“But - ” Nyara began.
:But nothing. Don’t let the opinion of someone who never had a man get in your way.: Need actually chuckled. :Look, girl, I never, ever, put my bearers between a boulder and a rock, making them choose between me and a man. Just because I have always chosen to defend women, that doesn‘t mean I despise men. Demons take it - that would be as blind as the opposite! I am not about to go copy the behavior of some woman-hating man! Now go on out there and deal with your feelings. Meet them, instead of waiting for them to trap you.:
“I still don’t know,” Nyara said, feeling as helpless as a kitten in a flood.
:You don’t need to know. Get it over with one way or another. If you don’t - girl, don’t you know that’s something your father will use against you? Make it into a strength, and not a weakness! It worked before. Remember?:
Yes, she remembered. Remembered attacking her father with tooth and claw, for striking at Skif. Recalled the surprise on his face before he struck her.
:The beast just does not understand the strength of true feelings, and he never will. It makes you unpredictable to him. Use that.:
Nyara sighed and moved to her window, looking out over the peaceful countryside that up until this morning had been only hers. Only white. And now seeing the shadows. They had been there all along, but she had chosen not to see them. “I suppose I should be grateful that he has been sulking and licking his wounds for so long, and has not come looking for me.”
:You’re waking up, girl. The gryphons were my hedge against Skif or Mornelithe finding you. Well, Skif showed up before the beast did; I suppose we should be grateful for that, too. Skif’s a good one, as young men go.:
“So.” She settled her cloak firmly about her shoulders. “If he is hunting with Wintermoon and the owls, he hunts by night.”
:True enough.:
“He will be sleeping now,” she said, thinking out loud.
“I should be able to approach without Cymry rousing him, and be there when he wakes. Yes, I think that now is the time to go and meet him.”
:Good girl.:
She turned to face the sword. “So,” she said, feeling a kind of ironic amusement after all, “since I am sure that you know - or can find out - where is he?”
Mornelithe Falconsbane reclined on a soft couch in his darkened study, and brooded on revenge, like some half-mad, wounded beast. He had not left the room since his return, sore in body and spirit, depleted, but refusing to show any weakness. Weakness could be fatal to someone in his position. A show of weakness would give underlings . . . ideas. He had learned that decades ago.
His own people hardly dared approach him; they ordered slaves to bring him food and drink, silently, leaving it beside the door. The slaves obeyed out of immediate fear of the lash, fear of pain even overcoming their fear of Falconsbane, praying that he would not notice them. For sometimes, the slave in question would find those glowing golden eyes upon him, shining out of the darkness of the study-corner where he lay. . . .
And when that happened, more slaves were summoned later, to take the remains away. The remains were not pretty. Usually, there were pieces missing. No one looked into the study to find them.
He had used his own blood to open the great Gate in the ruins; had wrenched that Gate from its set destination to a portal of his choosing. He had done so out of desperation, not knowing if the thing would work, not knowing if he had the strength left to make it work. Not knowing if it would take him where he willed, or somewhere unknown. He chose to risk it anyway, preferring to die fighting rather than be taken by the cursed Horse-Lovers and the Bird-Fools.
In the end, he stumbled from the mouth of a cave at the very edge of his own realm, fell to the ground, and lay in a stupor for over a day. Only the strength he had cultivated, the stamina he had spelled into himself, had saved him. A lesser being would have died there. A lesser Adept would have been stranded in the nothingness between Gates, trapped, unless and until some accident spewed him forth - perhaps dead, perhaps mad, certainly tortured and drained.
But he was not a lesser Adept, and it would take more than a day of exposure to kill him.
He woke, finally, ravenous and in pain from wounds within and without. His mage-channels had been scorched by the unrestricted torrent of energies he had used. The first thing he had needed was food.
He had caught and killed a tree-hare with his bare hands; eaten it skin and bones and all.
He had chosen his exit point well; once he had strength to move, he turned his attention to his next need, shelter. That was not a problem, for wherever he had established a possible Gate-anchor, he had always built a shelter nearby. That was a habit so ingrained he never even thought about it, centuries old, but this time it had saved his life.
He had staggered to the hunting shelter, a small building of two rooms, but well-stocked with food, wood, and healing herbs. He spent over a moon-cycle in recovering from the worst eifects of wounds and spells. His own slaves and servants had not known whether he lived or not, until he had limped home. Only their fear of him had kept them at their posts. Only sure knowledge of his retribution when he recovered completely kept them there once he returned.
Fortunately, obedience was a habit with them. He was at a reasonable fraction of his strength once fear and habit weakened, and someone thought they might try for freedom.
Since he had neither the strength nor the time for finesse, he simply killed the offenders.
Fear of what he was now continued to keep them here.
He reinforced that fear, periodically, by killing one of the slaves. Reminding them what he had done; what he could do. Reminding them all that their lives rested in his hands.
It was a diversion, anyway.
There was an ache inside him that no herb and no rest could touch - a hunger for retribution. That was what drove him to killing the slaves. The deaths themselves did nothing to ease the pent-up rage that smoldered in his soul. There were only three things that would slake his thirst for blood.
Nyara.
He flexed his claws into the leather of his couch, and considered what he would do to her once he found her. She would die, of course, but not for a very long time. First he would ease his lust in her, repeatedly. He might share her; it depended on his own strength and how deeply he wished to wound her spirit. Then he would flay her mind with the whip of his power until she was nothing more than a quivering, weeping heap of nothingness - until the person that had dared to defy him was utterly destroyed. Then, only then, would he carefully, delicately, flay the physical skin from her body - leaving her still alive. Then he would see that what was left was placed in a cage and hung over his towers for the carrion crows to pick at. An example for those who considered treachery. His magic would see to it that she lived for a very long time.
Perhaps he would make a rug of that skin, or wear it.
K’Sheyna.
That was the second cause for his anger and hate. Only the destruction of the entire Clan would do. He had held back his power until now, enjoying the challenge, but now he would take them, one by one. First the scouts. Then the mages. Then, last of all, Starblade and his sons, plucking them from the heart of the Vale and bringing them to grovel at his feet before they died. The others he would kill however he could, but those three - those three he would deliver to the same fate as his treacherous daughter. Then, when the Vale was empty of all but the hangers-on, he would suck the power from the Heartstone and blast it back again, turning the Vale into an inferno of melting stone and boiling water.
Then the last - and greatest - cause for rage. The gryphons,
Oh, the gryphons. Creatures that he had thought long gone. Returning to these lands, after all these many centuries. Returning to live here once again. Returning to the home of Skandranon....
The gryphons. My hated ancient adversaries. Something very . . . special. . . for them.
He brooded in the hot darkness of his study, and never quite knew the mome
nt when his brooding slipped over the edge into dreaming.
He watched himself through other eyes and knew that he was An’desha shena Jor’ethan, Shin’a’in of the Clan of the Bear, an offshoot of Wolf-Clan. A young almost-man, in his early teens. He stood on the edge of all that he had known, and shivered.
He was not yet a warrior, this youngling of the Plains. Only - he was Shin‘a‘in no more. He could no longer hold place in the Clans, for he had the power of magic, and yet he had not joined the shamans. The Goddess had declared that no one but Her shamans could work magics within the bowl of the Plains, for the task of the Shin‘a‘in was to keep magic from their homeland. He had felt no calling for such a life-task, and no liking for it, either.
For such a one, one with the gift of magery, yet unwilling to go to Her hands, there was only one choice. Exile, to the Kin-Cousins, the Tale’edras, the Hawkbrothers. They had magic; they were permitted - nay, encouraged - by the Goddess to use it. They would freely adopt any of their magic-bearing Kindred into their ranks, so it was said, to teach the use of such a gift.
So he had come, to the edge of Hawkbrother lands. Yet he had come without the knowledge of the rest of his kin, nor the guidance of the shaman, for no one else in his Clan knew of this secret power. He had feared to disclose it, for he was not a strong-willed young man, and he knew only too well what such a disclosure would bring to his lot.
And now, as he stood in the silent forest, he wondered. Should he have confided in Vor’kela, the shaman? Should he have confessed his fatal gift before the rest of the Clan? Should he not have claimed his rights, and been given guidance to the nearest of the Tale’edras?
Yet even as he wondered, he knew that he could not have born the weight of Vor’kela’s insistence that he take up the shaman’s staff and drum. No one in all of the Clan would have been willing to let him go to the Kin-Cousins without great outcry and argument. There would have been those who said that his gift was unclean, and the result of his father’s liaison with the Outlands woman at Kata‘shin‘a’in, even as he was the result of that liaison. There would have been those who would have said he should take vows of celibacy, that this gift not be passed to others of the Clan. There would not have been a single one of his Kin willing to let him pass out of their hands without long argument and contention.
And he - he would have folded beneath the weight of their words. He would have taken up a place at the shaman’s side. And there he would have been utterly miserable. He trembled at the thought of all the years of sacrifice the place as shaman’s apprentice would cost him. He was revolted at the idea of being forced to serve at Vor’kela‘s side and bear the brunt of the shaman’s humor.
Better that he had done what he had done; to creep away in the dead of night, and seek out a new life among the Kin-Cousins. He had taken only what was his by right. He had violated no laws.
Because of this, he had no guide. He had never been outside the Plains. As he stood at the top of the path that led from the bottom of the great bowl of the Plains to the top of the rim, he wondered at the forest before him. Huge trees, more trees than he had ever seen in his life, towered before him, and marched endlessly to the horizon. Only there was no horizon, only trees, trees, endlessly trees.
Trees were a rarity on the Plains, and never grew to the height of these. He could not see their tops, only their interweaving branches.
Trees that bent over him, as if watching. Trees that murmured on all sides of him, as if whispering. Trees that had a secret life of their own.
With a bravery born of desperation, he shouldered his pack - for he had left his horse at the base of the path, to find her way back to the Clan - and marched into the cool shadow of the endless trees. Always he had heard how jealously the Hawkbrothers guarded their lands. Surely he would be found and challenged before long.
Before midday, he was lost. By nightfall, he was lost, cold, and terribly afraid. He had heard all too many tales of the strange beasts that lived beneath these trees - the beasts that the Tale’edras fought and penned. Strange mage-created creatures that no arrow could harm. Beasts with the cunning minds of men. He knew none of the sounds of the forest around him; he could not tell if they were the voices of harmless things, or terrible predators, or even demon-spawn.
If only he had afire - but he had left his fire-making took behind, for they did not belong to him only, but to all of his family. He was so cold - and all men knew that true beasts feared fire. If he had afire, it would shine through the darkness of this forest like a beacon, drawing the Tale ‘edras to him. If only he had afire. . . .
But wait - had he not heard that a mage could call fire? Even so untutored a one such as himself? He knew where the currents of power ran; he felt them beneath his very feet. He had felt them, even stronger and wilder, on the Plains. Why could he not use them to bring a spark to waiting tinder?
No sooner thought, than he hurried about in the gathering gloom, scraping a dirt hollow in the moss, gathering twigs, dried pine-needles, bits of dry bark; laying larger branches close to hand. When he had his tinder going, he would soon have his fire built as high as he needed.
He closed his eyes, reached for the power, and thought of the springing flames -
And got what he had not expected.
YES!
He came with a roar, filling the boy’s body, thundering out of his hiding place, into the body of the blood of his blood, his coming triggered by the moment of Fire-Calling. As it had always been. Once again he took and lived. From the time when Ma’ar, Mage of Dark Flames, had fought and conquered Urtho and had learned of a way to preserve himself down through the ages. . . .
Using the power of the death of his body to hide himself in a tiny pocket of the nothingness between the Gates, he preserved his own person, sealed himself there with spell upon carefully-wrought spell. And when one with a trace of the blood of great Ma‘ar in his veins learned to make Fire, he came, and overwhelmed the boy’s fledgling personality with his own. So he lived again. And when the time came for the death of that body, he moved again into hiding. . . .
Hiding to live again.
So it had gone, down through the centuries, taking new bodies and taking on other names. Krawlven. Renthorn. Geslaken. Leareth. Zendak.
And now, a new rebirth, a new body, a new name. As the young spirit struggled beneath his talons with fear and hopelessness, as the spirit grew quiet, then disappeared altogether, he baptized himself in the blood and flesh of a new incarnation.
Mornelithe. I am Mornelithe! And I live again!
The sound of his laughter rang beneath the branches of the pines, and shocked the forest into sudden stillness.
Then he gathered his powers about himself and vanished into the night, to build his empire anew.
* * *
Mornelithe woke with a sudden start. He had not thought of that moment in ... decades. Why now?
And why had he first felt the long-vanished spirit of the Horse-Loving halfbreed whose body he had taken?
Never mind, he told himself impatiently. It matters not at all. Or if it matters, it was to remind myself that I have lived more lives than this, and I am surely wiser for all of that living. And stronger. Wiser by far than the Bird-Fools. It is the gryphons that should concern me. The gryphons, K’Sheyna. Nyara.
He stretched and sat up on his couch. Discontent weighted his shoulders like a too-heavy garment. In the days that he was Ma’ar, he would merely have had to stretch out his hand to have them all -
But the power that was so rich and free in his day as Ma’ar was a poor thing now. Shattered and scattered, dust in the storm. Like his power, his empire was a small thing, He was constrained to harbor allies he would never have suffered in the old days.
For a moment, he felt a kind of shame, that he should be reduced to this meager existence. Yet what had worked in the long-ago days could work now, if only on a smaller scale.
The gryphons. The gryphons. Why is it that they do not fade, but
prosper? In his mind’s eye the male gryphon took on the black-dyed elegance of Skandranon, and his lip lifted in a snarl. There was no mistaking the beast’s lineage. And I that should not have been. The gryphons of Urtho’s pride I should not have survived him.
Nor should those too-faithful servants, the beast-breeding Kaled’a’in. They should have perished, they should all have perished in the cataclysm that destroyed his kingdom and Urtho’s. There should have been nothing left but a pair of smoking holes. Every trace of Urtho’s handiwork and Urtho’s allies should have been erased for all time.
Yet, here they were. The Kaled’a’in, Urtho’s faithful servants, still prancing about in the guise of the Bird-Fools and the Horse-Lovers. Sundered, yet still prospering. Half of them guarding what remained of the old magics, half of them removing the scars and taint of the destruction. Both halves working beneath the eye of that wretched Goddess who took so deep an interest in their doings.
And the gryphons - thriving! Clearly established in the west, and moving eastward!
How? How did this happen?
He flung himself off of his couch, and began to pace the room, like a restless, caged lion. He had been brooding here for too long. He needed to act! He needed to stir his blood, to exact some token of vengeance before his followers lost their fear and began to desert him.
He needed a show of strength that would convince them that he was still as all-powerful as ever. And he needed the sweet taste of revenge to completely heal him.
Nyara. She was the weakest, the most vulnerable - and the most personal target. Yet she was inexplicably out of his reach. He had sought for her ever since he returned to his stronghold, and yet it had been in vain. He searched as far as his strength was able to take him. There was no trace of her.
Or rather - something was hiding her. He would have known if she had perished, for the power he had invested in her would have come rushing back to him. There was someone, or some power, hiding her.
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