To Darkwind's great chagrin, Elspeth nodded, her face aglow with admiration. "A clever mage could also create a whirlwind of edged mage-bolts around you," she pointed out. "Those things can shred a shield in next to no time. And although they can't touch you physically, that would leave you open to attack."
"Ah, but that whirlwind would have no effect, Wingsib," he said, turning a dazzling smile upon her that caused a shaft of jealousy to stab his "cousin." Darkwind chewed his lip and looked away, at the tangle of vines behind one of the empty seats. "A whirlwind that would erode a grounded shield would only cause this one to spin with it. It would find purchase but spin freely. Since I am not connected to the shield, it would have no effect on me."
"I see." She prodded the shield with a bit of power, experimentally, and Darkwind saw for himself how the shield simply bent away from it. "Interesting. So if the enemy doesn't know that this is possible, you can let him wear himself out against you."
Firesong imploded the shield and collapsed it down around himself. "Aye, and a bit of acting, and he'd continue to do so, as I looked 'worried.' Now—this is the trickier task. Grounding in something other than the earth." His face sobered for a moment. "Take heed, cousin. This is something only a powerful Adept can attempt, and never with impunity. I think that you can do this, but it is very dangerous."
Once again, Firesong centered, grounded, and shielded, all within the blink of an eye. To Darkwind, he looked perfectly "normal," insofar as a mage of his power could ever look "normal." But then he took a closer look.
"Where is your ground?" he asked, perplexed.
"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" the young mage taunted, "Find it! You already know it is not sunk into the earth at my feet. Look elsewhere! Have I somehow grounded into the air? Perhaps I have only created an illusion of being grounded."
Elspeth only shook her head, baffled. Darkwind was not prepared to give up so easily. He studied Firesong carefully, ignoring the mage's mocking smile. Finally he acted on a hunch, and moved his Mage-Sight out of the real world and onto the Planes of Power. There he saw it—and a cold sweat broke out all over him at the Adept's audacity.
He stared at Firesong and could not believe that the mage simply stood there, calm and unmoved. As if he did this sort of thing every day.
Maybe he did. If so, he was the bravest man that Darkwind had ever seen. Or the most foolhardy. Or even both, at the same time.
"You grounded it—in the place between Gates!" he managed to get out, after a moment. "I can't believe you did that! You could call a deadly storm that way—or find yourself drained to the dregs!"
Firesong shrugged, and dismissed the shield, ground and all. "I told you, no mage does that with impunity. I would not attempt it while someone else held a Gate near me, or during a thunderstorm. But that Place makes an energy-sink that is second to none. If you wish to drain an enemy, ground yourself in the Place, tie your shields to the ground as always, and let him pour all of his power out upon you. It will drain into the Place and be swallowed up, exhausting him and costing you no more than an ordinary shield."
He held out a long, graceful hand to Darkwind. "Touch it," he ordered. Darkwind did so. The hand was as cold as ice. "Therein lies the danger there. The Place is an energy-sink. It will steal your energies as well, and there is no way to keep it from doing so. You had best hope that you can outlast your enemy, if you ground there; work him into an irrational fury before trying it."
He turned to Elspeth, who was again visibly impressed. "Take nothing for granted, Wingsib. No matter what you have been told, most anything in magery can be done, despite the 'laws' that you have been taught. The question is only whether the result is worth it."
It galled him to see the admiration on her face. Oh, Firesong had undoubtedly earned the right to arrogance; his Clansfolk had not exaggerated when they said that they considered him a powerful experimenter. He was, without a doubt, a genius as well.
But none of that meant that Darkwind had to like it.
At the end of the day, when he was exhausted, and Firesong was still as outwardly cool and poised as he had been that morning, Darkwind was ready to call a halt to the entire thing.
But Firesong didn't give him that opportunity.
"You'll do," he said, with cool approval. "At least, you aren't hopeless. I'll have a different course of action for you two tomorrow."
And with that, he simply turned on his heel and left, he and his bird together, melting into the greenery.
Chapter Eighteen
Darkwind and Elspeth walked together to her ekele. They were going to hers, because it was nearer; Darkwind was so drained that he didn't think he could go any further without a rest and something to drink. He was glad that it was still mid-afternoon. If it had been dark enough he'd had to conjure a mage-light, he'd have fallen over; he felt that tired.
"So what do you think of Firesong?" Elspeth asked as they crested the gentle curving path between six massive flowering bushes. The flicking tail of a hertasi ducked under a trellis, distracting him for just a moment.
He cast her a suspicious glance, gauging the import of her question, but her expression, like her voice, remained carefully neutral. "Well, he's certainly brilliant," he admitted grudgingly. "And unconventional. But I don't think I've ever met anyone so arrogant in all my life."
"He's earned the right to be," Elspeth replied, to his increased annoyance. "I mean, there are a lot of people who think Weaponsmaster Alberich is arrogant—or Kero. And they're right, but there's a point where you're so good that you've earned a certain amount of—hmm—attitude."
He didn't reply. He couldn't. Not and maintain his own calm. In a certain sense, Elspeth was completely correct. In fact, if he mentioned Firesong's arrogance to Iceshadow or his father, he would probably be told that it wasn't arrogance at all, it was simply self-assurance, and a pardonable pride.
Firesong was the best mage Darkwind had ever seen in his life; perhaps the best living mage that there was. Not just a Healing Adept, but an innovator; a brilliant creative genius. Not fearless—at the levels at which Firesong was working, being fearless could get him killed quite quickly—but so knowledgeable that he was able to judge risks to within a hair.
He was worlds away better than Darkwind was now, and what was more, he was better than Darkwind, or anyone known to the Vales, would ever be. And that did not come as a comfortable revelation.
Darkwind was not used to seeing himself as second-best. It stung his pride, even as Firesong's attitude made him angry. And then, on top of it all, for the cocky mage to be so cursed handsome!
Elspeth openly admired him. That was just as difficult to take. How short a step was it from admiration to something else more personal—more physical?
It was only then, when he caught himself seething with completely unwarranted jealousy, that he realized the trend his thoughts were taking. All right. Stop right there. Think whatever you like, but be careful about anything you say. Right now it would be the easiest thing in the world to say something that would completely alienate her—to make accusations that you have no right to make.
Elspeth wouldn't react well to that. And never mind that it galled that Firesong's power and beauty were enough to make anyone inclined to throw themselves at his feet. If Elspeth chose to join the crowd, Darkwind had no say in the matter.
You don't own her. She consented to share pleasure with you. That gives you no rights, remember that. She can continue to share your bed and Firesong's and you have no right to demand that she cleave only to you. She can throw you over for Firesong if she wants. That is up to her.
"You're thinking very hard," Elspeth said, glancing at him.
"I'm thinking that—I am likely to be very irrational about Firesong." That was all the warning he could bear to give her. But hopefully, it would be enough. "He is right when it comes to magic, anyway. I've never seen anyone as skilled or as powerful as he is, except maybe Falconsbane."
"He's goi
ng to try something different with the Stone, no one even guessed could be done," she said. "We knew he was going to be doing something like that, but I honestly didn't think he was going to include us in it." She gave him a lopsided smile. "I guess we must be good for something after all."
Darkwind suddenly saw a way to get some of his own pride back, especially if the Adept planned on training the two of them together. Firesong wasn't the only one who could be innovative.
Gwena joined them a moment later, and Darkwind swallowed down some of the things he wanted to ask Elspeth. Is she attracted to him? Just how attracted is she? Is she thinking of asking him to continue her teaching? And if he's teaching her magic, does that mean she goes to k'Treva after the Stone is dealt with?
He shouldn't care, and he couldn't help himself. He had no holds on her. She shared his bed sometimes. He shared hers. She was not truly of the Vales; she was an Outlander. All the arguments against Skif and Nyara's success together held true for the two of them, too.
Tayledras simply didn't leave their Vales. How could he continue the work he had sworn to do, if he left the Vale? He was a Hawkbrother; a Pelagirs healer of ruined lands. He could never leave the Vale, the Pelagirs—it was impossible. She was the Heir to a throne, vital to the safety and government of her land. She couldn't stay here. That was impossible.
She would go, and he would stay, no matter what happened here. He began building himself a kind of emotional bulwark to save what was left of his pride and heart. He would have to watch his tongue, and not drive her away—she would be leaving soon enough. He would deal with that when it came. He would fight back the tears that he knew, somehow, would come when his Wingsib Elspeth left.
There was little enough in his life now. No need to act like his namesake—Darkwind, an approaching storm-cloud. It made no sense to ruin what there was, least of all by voicing his own foolishness.
"Elspeth," he said, with cheerfulness that didn't sound too forced, "Once we recover from being run like rabbits, did you have any plans for this afternoon?"
Starblade eased himself down onto the couch beside the huge block-perch Hyllarr had taken for his own, and scratched beneath the hawkeagle's breast-feathers. Hyllarr all but purred, pulling one foot up in complete contentment.
In this alone, Hyllarr was like Karry, but in no other way. Starblade was grateful for that. There were no poses, no lifts of the head, nothing to haunt him. Hyllarr was Hyllarr, and unique. Uniquely intelligent, uniquely calm, uniquely charming. He had succeeded in charming Kethra, who had been immune to the blandishments even of Darkwind's flirt-of-a-bird, Vree. Hyllarr had her securely enchanted.
Kethra settled beside him, with an amused glance at the bird. "I have no idea how you're going to carry him around once he's well, ashke," she said. "He'd be a burden even for someone like Wintermoon. I can't even begin to think how you're going to have him with you."
"I shall worry about that when the time comes," he told her serenely. He already had some notions on the subject. Perhaps a staff across the shoulders.... "Is your kinsman coming?"
"He should be here at any moment," she began, when footsteps on the staircase heralded their visitor. And, as Starblade had expected, it was Tre'valen who appeared at the doorway—a Tre'valen who, to Starblade's pained but keen eyes, was a young man in serious emotional turmoil.
Starblade had been seeing the signs of trouble in Tre'valen's face for some time now, but it had never been as obvious as it was now. So, he had been right to ask the shaman here. There was something going on, and the Clan needed to know what it was.
"Sit, please, shaman," he said mildly.
Tre'valen obeyed, but with a glance at Starblade that told the Hawkbrother that this shaman was quite well aware Starblade had not asked him here to exchange pleasantries.
Good. In these times, it was no longer possible to hide behind a veil of politeness. Some of the others of the Clan had relaxed, thinking that now that the Adept was here, as their troubles would be over. They had not stopped to consider the fact that Firesong was here to solve only one of the Clan's problems. When he had dealt with the Stone, he would be gone. Then there would remain the rest of the puzzle-box. How to safely reunite the Clan. What to do about Dawnfire. What to do about this Territory. How to deal with Falconsbane's daughter, who was a danger—and in danger—as long as there was any chance her father was still alive.
How to discover Falconsbane's fate. What to do about him if he still lived....
"There was a time," he began, "when I could afford to hint, to be indirect. I no longer have the strength for such diplomacy. Tre'valen, your Wingsibs of the Clan know why Kethra is here, why Kra'heera asked us to allow her to stay. She was already a Wingsister, and there was obviously a great need for her help."
Kethra's left hand found his right, and she squeezed it, but said nothing.
Starblade smiled at her, and took strength and heart from her support. "Kra'heera asked us to grant the same status to you, and the same hospitality, but with no explanations. I had not pressed you for such an explanation, but I think the time has come for one."
Tre'valen looked very uncomfortable and glanced at Kethra.
"You need not look to me for aid, Clanbrother," she replied to his unspoken question. "I am in agreement with Starblade."
Tre'valen sighed. "It is because of Dawnfire," he said, awkwardly.
Starblade nodded. "I had already surmised that," he said dryly. "I should like to hear what the reasons are."
Tre'valen was clearly uncomfortable, more so than Starblade thought the situation warranted. "Kra'heera wished me to seek her out—if I could find a way to bring her to me—and speak with her as much as I might. It seemed to him quite clear that she has become some kind of avatar of the Star-Eyed, but it is not an avatar we recognize. But it also does not seem to be anything your people had seen before, either. He wanted me to discover what the meaning of this was, if I could. This is a new thing, an entirely new thing. We have had no direction upon it. Kra'heera does not know what to think."
He paused, and rubbed the side of his nose, averting his eyes from Starblade's unflinching gaze.
"New things simply do not occur often in the Plains, ashke," Kethra put in. "The Star-Eyed has been a Lady more inclined to foster the way things are rather than bring on changes."
But Starblade was watching Tre'valen very closely, and there was more, much more, that Tre'valen had not told them. For a moment he was at a loss as to what it could be.
Then the memory of the young shaman's face, gazing up at a bird that might have been Dawnfire, suddenly intruded. He had not seen that particular expression of desire very often, but when he had, it always meant the same thing.
"You long for her, do you not?" Starblade asked quietly, and to his own satisfaction, he watched Tre'valen start, and' begin to stammer something about emotions and proper detachment.
"Enough," Kethra interrupted her younger colleague. "Starblade is right, and I should have recognized this when' I saw it. You have become fascinated—enamored. With Dawnfire. I think perhaps you may have fallen in love with her."
"I—have—" Tre'valen looked from one to the other of them, and capitulated, all at once. "Yes," he replied, in a low, unhappy voice. "I have. I tried to tell myself that I was simply bedazzled, but it is not simple, nor it is bedazzlement. I—do not know what 'love' is, but if it means that one is concerned for the other above one's own self—I must be in love with her, with that part of her that is still human in spirit. And I know not what to do. There is no precedent."
It was one thing to suspect something like that. It was quite another to hear confirmation of it from Tre'valen's own mouth. Starblade looked to his beloved for some kind of an answer, and got only a tight-lipped shrug. She did not know what to make of this, either.
A nasty little tangle they had gotten into... a worse thing still to offend a deity. If indeed, they were doing so.
"Do I take it that the Star-Eyed has offered you n
o signs?" Starblade said delicately. "No hint as to how Her feelings run in this matter?"
Tre'valen shook his head. "Only that She has permitted us to continue to meet, either in this world or in the spirit realms. And she has granted Dawnfire the visions that I told you, the ones I do not understand, about ancient magic returning. And about the need for peoples to unite and change in some way."
Starblade closed his eyes for a moment, but no answers came to him, so he analyzed the few facts in the matter. Dawnfire was not dead, at least not in the accepted sense. But she was no longer anything like a human being. Mornelithe Falconsbane had destroyed her body, but left her spirit—her soul—alive and in her bondbird. Such a tragedy would have meant a slow fading until at last there was nothing of the human left, leaving a mentally crippled raptor to live as long as it could. But in this, there was a powerful being that had shown Her interest in the situation by creating some kind of different creature out of Dawnfire. Dawnfire was not like the leshy'a Kal'enedral, who were entirely of the spirit-world, yet could, on occasion, intervene in the physical realm. And not like a mage, who could on occasion intervene in the spirit world. She seemed to dwell in both worlds at once, and yet truly touched neither.
The Shin'a'in face of the Goddess—her Warrior face, in fact—seemed to have created her, then abandoned her. It was most unwise to second-guess a deity; what appeared to have been abandoned may have, in fact, been left to mature.
"All that I can say is that I warn you to be careful," he said at last. "These are strange waters that you swim in, and I know not what lurks beneath the surface. Whatever it is, is fearsome, shaman."
"I know," Tre'valen said at last, after a long pause. "I know this. The Star-Eyed marked Dawnfire for her own, but to what purpose, She has not revealed. She might not approve of my—inclinations and intentions."
Valdemar Books Page 668
