Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "My thought exactly," the scout said, picking up the map and folding it. He stood up, stowing the folded parchment in his pouch again. "In this way we fulfill our own wishes and our duty to the Clan as well." He gave Skif an odd sideways grin that Skif returned.

  "Why do I have the feeling that you're as good at that as I am?" he asked slyly. "Getting your own way by threading through rules and obligations, I mean."

  "What, I?" Wintermoon replied, widening his eyes innocently. Then he laughed. "Come, we are birds of the same flock, you and I. We know each other. Yes?" He turned and mounted the second stag bareback, saving Skiff from having to answer that question.

  Skif took his time mounting, settling himself into the saddle with a sigh. Not that he didn't enjoy partnering with Cymry, but it had been a long journey and he'd been glad it looked as if they were staying in one place for a while. Well, it had looked that way, until he'd realized that Nyara was gone and wasn't coming back. Now they were on the trail again....

  :Oh, you won't be in the saddle as much as you think,: Cymry told him affectionately. :Don't forget, Wintermoon is going to have to look over the ground out there very closely for clues. Actually, if I were you, I'd let him teach me about tracking in the wild; I think you could learn a lot from him. I know I'll be paying attention.:

  Skif was a little surprised at her matter-of-fact acceptance of this excursion. He had more than half expected her to object to leaving Elspeth on her own—after all, he was supposed to be looking after her, wasn't he? He was supposed to be her bodyguard, and he was supposed to keep her from getting into too much trouble.

  :Elspeth's quite capable of taking care of herself, Chosen, as she has reminded you more than once.: This time the tone was teasing, lighthearted. But she quickly sobered. :There is no way that Ancar can get to her here—even if he could learn where she was. She's got to go her own way now, you know that. You know she's going to have to deal with things you can't even guess at. Whatever trouble she's likely to get into, I don't think it's going to be anything a couple of arrows or knives would fix.:

  Skif ducked out of the way of a branch stretching over the path, and sighed. That, no matter how his pride felt about it, was only the truth. She was a mage now, under the protection and tutelage of mages. He would be as out of his element as if he tried to teach a candlemaking class.

  :And I don't have any of this Mage-Gift, whatever it is,: he added. :Probably I'd only be in the way. Probably I'd get myself in trouble without ever helping Elspeth,:

  :Probably,: Cymry agreed. :Nyara, now—that's something you can do something about. I think you should. If nothing else, when you find her, you'll discover for yourself if there can be—or ever was—anything between you two. And you'll finally stop worrying about her.:

  While her words were practical, the tone of her mind-voice was unexpectedly sympathetic.

  She was his best friend, barring no one else. She knew all of his secrets, even the ugly ones. He stared at the trail ahead and at Wintermoon's back for a while, thinking about that, thinking about how close they were. :Cymry, were you ever in love?: he asked abruptly.

  :Bright Havens, what a question!: she exclaimed. :Me? In love? Why do you want to know?:

  After all these years, he'd managed to surprise her. :Because—I don't know if I'm in love or not—or if I was ever in love with anyone.: Silence fell between them for a heartbeat. :I thought if you were ever in love, you'd be able to tell if I was. Am. Whatever.:

  They reached the barrier-shield at the end of the Vale at that moment; the tingling of energies as they crossed it distracted Skif from his question.

  When they emerged into slightly cooler air on the other side, Cymry shook her head, and shivered her skin as if she was shaking off flies. :Skif, yes, I do know something of emotional involvement. That doesn't simplify matters any. You weren't in love with Elspeth, I can tell you that much,: she said, slowly. :That was a combination of a lot of things, including, my dear Chosen, the fact that you finally saw her as a very attractive woman for the first time and had a predictable reaction.:

  He choked; turned it into a cough when Wintermoon looked back at him in inquiry. Cymry wasn't usually so frank with him.

  Or blunt. :You made matters worse, I'm afraid, by acting far too strongly upon those feelings.:

  :I'd kind of figured that part out,: he replied wryly. :But now, this time?:

  She shook her head. :I honestly don't know. You have some very strong feelings, but I can't sort them out any better than you can.:

  Well, at least the Companions didn't know everything. Sometimes he wondered about that. They certainly didn't go out of their way to dispel the idea that they did.

  Skif turned his attention to the woods surrounding the trail; trying to get used to these new forests, so that he could learn to identify what was a sign of danger and what wasn't. He did the only thing he could do; he assumed that this area was safe, and studied it. Anything that differed from this might be dangerous.

  Most of his experience outside of towns consisted of the single circuit he'd made with Dirk when he first got his Whites, and his occasional duty as courier and messenger. At neither time had he really had to deal with wilderness; with places where people simply did not live. He had traveled roads, not game-trails; spent nights in way-stations, not in a tent, or a blanket roll under the open sky. Even on the journey here, the first time he had encountered true wilderness was when they descended into the Dhorisha Plains.

  There, on that trackless expanse of grassland, there had been no real sign of the hand of man. Perhaps that was why the Plains intimidated him so much. Never had he felt so completely out of his element.

  Maybe that had been why he had persisted in clinging to Elspeth....

  Well, here was wilderness again; once outside the Vale, there were no tracks of any kind, for the Tayledras went to great lengths to avoid making them. The only creatures making trails of any sort were wild ones: deer, bear, boar. Even the dyheli did their best to avoid making trails, for trails meant places they could be ambushed. Skif couldn't help wondering if the only reason Wintermoon rode the dyheli stag now was to keep from leaving human footprints.

  The signs of fall were everywhere; in the dying, drying grasses, in the leaves of the bushes which were just starting to turn, in the peculiar scent to the air that only frost-touched leaves made. This wasn't a comfortable time of the year to be traipsing about in wild country.

  On the other hand, it would be harder for anything hostile to hide, once the leaves started falling in earnest. If there was anything noisier for a skulker than a carpet of crisp, freshly-fallen dry leaves, Skif had yet to run into it; even in his days as a thief and a street brat, he'd known that, and stayed clear of rich folks' gardens in the fall. And he was not looking forward to camping out in the cold, riding through chill autumn rains....

  On the other hand, it probably wouldn't get horribly cold this far south, at least, not for a while yet. Game would be plentiful at this time of year, a lot of it birds and animals in their first year—inexperienced, or just plain stupid, which to a hunter translated as "easy to catch." Darkwind had quoted a Shin'a'in saying about that, one day when Vree brought back a rabbit that couldn't have been more than two months old: "If it gets caught, it deserves to be eaten." On the whole, Skif agreed. With fresh meals volunteering their lives to their owls, arrows, and snares, they might not even need to resort to their traveling rations much. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

  Cymry's ears flicked, the way they did when she was Mindspeaking, and he caught the barest edges of something in the back of his mind. But he couldn't make anything out; just a mental "sound." It was as if he was several rooms away from two people having a conversation; no matter how hard he strained, all he could hear was a kind of murmur in the distance.

  :Who are you talking to?: he asked her, puzzled. He hadn't thought Cymry could Mindspeak with anyone except himself and another Companion.

  :Elivan,:
she replied, shortly.

  Elivan? Who—

  Then the dyheli that Wintermoon was riding turned its head on its long, graceful neck and gave him a look and a nod.

  The dyheli? She was Mindspeaking the dyheli? Frustrated, he tried to make sense out of the far-off murmuring, unable to make out a single "word." Even more frustrating, he caught Wintermoon in a kind of "listening" attitude, and heard a third "voice" join the other two in what sounded like a brief remark.

  Whatever they were saying, Wintermoon seemed vastly amused; Skif got a look at his expression as he ducked to avoid a low-hanging vine, and he looked like someone who has just been let in on a private joke.

  Skif felt a surge of resentment at being left out. Just how much mind-magic did the Hawkbrother have? Why couldn't he hear the dyheli, if Wintermoon and Cymry could? And was it only Wintermoon who had that particular Gift, or did all the Tayledras share it?

  They'd been free enough with information about real magic; why keep this a secret?

  Except that they weren't exactly keeping it a secret—not from Skif, anyway.

  Unless they couldn't block what they were doing. But in that case, why did Cymry tell him matter-of-factly that she was talking to the stag?

  The murmur of far-off voices stopped; finally Wintermoon signaled a halt at the edge of a tiny, crystalline stream. The Tayledras dismounted, and the two dyheli moved up side-by-side to dip their slender muzzles into the water. Another sign of the stags' intelligence—the pack-laden stag was not being led, and Wintermoon made no move to limit their drinking.

  :I could use a drink too, dear,: Cymry prompted him. Skif slid out of his saddle to let Cymry join them. Wintermoon strolled over, stretching to relieve the inevitable stiffness of riding any distance at all.

  "We are at the edge of the territory k'Sheyna still patrols," he said. "After this point, the hazards begin. It may be dangerous to break silence; if I note anything, I shall warn your lady mind-to-mind."

  "Why not warn me?" Skif asked, doing his best not to sound sullen, but afraid that some of his resentment showed through anyway.

  Wintermoon only looked mildly surprised. "Because I cannot," he replied. "The mind-to-mind speech of the scouts is only between scouts and those who are not human." His brow furrowed as he thought for a moment. "Perhaps you caught the edge of my conversation with Elivan. I apologize if this seemed rude to you, but your Cymry told me that you did not share the Gift of Mindspeech with one other than her—or perhaps another Herald. I thought, then, that you did not hear us." He shrugged, apologetically. "I am sorry if you thought we had left you out a-purpose. Many Tayledras have this Gift, but I am one of the strongest speakers, as was Dawnfire. Sometimes it only extends to bondbirds. I am fortunate that I share my brother's ability to speak with other creatures as well, although I do not share his gift of speaking with other humans."

  Skif flushed. That was one possibility that simply hadn't occurred to him—that Wintermoon might not know that he was aware of the conversation without knowing what was being said. Well, now I feel like a real idiot....

  "Is that what makes the nonmages scouts, and not something else?" he asked, trying to cover his misstep.

  Wintermoon shook his head, and smiled. "All Tayledras have mind-to-mind speech, usually only with their bondbirds," he replied. "It is a part of us; one of the many things that the Goddess granted to us to help us survive here, but although those who can speak with other creatures make the best scouts, if they are also mage-born, then mage-craft is oft the course of their life."

  Skif looked beyond him for a moment, across the stream. It didn't seem any wilder or more threatening there than it did on this side. Frost had laced the trees on both sides of the stream, perhaps because they were more sensitive to it; the leaves were a yellow-brown, and some had already fallen, carpeting the ground and occasionally drifting off on the current of the brook. Jays called somewhere out there—or at least, something with the same raucous scream as a scarlet jay. A hint of movement on the other side of the water caught his eye, and he turned his head slightly just in time to catch the tail of a squirrel whisking over to the opposite side of the trunk—presumably, with a squirrel attached to it, although if what he'd been told was true, that didn't necessarily follow.

  "Just what's so bad out there?" he asked, curiosity overcoming pride. "It doesn't look any different to me, but I wouldn't know what to look for."

  "There—not much," Wintermoon replied, scanning the trees and the ground beneath them with eyes that missed nothing. "Farther out—I've heard there are wyrsa, though at this season they do not run in packs. Bears, of course, and Changebears. Treelions and Changelions, wild boars and Changeboars. Perhaps bukto, and—"

  "Wait a moment," Skif interrupted. Those names—that was something he'd been wanting to ask about, and hadn't had an opening. "Changebears, Changelions, Changeboars—what are you talking about? Darkwind called Nyara a 'Changechild,' does this have anything to do with her?"

  "Yes and no," Wintermoon replied maddeningly. Skif stifled his impatience as Wintermoon paused, as if searching for the proper words. "Do you not recall what you were shown by Iceshadow? How magic, uncontrolled and twisted, warped all that it touched here?"

  "Yes, but wasn't that a long time ago?" he said, thinking back to those images, strange and only half understood. The part where that bright light had appeared to the Hawkbrothers—he'd understood what the Goddess had asked of them, but he hadn't seen more than that light. Elspeth and the Shin'a'in had plainly experienced more than that.

  "Not long enough," the scout replied, looking soberly out at the innocent-looking land beyond the stream. "There was a time when magic in all its 'colors' and 'sounds' worked together. The time we call the Mage Wars shattered that order. The structure of magic—and its energies—were stressed to their limits. In the great disaster that ended the Final War, those bonds were broken. Their crystalline patterns, like branches of light to a mage, became as distorted as pine needles dropped to the ground. And every place they touched, on a scale vaster than we can see, they made the land dangerous, and caused creatures that should never have lived to appear."

  Skif shook his head, unable or unwilling to comprehend it. Wintermoon continued.

  "When we first came here and established this Vale, the land hereabouts was as fearful as anything you saw before the Lady appeared. We have tamed it somewhat, and it is a fortunate thing that few of the magic-twisted creatures breed true. That also is due in part to Tayledras magery."

  "But some do?" Skif asked.

  Wintermoon nodded. "Those, we call 'Changebeasts.' They plainly have parentage of normal creatures, but they have new attributes, generally dangerous. Changelions, for instance—oft they have huge canine teeth, extending far beyond their jaws, and have a way of being able to work a kind of primitive magic that can keep them invisible even when one looks directly at them, so long as the Changelion does not move. That is... a common Change. Some are unpredictable or unrecognizable." He hesitated, gathering his thoughts. "When the parentage was human, we call the result a 'Changechild.' And—in general—true humans do not—mate with them."

  He glanced sideways at Skif, gauging the effect of his words. Skif didn't take offense, but he wasn't going to accept that particular judgment without a fight, either. "Why not?" he asked, bringing his chin up, aggressively. "I mean, what's the difference? Who would care?"

  Wintermoon sighed. "Because it is said that to mate with a Changechild is the same as mating with a beast, because the Changechildren are one with the beasts." He held up a hand to stop the angry words Skif started to speak. "I only say what is commonly thought, not what I think. But you must know that it is the common thought, and there is no escaping it."

  Skif frowned. "So most Tayledras would think—if Nyara and I made a pair of it—that I was some kind of deviant?"

  The Hawkbrother sighed. "Perhaps fewer in this Clan than in others, but some would. And outside the Clans altogether, among Outla
nders who live in Tayledras lands and hold loyalty to us, or among those who trade with us—there would be no escaping it. They would all feel that way to some degree."

  So I'll deal with it when—if—it happens. He nodded his understanding, but not his agreement.

  Wintermoon continued. "There is another problem as well; there are either no offspring of such a mating, or as often as not, they truly are monsters that are less able to reason than beasts. This, I know, for I have seen it. The few children of such a union that are relatively whole are like unto the Changechild parent. And that is only one in four."

  Not good odds....

  Wintermoon flexed his hands. "The likeliest to happen is that there are no children of the union. I would say that is just as well."

  "So Nyara is a Changechild," Skif said, thinking out loud. "Just what makes her that, and not some—oh—victim of an experiment by her father on a real human child?"

  "That there are things the human form cannot be made to mimic," Wintermoon replied too promptly. "Her eyes, slitted like a cat. Fur-tufts on her ears."

  "Oh?" This time Skif expressed real skepticism. "That's not what Darkwind told me. He said that it was possible that she'd been modified from a full human. He said that it would take a lot of magic to do it, but that if Falconsbane was using her as a kind of model for what he wanted to do to himself, he might be willing to burn the magic."

  "He did?" Skif's assertion caught Wintermoon by surprise. "That—would make things easier." The Hawkbrother chewed his lip for a moment. "That would make her entirely a victim, among other things. That would bring her sympathy."

  "I've got another question." Cymry returned from the stream and came to stand beside him; he patted her neck absently. "What if she wasn't a Changechild—but she wasn't a human either?"

  Wintermoon shook his head in perplexity. "How could she not be either?"