The realization took her by surprise.
I—why have I thought that? What are they to me, besides creatures who have been friendly—kindly—
No one had ever been friendly or kindly to her, not since Mornelithe had eviscerated her nurses, and given her sibs and playmates, failures by his reckoning, to his underlings to use as they would.
As he would give me to his underlings, if he judged me a failure. As he would kill me, if he knew of my rebellion.
Therefore he must not learn of it....
She reached the border of the ruins before she expected; she slowed to a walk, and sharpened her eyes to catch the glow of body heat. She knew in general where the gryphons' nest was, but not precisely. She also freed her ears from her hair, and extended them to catch any stray sound.
It didn't take her long to determine where the nest was; she heard the murmur of voices echoing among the stones of the ruins, and traced them back to their source. She froze just behind the shelter of a broken-down wall, hearing not only the gryphons, but Darkwind as well.
"There was a red-shouldered hawk circling around you when I left," he was saying. His voice sounded odd, thick with emotion, and hoarse. "Dawnfire's Kyrr was a red-shouldered—you know, I made her promise me that she wouldn't come around here today—"
"Which may have been a missstake," Treyvan interrupted wearily. Nyara peeked around the end of the wall. "Sssshe wasss curiousss. Very curiousss. It isss entirely posssible ssshe did full-bond with her birrrd. And whoeverrr it wasss that attacked usss, may have attacked and killed herrr asss well. If the birrrd diesss, the bond-mate diesss, no?"
"Yes," Darkwind replied, but he sounded uncertain. "If they are in full-bond at the time. But I didn't see any dead—" he faltered, "—birds—"
"You might not," Hydona said, emerging slowly from the entrance of the nest, the little ones trailing after her. "It might not have ssstruck the grround. Perrrhapsss it wassss caught in a tree...."
She went on to say more, but Nyara didn't hear her. All of her attention had been caught by the female gryphon and the nestlings.
They bore the unmistakable stamp of her father's taint.
Hydona wore the contamination only lightly, a glaring red tracery like burst veins... and it was fading, as if Mornelithe had attempted something against her, and had failed. But the gryphlets—She moaned silently, to herself, as she had learned only too well to do.
Now she knew that it had been her father who had masterminded the attack on the gryphons. And how, and why.
The physical attack had never been intended to succeed. It had been intended to bring the gryphons down out of action, and only incidentally into his reach. He had attempted to subvert Hydona, to insert his own will and mind into hers. He surely found her too tough for him to take, at least, given the short amount of time he had to work in. She knew he had never really meant to do more than make a cursory attempt to take them, on the off chance that he would succeed by sheer accident.
Because what he had really wanted was the opportunity to get at the little ones and work with them, undisturbed. She knew from bitter experience that it would not take him long at all, with a young thing, to subvert it to his will. The gryphlets would not be as useful, as quickly, as the adults—but they were more malleable, and far less able to defend themselves against him.
And they had one thing the adults did not; a direct tie into the p
ower-node beneath their birthplace.
Mornelithe wanted that; he could pull power away from nodes, by diverting some of the power-flows into them, but he had no direct access to any nodes. The only nodes anywhere near this area were the one beneath k'Treva, and the one beneath the gryphons' nest. Both were within k'Treva territory, and out of Mornelithe's reach.
The power-node here was very deep, but very strong, and its ley-lines ran into k'Treva Vale. Through the young, tainted gryphons, Mornelithe would have direct access to the node, the line, and very possibly, could drain the node beneath k'Treva.
Or move it to his own stronghold.
It was entirely possible he would also have access to lines and nodes in the Plains; she had no idea if the node here was connected there, or not.
And these ruins themselves could conceal artifacts from the ancient Mage Wars. Mornelithe had been trying to collect those for as long as she had been aware of his activities; he had only been marginally successful in his quests, gathering in creatures and devices either flawed, broken, or only marginally useful. His ambition was to acquire something of great power; one of the legendary permanent Master Gates, for instance. One of those would give him access to the old Citadels of the Lord Adepts; and those, however ruined, wherever they were hidden, would undoubtedly contain things he would find useful.
But having access to this node is going to be bad enough! She shuddered at the idea of Mornelithe with that much power in his hands. This nexus was far more important, far more powerful than the Birdkin guessed. If they had known, they would have either drained it or built their Vale here. Nyara closed her eyes and saw her father's face, slit eyes gleaming down at her, gloating with power beyond her weak imagination as she trembled.
With that much power, she would never be free of him.
She straightened and walked into the circle of stones before the nest. Her foot stirred a tiny stone as she moved, and the human and gryphons sprang up, gryphons with talons bared, Darkwind with his dagger drawn. They relaxed when they saw her; Treyvan sitting back down with a sigh.
"Gesssta sssaid that ssshe would assk Nyarrra to come ssstand watch thisss night for usss," Treyvan told Darkwind. "Ssshe sssseesss well by night, and we trussst herrrr—"
"You shouldn't," Nyara replied, stifling a sob. "Oh, you should not have trusted me."
Darkwind seized her by the arm, and pulled her into the stone circle. "Just what do you mean by that?" he snarled.
And slowly, holding back tears, she told them.
Chapter Eighteen
ELSPETH
This was, possibly, the strangest land Elspeth had ever crossed. There were no roads and no obvious landmarks; just furlong after furlong of undulating grass plains. There were clumps of brush, and even tree-lines following watercourses, but grassland was the rule down on the Dhorisha Plains. It was truly a "trackless wilderness," and one without many ways of figuring out where you were once you were in the middle of it.
Right now, the Plains were in the middle of high summer; not the best time to travel across them. Nights were short, days were scorching and long; the grass was bleached to a pale gold, insects sang night and day, down near the roots. Otherwise there wasn't much sign of life, no animals running through the grass, no birds in the air. Or rather, there was nothing they could spot; the Plains might well teem with life, as hidden in the grass as the insects, but silent. Here, where the tall, waving weeds made excellent cover, there was no reason for an animal to break and run, and every reason for it to stay quietly hidden where it was.
A constant hot breeze blew from the south every day, dying down at sunset and dawn, and picking up again at night. And not just hot, but dry, parchingly dry. Thirst was always with them; it seemed that no sooner had they drunk from their water skins than they were thirsty again. Elspeth was very glad of the map; since they had descended into the Plains near a spring, she'd puzzled out the Shin'a'in glyph for "water"—the water that was very precious out here in the summer. This was not a desert, but there wasn't a trace of humidity, day or night, and there would be no relief until the rains came in the fall. The mouth and nose dehydrated, skin was flaking and tight, and eyes sore and gritty, most of the time. Many of the water sources shown on the map were not springs or streams, which would have been visible by the belt of green vegetation along their banks, but were wells. There was no outward sign of these wells anywhere; in fact, they were frequently hidden from casual searching and could only be found by triangulating on objects like rocks, a mark on the cliff wall, a clump of ancient thorn-bushes. There were detailed, incredibly tiny drawings of the pertinent markers beside each water-glyph. Elspeth marveled again and again at the ingenuity of the Shin'a'in and their mapmakers. And she was very glad that she did not have to travel the Plains by winter. A bitter winter wind, howling unchecked across those vast expanses of flat land, would chill an unprotected horse and rider to the bone in no time. And there was little fuel out here, except the dried droppings of animals and the ever-present grass. Would it be somehow possible to compact the grass into logs? There were no natural shelters from the winter winds either, at least that she had seen. Small wonder the Shin'a'in were a hardy breed.
Since their goal was the northern rim of the Plains, they had chosen to follow the edge, keeping it always on their right as they rode. But Elspeth wondered aloud on their third day out just how the Shin'a'in managed to find their way across the vast Plains, once they were out of sight of the cliffs. And soon or late, they must be out of sight of those natural walls. How could they tell where they were?
Skif shrugged when she voiced her question. "Homing instinct, like birds?" he hazarded. "Landmarks we can't see?" He didn't seem particularly interested in the puzzle.
The sword snorted—mentally, of course. :They use the stars, of course. Like seafarers. With the stars and a compass, you can judge pretty accurately where you are. I expect some of those little scribbles on your map are notes, readings, based on the compass and the stars. And I know the lines they have cross-hatching it are some way of reckoning locations they have that you don't.:
Elspeth nodded; she'd heard of such a thing, but no one in landlocked Valdemar had ever seen the sea, much less met those who plied it. They both had compasses, bought in Kata'shin'a'in, though Skif had complained that he couldn't see what difference knowing where north was would make if they got lost. She'd bought them anyway, mostly because she saw them in places where the Shin'a'in often bought made-goods. She reckoned that if the Clansmen needed and used them, she should have one, too. She bit her tongue when he complained, and somehow kept herself from pointing out that on a featureless plain, if he knew which way north was, he would at least be able to prevent himself from wandering around in a circle.
The cliff wall loomed over their heads, so high above them that the enormous trees on the top seemed little more than twigs, and one couldn't hope to see a human without the aid of a distance-viewer. Elspeth had one of those, too, purchased, again, in Kata'shin'a'in. Skif hadn't complained about that, but he had coughed when he'd learned the price. It was expensive, yes, but not more than the same instrument would have been in Valdemar—if you could find one that the Guard hadn't commandeered. Here they were common, and every caravan leader had one. The lenses came from farther south, carried between layers of bright silk, and were installed in their tubes by jewelsmiths in Kata'shin'a'in. The workmanship was the equal of or superior to anything she had seen in Valdemar.
Elspeth ignored Skif's silent protest over the purchase of the distance-viewer, as she'd ignored the vocal one over the compasses. She had saved a goodly amount of their money on the road by augmenting their rations with hunting; she also had a certain amount of discretionary money, and some real profit she had made by shrewd gem-selling. She had a notion that Quenten had known these gemstones, amber and turquoise, change-stone and amethyst, were rarer here, and therefore in high demand, for he had invested quite a bit of their Valdemaren gold in them. She was very glad the m
age had. It enabled her to make those purchases without feeling guilty about the expense.
She'd done very well with her first attempt at jewel trading, so she didn't feel that Skif had any room to complain about how she spent some of that money. There was a curious slant to his complaints—a feeling that it wasn't so much that she had spent the money, but that she hadn't first consulted him. She also had a sneaking suspicion that if she had spent that same money on silks and perfumes, he would not have been making any complaint. And that, plainly and simply, angered her.
Not that she hadn't wanted silks and perfumes, but this was neither the time nor the place for fripperies. Instead of buying those silks and perfumes, she had bought other things altogether; the compasses and distance-viewer, some special hot-weather gear, and a full kit of medicines new to her, but which the Healers here seemed to depend on. If she could get them home intact, she would let Healer's Collegium see what they could do with these new remedies. She had bought two sets of throwing knives, in case she had to use and leave the set she now wore. She had purchased an enveloping cloak, and had gotten one for Skif as well—because as they left Kata'shin'a'in at the break of dawn, they had been wearing their Whites again, and she had wanted to disguise the fact until they were well down onto the Plains.
Wearing their Whites again was not something she'd insisted on just for the sake of being contrary, though Skif seemed to think so. It had seemed to her that, since the Shin'a'in already knew what Heralds were, it would be a good thing to travel the Plains in the uniform of their calling.
Skif argued that they'd been in disguise to avoid spies. She pointed out that it would make no difference one way or another insofar as possible spies were concerned. If Ancar could get spies near enough the Plains for them to be seen, he was more powerful than any of them had ever dreamed, and whether or not they wore their Whites would make no difference.
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