Whatever came—it could be some formidable opposition from his own people. She did not look very—human. Her father, Mornelithe Falconsbane, had used her as a kind of experimental model of himself, working the changes he wished to make on his own flesh upon hers first. She had no illusions about herself; she knew there was no disguising her strange, catlike features. What would people who had never seen anything that was not completely human think of her?
What would they think when they learned that Skif, one of their precious Heralds, was her lover?
:Don’t lose that smile, Kitten,: Need said, as she tensed unconsciously. :Remember you have cyring you, and you have me. These Heralds listen to their horses, and the horses don’t give advice so often that they can afford to be ignored. And as Skif pointed out, I’m not the sword that left. I’m better. In fact—: Need produced another one of her dry mental chuckles, like the creaking of forge bellows. :—in a sense, you will have them by the proverbial short hairs. They can’t afford to offend Skif by treating you poorly; he’ll leave. They can afford the loss of a single Herald right now, not with a war on the horizon. That Ancar character is not going to give up, and we’re just lucky he’s been so busy stewing his own little pot that he hasn’t come roaring up to the Border before this. But besides Skif, they certainly can't afford to do without me! I may not be an Adept by the currents standards, but I can do a great many things that an Adept can do, and some that I suspect no one knows how to do anymore. I’m a mage that is utterly unpredictable and unexpected. I can shield my powers and yours: I can look like nothing more than an ordinary sword if I try hard. No one else that I know of can do that. We’re too valuable to lose, my dear. Remember, where you go I go.:
Nyara considered this seriously; it was an advantage she had not put into her calculations.. Do you mean you would be willing to coerce all of Valdemar—:
:Blackmail them to be certain you are happy?: Need finished for her. :In a moment. Without a second thought. I don’t have any stake in their little war, and now that I’m awake, I don’t send my bearer rushing to the side of whatever female is in trouble. What happens with Ancar is not necessarily my concern. If Selenay wants me fighting on the side of valdemar, she’s going to have to make certain you are treated well.:
Nyara was taken aback, but in a flattered and delighted way. She had not expected such a strong response from her teacher; she hadn’t let herself expect any backing at all. Need had taught her to be self-sufficient, at the cost of many hard and bitter lessons. To depend on no one but herself—while at the same time learning to give another her trust as a partner.
:Yes, you could face them alone,: Need said, answering her unspoken thoughts. :You have the strength to do so. You are willing to. That’s what matters, and if you hadn’t been ready, I’d have taken steps to make you ready before you got there, and then I would have backed you. You’ve earned it. Skif will back you; you’ve more than earned his trust, as well as his—yes, I’ll say it—love. And Cymry will back you because she knows you’re one of the best partners Skif could have. Kitten, you are a fine person. And we’ll give that fine person the support she deserves.:
Nyara blinked back tears from burning eyes, quickly, before Skif could see them. :I do not know what to say. . . .:
: Kitten, don’t think this is going to be easy,: the sword cautioned. :I can’t change people’s minds or attitudes, nor can Skif or Cymry. People have to change their minds because they want to. You are still going to be the strangest thing they have seen in a long time. But at least I can make certain that you know what a brave child you are. Anything else, you’re just going to have to deal with.:
Nyara nodded, slowly. :I think I can do that,: she replied. :It can be no worse than life in my father’s fortress. And I will have Skif, and you, so it will be better, for I will have no chance to be lonely.:
Again, the dry chuckle. :I’m glad you remembered to put me in there somewhere!:
There was not a large gathering at the carved arch the next morning; only a few gryphons, one or two of the Kaled’a’in mages that Firesong had been exchanging techniques with, and of course, Silverfox. That was something of a relief to Elspeth, since she had hoped to slip out of k’Leshya Vale with a minimum of fuss. The less fuss, the better for everyone. She was hoping Darkwind could continue to keep up his eager interest despite leaving everything he had ever known.
She hoped. There was no real way to tell, after all, how he was likely to react.
But he seemed cheerful enough, as the hertasi brought the last of their packs to be loaded on the two Companions, Firesong’s blazingly white dyheli stag, and (temporarily) on the gryphons, who were willing to bear the burdens through the Gate to save strain on Firesong.
And, as usual, the young Adept looked as if he had been groomed to within an inch of his life by an entire troupe of hertasi. His long hair flowed down his back in a deceptively simple arrangement. His sculptured face wore an expression of interest and amusement. Although it was warmer, he had donned pristine white robes of exotic style and cut—exotic even by Tayledras standards. His ice-white firebird sat on his shoulder and regarded the company with a resigned silver-blue eye. The snow-white dhyeli stag that had brought him to the Vale waited beside him, as still as any marble statue. As usual, he looked magnificent.
“Well, I have had converse with my mother and father,” Firesong said, as soon as Skif and Nyara arrived and took their places. “I have warned them that I am about to Gate to k’Treva, as we discussed, and that I will have four of k’Sheyna, Companions, gryphons, and a most gallant kyree with me.”
He bowed gallantly to Rris, who wagged his tail and grinned with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Rris had agreed to come along both to act as guardian and teacher to the gryphlets, and to chronicle whatever happened as an “impartial” observer. That was Rris’ chosen function, after all; the kyree had an extensive oral history, and Rris was one of their historians. Although his specialty seemed to be the tales of his “famous cousin Warrl,” Elspeth knew that he would rather have had his tail pulled out than miss a chance to see what happened in this new alliance of Tayledras, Kaled’a’in, and Valdemaran.
“So, my ladies and lords, if you are all prepared to depart?” Firesong indicated the arch that would contain the Gate with a nod of his statuesque head, and everyone present made some indication of agreement.
Elspeth had long since gotten over being surprised at how little time it took Firesong to accomplish anything magical. Between one heartbeat and the next, he had established the Gate itself. In the next heartbeat, he had sought out the terminus in k’Treva Vale. In the third, he had anchored it, and the Gate stood open, ready to use, the greenery of k’Treva showing through on the other side, looking disconcertingly like and unlike k’Sheyna Vale.
“After you,” Skif said to Elspeth a little nervously, eying the portal which had been empty one moment, then black as pitch, then filled with scenery which was not the same as the clearing they stood in. She hid her smile, took Darkwind’s hand, and together they stepped through—
She had been told she would feel something like a little jolt; a shock as she passed across the intervening “real” distance. But instead of a shock, she felt a moment of disorientation—
She clutched at Darkwind’s hand; there was something pulling and twisting, rippling across the power that held the Gate! He stared at her, his eyes wide—then he and everything else blurred and faded for a moment. Vree spread his wings and mantled in alarm; his beak opened, but nothing emerged.
She might have screamed; it didn’t matter, for in that moment that they hung in the Void between Gates, no sound she made would be heard.
Then, just as suddenly, they dropped down with a lurch, safely on the other side. Vree was screaming, still agitated.
They were through. Except—it was not where they were supposed to be.
She looked around wildly, for there was no expanse before a carved archway; no wild and exotic foliage,
and no waiting Tayledras. They stood on a dense mat of browned evergreen needles, in a tiny clearing. Behind them was the rough mouth of a cave. Before them was a northern forest, with no one at all in sight. The air was sharp and cool, spicy with pine-scent and mountain-odors. This was upland country; northern country—farther north than most of Valdemar.
Darkwind seized her elbow as she stood there aghast, wondering what had gone wrong, and hurried her out of the way. Just in time; first Skif and Nyara emerged, followed by the Companions, then the gryphons and their young, then Rris, the dyheli, and Firesong. All of them emerged with the same shocked, pulled look on their faces.
Firesong was more than shocked, he was, startled into speechlessness.
Darkwind seized him, jarring the firebird on his shoulder, which flapped its wings and uttered a high-pitched whistle of distress. “What happened?” he demanded harshly. “This is not k’Treva!”
Firesong only shook his head numbly. “I—” he faltered, at a loss for the first time since Elspeth had known him. “I do not know! I might err in just where a Gate opens, any mage might—but it must go to some place that I, personally, know! And I do not know this place. I have never seen it in my life!”
Skif looked around wildly, as Nyara took a wary grip on Need’s hilt. “Where are we, then?” he demanded.
No one had an answer for him.
Chapter Four
Mornelithe Falconsbane lay quietly in his silk-sheeted bed and feigned sleep. He was still uncertain of many things. His memories were still jumbled, but the bonds upon his powers told him the most important facet of his current condition.
He was a prisoner.
Still, it could be worse. He might be a captive, but at least his captivity featured all the luxurious appointments and appearance of being an honored guest.
But it was captivity nonetheless.
Falconsbane was not the master here; that young upstart puppy called “Ancar” was. That alone rankled, although he endeavored not to show how much.
He spent most of his time in sleep, either real or feigned. He was not at all prosperous at the moment, and he was only too well aware of the fact. Merely to rise and walk across a room cost him more effort than summoning an army of wyrsa had when he was at his full powers. And as for working magic—
At the moment, it was simply not possible.
How long had he hovered in that timeless Void? He did not know; it was more than mere days, mote like weeks or even months. He had been snatched from that dark and formless space before he had gone quite mad, and he had drained his magical power just to keep his physical body barely alive. Now both were damnably slow to return to him. He had become used to recovering swiftly, taking the lives of his servants to augment his own failed powers. That was not an option open to him at the moment, and his recovery was correspondingly slow.
In fact, even as he lay in his soft, warm cradle, he knew that it was weakness that kept him here rather than his own will. It would be very hard to rise and force his body into some limited form of exercise; very easy to drift from feigned into real sleep. And very attractive as well, for sleep held far more pleasant prospects than reality.
Sleep—where he would forget where he was and the bonds that had been placed upon him, the coercions that now ruled his mind and powers. Where he would forget that it was a mere stripling of a usurping King that he must call “Master.”
He had learned his captor had given him his real name quite by accident, during one of those bouts of pretended sleep. The annoying hedge-wizard who played host to him had entered with the servant that had brought him food, and had ordered the frightened man to wake Falconsbane and see that he ate and drank. The servant had objected, clearly thinking Falconsbane some kind of wild beast, half man and half monster, fearing—he little knew how rightly—that Falconsbane might kill him if he ventured too near. The wizard had cuffed his underling, growling that “the King wants him well and what Ancar will do to both of us if he is not is worse than anything this creature ever could do to you!”
At the time, Falconsbane had come very close to betraying his pretense by laughing. Clearly, this foolish magician had no idea who and what he was entertaining!
And if he had? Likely he would have fled the country in terror, not trusting to anything but distance to bring him out of Falconsbane’s reach. The silly fool; even that would not help him if Mornelithe became upset with him.
He still had no real idea why it was that Ancar had placed him under magical coercions—other than the obvious, that the upstart wanted an Adept under his control. Why he wanted and needed an Adept—what purposes he wanted that Adept to serve—that was still a mystery. But at least, after listening covertly to the conversations between the sniveling hedge-wizard and his Master, he now knew how Ancar had brought him here.
By accident. Purely and simply, by accident and blundering.
The thought that he, Mornelithe Falconsbane, Adept of power that puny young Ancar could only dream of, had been “rescued” entirely by a mistake was enough to make him wild with rage—or hysterical with laughter. It was impossible. It was a thing so absurd that it never should have happened. No mage of any learning would have ever given credit to such a story.
Nevertheless. . . .
It was logical, when analyzed. The backlash of power when his focus had been smashed, his web of power-lines snapped back on him, and the proto-Gate had been released from his control had sent Falconsbane into the Void. No ordinary Gate could have fetched him back out again, for ordinary Gates were carefully constructed, and the terminus chosen, long before the Gate energy was set in motion. No Gate could be set on the Void itself; to attempt such a folly would be to court absolute disaster as the Gate turned back on itself and its creator and devoured both. But Ancar had not created an ordinary Gate; he had not been creating a Gate at all, so far as he knew. He had thought then—and still thought now—that he had been constructing some safe way for a lesser mage to handle the terrible powers of node-energies, energies only an Adept could safely master. Ancar did not have Adept potential, for all his pretensions; Master was the most the whelp could ever aspire to. But whoever his teacher was, that teacher had evidently chosen not to inform him of this, and he had been searching for a way to make himself an Adept for some time now.
His collections of spellbook fragments must be quite impressive—and the fact that he was willing to risk himself using only fragments proved either that he was very brave, or very stupid.
Or both.
The directions for the Gate had come from one of those fragments, one that had not included the purpose of the spell he had decided to try. As a result of incomplete directions and the utter folly of following them, he had set up a Gate with no terminus. But at the time, at the back of his mind, he had been concentrating on something he wanted very much.
An Adept. If he could not be one, then he wanted one. Actually, he had probably hoped for both, to become an Adept and to control one, or more than one. A suicidally stupid plan, one that Falconsbane would never have tried. Dark Adepts, the only kind Ancar would be likely to attract, were jealous of their powers, unwilling to share them, and would never stop testing any bonds that were put upon them. And when those bonds broke—
—as eventually, Falconsbane would break his—
—then revenge would be swift and certain.
Falconsbane had known of some of Ancar’s activities from his spies; he had been interested in the young King purely because the boy was the enemy of those blasted allies of k’Sheyna, the ones with the white horses. He had briefly toyed with the notion of an alliance himself—with him as the superior, of course. He knew that Ancar had longed for Adepts for some time, and it was logical to assume that he had been concentrating on the need for an Adept at the time the Gate began to fold back in on itself.
Falconsbane knew everything there was to know about Gates, except the few secrets that had disappeared with the Mage of Silence. Oh, him again. He could make
some deductions now, with the information that he had gleaned from his covert listening, that were probably correct. The energies making up Gates were remarkably responsive to wants, as Falconsbane had every reason to know now. Especially when those wants were triggered by fear as the Gate began to reach for its creator.
Ancar wanted an Adept, and no doubt wanted one very badly when his spell went awry; as it happened, the Void had one. Falconsbane, still caught in nothingness.
And once the Gate had a goal, it “knew” how to reach that goal, given the strength of Ancar’s need.
So, taking Ancar’s desire as destination, the Gate had stopped folding back upon itself, and had reached out to bring Ancar what he wanted.
Falconsbane wondered, as he had wondered before this, what would have happened if the Void had not contained what Ancar had wanted. Possibly the Gate would have completed its attempt to double back, and would have destroyed itself and its creator with it. Well, that would have been entertaining to watch, but it wouldn’t have saved Falconsbane.
Possibly Ancar would have thought of some place he considered safe, and it would have read that as a destination, creating the terminus and thus showing Ancar what it was he had truly called into being. It was impossible to say, really, and hard thinking made Mornelithe’s head hurt.
Ancar’s first Gate had collapsed for lack of further energy. And Ancar still was not aware of what he had created.
Falconsbane had no intention of telling him. He intended to keep as many secrets as he could, given the coercive spells that Ancar had layered on him. He was aided by the fact that Ancar was not aware how much Hardornen Falconsbane knew, or that he had a limited ability to read the unguarded thoughts of the servants to increase his vocabulary. As long as he pretended not to understand, it should be possible to keep quite a bit from Ancar.
He stirred restlessly, clenching his jaw in anger. When he had awakened to himself, he had found himself constrained by so many coercive and controlling spells that he could hardly breathe without permission. And for the first time in a very, very long time, Mornelithe Falconsbane found himself trapped and moving only to another’s will.
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