Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Neither of them had to go that far, although whether it was Darkwind's dissonant howls or Elspeth's stones that finally tipped the balance, he couldn't tell. The basilisk had been snapping and shifting uncomfortably for some time when he changed the tone again, and the basilisk came pouring out of her lair, burbling with anger and frustration.

  She stood there for a moment, wavering between the discomfort of the lair, and the exposure of the outdoors. If she dove back in again, they might never get her out.

  Before Darkwind could say anything, Elspeth solved the problem for him. He sensed her grabbing the underlying web of earth-energies at the mouth of the half-dug lair and yanking.

  The lair collapsed in on itself, leaving the basilisk nowhere to go.

  The monster rumbled deep in her chest, and turned, heading downstream and away from them, into the darkness. "That will do for a few furlongs, but then we're going to have to turn her out of this stream when it forks," Snowstar said, as the basilisk plodded out of the range of his torch and Darkwind's mage-light.

  "Don't worry, I think we can deal with it," he said, breaking into a trot along the graveled streamside, sending his mage-light winging on ahead until it illuminated the unlovely rump of the basilisk. She was moving at a pretty fair pace; he'd had no idea they could move that fast. In fact—was he going to be able to keep up with her?

  Elspeth supplied his answer, as she and the Companion trotted up alongside and she offered him a hand up. "Gwena can carry two for a while," she said. He took her at her word and got himself up behind her. "Are you going to use that sound of yours to drive that thing?" she asked once he was settled and Gwena was bounding after the tail of the monster.

  "Yes," he said—shortly, as it was difficult to speak when bouncing along on the rump of a trotting mount. "That—was—the—idea—"

  :I have another idea,: Elspeth said by Mindspeech. :It's a reptile, which means it can probably sense heat very well. Let's create a ball of warmth about her size, and lure her along with it. Keep it a couple of lengths ahead of her until she's where we want her, then dissipate it. What do you think?:

  He switched to Mindspeech as well. :That is an excellent idea. This is going to be great news when we get back to the Vale,: he told her, and smiled at the glow of well-earned self-congratulation that met his words. :You've helped uncover something entirely new, and very useful to us. The other forms of driving these monsters have all been much riskier. You are going to make your Clansibs quite happy with this news.:

  For that matter, she was making him quite happy. The basilisk responded to guidance-by-noise and the heat lure beautifully. They were going to be returning to the Vale much sooner than he had thought.

  Much sooner, and flushed with success. Not a bad combination.

  Not a bad combination at all.

  Everyone wanted to hear about the basilisk drive. This was the first time that a basilisk had been moved with fewer than a dozen people and with no injuries. Small wonder that the Vale had been astir when they returned, and that the mages had all wanted to hear the story in detail. It seemed that if he and Elspeth hadn't used unorthodox tactics because there had only been two of them, they would never have budged the thing. And if Snowstar hadn't been so inexperienced in the ways of basilisks, he'd never have called for just a pair of mages.

  "You weren't lucky," Iceshadow finally said. "Snowstar was relatively lucky because he got you. But you two—you were quite clever. Or am I being overly optimistic?"

  Darkwind laughed tiredly, and drank another full beaker of cold water—the aftereffect of all that basilisk stench was incredible dehydration. He and Elspeth together had drained a small lake, it seemed, and they were still thirsty.

  "No, we were bright enough that if we hadn't been able to budge the old girl with methods that wouldn't enrage her, we would have called for help," he assured the Adept. "I pledge you that. I don't trust anything that can entrance you to the point that you let yourself be swallowed whole."

  When the others finally left them in peace, Darkwind realized that he was much too keyed up to sleep, at least not without a long soak in hot water to relax him.

  He stood up abruptly, catching Elspeth by surprise; she jumped when he moved and looked up at him with round eyes.

  "I need a bath and a soak," he said, "And the pool under your ekele is the nearest two-layered one I know of. Would it disturb you if I used it?"

  "Would it disturb you if I joined you?" she asked.

  At first, he thought she was making some kind of an overture, but a moment of reflection told him that she couldn't possibly be doing anything of the sort. She was just as tired as he was—even if she wasn't bruised from riding for furlongs on the sharp and protruding hipbones of her Companion. Even if the two of them had been ready to tear one another's clothes off in a fit of unbridled lust, neither of them would have had the energy to do so. No, she was just being polite.

  But at least she wasn't as shy as she had been. And she was still an attractive woman. There might be some hope after all.

  "It surely won't disturb me," he told her, and offered her a polite hand to help her rise. "In fact, I doubt very much if it would disturb me to share a pool with—"

  He stopped himself before he said "with that basilisk"; realizing at the last moment that the comment could be construed as saying that he did not find her attractive. Which was not the case, at all.

  "—half the Clan," he concluded. "All I want is to get this stink off and soak my muscles until I can sleep."

  "Good plan," she said, and smiled. "I'll make you a bargain. If you find some of that fruit drink, I'll get soap, robes and towels from my treehouse."

  "I'll take that," he said instantly. Elspeth disappeared into the greenery while he sought one of the storage areas, and dug out a tiny keg of a peculiar, mineral-rich drink Elspeth had gotten very fond of. Normally he didn't care much for the stuff, but when he was as parched and exhausted as he was now, he downed it with the same enthusiasm as she did.

  Keg under one arm and a pair of turned wooden mugs in the other hand, he retraced his path and followed in Elspeth's wake. When he arrived at the pool, he found that she had been as good at keeping her word as he. There was strongly herb-scented soap beside the lower of the two heated pools, and towels and robes hanging nearby on a couple of branches, with one small mage-light over each pool providing just enough light to see by.

  Elspeth was already in the upper soaking pool. He left the keg and mugs beside it as she waved at him indolently from the steam, then he stripped and plunged straight into the lower pool.

  It took three full soapings before the last of the stench was gone and he felt clean again. By then he was more than ready for a mug and a long, soothing soak.

  "I think I took all my skin off," Elspeth complained languidly from her end of the pool as he slipped across the barrier between the pools and into the hotter water of the second. "I scrubbed and scrubbed—every time I thought I was clean, I could still smell that thing."

  "Worse than skunk or polecat," he agreed. She seemed very relaxed for the first time since he had met her. "Did you see how much Iceshadow liked that idea of yours, moving the basilisk with noise?"

  "But it was your idea to use pure-tones in dissonance," she said immediately. "I had just thought of using volume, or maybe make it sound like the cave was falling in."

  He allowed himself to feel pleased about that part of it. "Well, I guess that I'm going to have to admit that you are right about trying new things even in magic. Just because they aren't the way we've always done something, that doesn't mean new ideas aren't going to work. Change comes to the Vales; quite a concept."

  She laughed heartily. "I thought I'd never hear you say that! But I have to make a confession to you, though. I have been pushing you, just because you were being such a—mud-turtle about things. Not wanting to try anything new. But—well, now I know that there's good reasons why some things aren't done in the Vales and in this one in particul
ar. Hydona's been explaining things to me...."

  Her voice trailed off, and he thought she was finished, until she spoke up again. "You know, Hydona reminds me a great deal of Talia."

  That old friend of hers. The one that's some kind of aide to her mother, and not the one that's the weapons teacher.

  "In what way?" he asked.

  She waved steam away from her face. "She made me give her a promise back when I was a child—that I would never simply dismiss anything she told me just because I didn't want to hear it, or that I was angry at her or anything else. That I would always go away and think about it for a day. Then if I couldn't agree with any of it, I had the right to be angry, but if I could see that she was right in at least some of what she'd said, I would have to come back to her and we'd talk about it as calmly as we could."

  Well, if that isn't an opening chance to talk about her attitude—

  "I know we don't know one another as well as you and Talia do," he said tentatively, "but could you grant me that same promise as a Wingsib?"

  "Oh, dear," she said, her voice full of ironic chagrin. "Been a bitch , have I? "

  He wanted to laugh, and decided against it. Still, he smiled. "Not exactly a bitch. But your attitude hasn't been helping me teach you. That was one reason why, when the gryphons volunteered to help, I agreed."

  "Attitude?" she asked; her voice was carefully controlled to the point of being expressionless. Not a good sign.

  "Attitude," he repeated, getting ready for an outburst. "You're very self-important, Elspeth. Very aware of your own importance, and making sure everyone else is aware of it, too. Take what you just said, about being a bitch. You laughed about it; deep down, you thought it was funny. You think you are so important it doesn't matter if you're offending those around you. You just make some perfunctory apology, smile and laugh, and that's that. But nothing has really changed."

  She was quite silent over there in the steam, but he wondered if he'd just felt the temperature of the water rise by a bit. That silence was not a good sign, either.

  "The truth is, Elspeth, right now you're an enormously talented liability." She wasn't going to like that, one bit. "I never heard of your land, outside of something vague from the old histories. You could be a bondslave from Valdemar, and we would be treating you the same as we are now. Your title doesn't matter, your country doesn't matter, and your people don't matter. Not to us."

  Little waves lapped against him as she shifted, but she remained silent.

  "What does matter is that you did help us; for that, we made you a Wingsib. Because we made you a Wingsister, you became entitled to training. Not because of a crown, and not because of a title. Not even because you asked us. Because you are part of the Clan. And what's more, the only ones willing to train you were myself and the gryphons. Everyone else has more important matters to attend to."

  That wasn't precisely the truth, but it was close enough that it might shake her up a bit.

  "So." No doubt about it, she was angry. "I don't matter, is that it?"

  "No, that's not it. You matter; your title doesn't." He hoped she could see the difference. "So you might as well stop walking around as if there was a crown on your head. Kings don't mean much, out here. Anyone can call himself a king. Having the power to enforce authority—that's something else again. Until you have that, you'd best pay a little closer attention to the way you treat those around you because we are not impressed."

  "Oh, really?" He sensed an angry retort building.

  But then, she said nothing. Nothing at all. He tensed, waiting for an outburst that never came. He wondered what she was thinking.

  Finally she yawned and stretched, water dribbling from her arms.

  "I'm tired," she said, yawning again. "Too tired to think or react sensibly. I'll sleep on what you just said."

  "Please do, and carefully, Elspeth. More could depend on it than amiable learning conditions." He looked down and sighed. "I do like you, and would prefer not to spend my time with you deciphering what you really mean under the royal posturing."

  She rose, surprising him, and hoisted herself out of the pool, wrapping a towel around her wet hair, then bundling one of the thick, heavy robes around herself. She turned and looked down at him.

  "You've said quite a bit," she told him quietly. "And I'm not sure what to think. Except that I'm certain you weren't being malicious. So—good night, Darkwind. If there's anything to say, I'll say it tomorrow."

  She gathered her dignity about her like the robe, and walked off into the darkness, leaving him alone.

  Chapter Ten

  Twice Darkwind tried to wake up; twice he turned over to climb out of bed. Twice he closed his eyes again, and fell right back to sleep. And since no one came to fetch him, and there was hardly ever any noise around Starblade's ekele, he slept until well past midmorning unaware of how long he'd been dreaming.

  When he finally awakened and stayed awake, he lay quietly for a moment, feeling confused and a bit disoriented. The light shouldn't have been coming in at that angle....

  Then it finally occurred to him why it was doing so.

  I haven't overslept like this in I can't think how long.

  Feeling very much as if he'd done something overly self-indulgent, he snatched his newly-cleaned clothing from a shelf and hastily donned it. There was no one in the ekele except Vree, who was still dozing. He vaulted the stairs to the ground and hurried down to Elspeth's ekele only to find her gone.

  He was both embarrassed and annoyed. Annoyed that she had left without him; embarrassed because she'd needed to. She had at least left a note.

  It looked like gibberish, until he realized that she had apparently spelled things the way they sounded to her.

  Takt tu Starblaad n Winrlit sins we r not owt. Taa sed tu werk on bordr majik wit grifons. We r al waadingfer u wen u waak up.

  It took him a moment to puzzle out that she had checked with Starblade and Winterlight about what she and he should do since they weren't on patrol. He surmised that they had both asked her to work on border protections under the gryphons' tutelage. All three of them were expecting Darkwind whenever he got there. She hadn't even told him where they were working. They could be anywhere.

  Once again, as with everything Elspeth did, he had mixed feelings. Pleased that she had taken it upon herself to find something useful to do; miffed that she hadn't consulted him.

  He snatched a quick meal, and wondered if he should try to find Winterlight. Presumably the scout leader would know where they were.

  Then it occurred to him that he hadn't bothered to ask the most obvious "person." Vree. The forestgyre was still back at Starblade's ekele. Undoubtedly, recovering from the way he'd stuffed himself yesterday.

  He sent out a mental call, and was rewarded within a few moments by a flash of white through the high branches. He held out his arm, and Vree winged in, diving down to the ground and pulling up with spread wings in a head-high stall. He dropped delicately down onto Darkwind's wrist.

  The gyre chirped at him, and inclined his head for a scratch. :Messages?: he asked.

  :From Horse,: Vree replied. Horse—with the mental emphasis of importance—could only mean the Companion.

  Vree's intelligence was limited; he had to get messages in pieces. :Who is the message from Horse about?:

  :Female and Big Ones.: Vree leaned into the scratch, his eyes half-closed in pleasure.

  :What is the message?: He had long ago given up being impatient with this slow method of finding things out. It was simply the way Vree and every other bondbird worked.

  :At magic-place,: Vree replied.

  Well, he wouldn't have to ask Vree to track them down. Good thing, too, since Vree was still drowsy from a long night of digestion. He'd be so fat Darkwind wouldn't be able to find his keelbone if he was fed that way all the time. Interesting, though, that the Companion could talk to Darkwind's bird. He wasn't surprised, but it wasn't something that Gwena had shown she could do—or
wanted to do—before this.

  And he wasn't going to have to leave the Vale, which was a bit of a relief. His backside was still a little sore and stiff from the ride yesterday.

  :Do you need to leave the Vale?: he asked Vree. After all, the poor bird had been in here for more than a day. The gyre turned his head upside down as he considered the question and his bondmate.

  :No,: Vree decided. :Head not itch.: That was how he had described the way that rogue powers of the Heartstone had affected him; that his head had itched. It had taken Darkwind a while before he had figured out that the bird meant inside his head, not outside.

  :Go back to Starblade's, then,: Darkwind told him. :Or hunt, if you want—just don't go too far from the Vale. I'm going to the magic-place and I don't want you in there. Your head would really itch.:

  :Yes,: Vree agreed, and half-spread his wings, waiting for Darkwind to launch him. The scout gave him a toss, and the gyre gained height rapidly, disappearing into the branches above.

  No need to guess what the "magic-place" was: the Practice Ground. It was entirely possible to direct the border defenses from in there, although it would require great patience and careful shielding to keep the Heartstone from affecting whatever the three of them did in there.

  Maybe that was the idea.

  It'll certainly test the integrity of my shielding. And if I can shield against the Stone and work at the same time—I just might be ready to help handle the Stone myself. The gods only know that there'll be no peace for k'Sheyna until I do.

  Well, if they were waiting for him, they were probably wondering if he'd fallen down a well or something. He'd better go prove he was still alive.

  He had heard a mutter of conversation before he crossed the pass-through in the barrier that divided the rest of the Vale from the Practice Ground. The sudden silence that descended as he appeared told him that he had been the topic of discussion between Elspeth and the gryphons. He suppressed a surge of irritation at being talked about.

  "Sorry I slept so late," he said, trying not to let his irritation show. "What are we doing?"