Kyla’s skin crawled. Join One. What did that mean? She started to ask but thought of her parents and dared not pursue the matter. Some things are better not known.
The mindstealer slouched, not speaking further, allowing her to bind it again without resistance. Kyla kept a close watch on it while she retrieved the man’s clothes and dressed him. Placing the cloak over the broad shoulders and fastening it, she regretted ruining such a fine garment. He would understand, though, and be too happy to regain his mind to care about the cloak.
Kyla put on her own cloak, then took hold of the mindstealer’s rope, took his victim by the arm, and prodded both of them into motion.
The mindstealer resisted. “Don’t like cloud water,” it screeched. “Not go now.”
“This man’s mind must be restored at once!” She jerked on the mindstealer’s tether. “Fog or no fog, you’ll take me now to where the mind is hidden.” She drew her knife. “Hurry!”
The creature let out loud wails and slouched forward for several paces along the trail toward the east, then turned, retraced its steps, and continued westward until they reached the entrance to Martyr’s Pass. Here the fog was even thicker. Kyla could barely make out the opening.
“Is the mind hidden in the pass, or have you set a trap for me in there?” she asked, coming to a stop.
The creature howled. “No trap. Can’t see. Can’t find marks. No see, no see.”
Day was almost gone, and the fog would linger into the night. It would be folly to enter Martyr’s Pass under those conditions. She had no choice but to wait for morning to come and the fog to lift.
“As soon as it’s light, we’ll go to where you hid the mind,” she told the mindstealer. “Don’t try to escape. The wind will guard you.”
In confirmation, a dark wind whistled suddenly and whipped around the mindstealer, lifting it up, spinning it around, and flinging it down with its face turned away from Kyla.
“Wind witch,” the mindstealer howled. “Cruel.”
“Just showing what’ll happen if you try to get away.”
That lesson had to suffice. The creature mustn’t know that the wind did not always come at her bidding.
She pulled the mindless one down beside her and settled in for a long wait; she dared not sleep. Instead, she listened to the whispering wind and kept her eyes fixed on the mindstealer’s hunched back. Absently she rested a hand on the man’s forehead and stroked his thick brown hair.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAGE
The morning dawned free of fog. Kyla arose as the sun’s rim poked above the horizon. Too impatient to dress for wind singing, she hummed a brief summoning song in her journey clothes and cloak and readied her charges for the trek, ordering the mindstealer to keep its face turned away. “I’ll have no more arguments or excuses,” she told it. “You’ll lead us quickly to where this man’s mind is hidden.”
The mindstealer mumbled something but didn’t voice its usual loud complaints, nor did it resist when she set it and its victim in motion.
The man stumbled along behind her on his tether, crashing into her if she stopped abruptly, dragging her back like an anchor when her pace quickened. The mindstealer led, straining at its rope leash as though eager to fulfill its promise. It seemed to have no difficulty finding the way through the early morning light. Kyla didn’t trust its eagerness; she feared a trap.
To her relief, it did not enter Martyr’s Pass, but led her east along the trail to Hightree. They had not gone far when the mindstealer pointed to a path that veered off the main trail. The track was no more than a twisting, rock-strewn rut, a dry streambed.
The mindstealer fairly danced. “Need hurry. Reach core. Before collectors.”
Kyla caught up the slack in the rope, forcing the creature to stay within reach. The path twisted around boulders and snaked up a steep slope, making it ever harder to maneuver the helpless man and negotiate the sharp turns, all while avoiding tumbled rocks and unexpected crevices. She was despairing of reaching their goal when the mindstealer pointed a maimed finger toward a cairn of rocks. “There.”
She allowed it enough slack to reach the cairn, where it scrabbled about with its feet, scattering the rocks and digging beneath them with its long toes.
Gold-tinged flurries rose around her as though the wind was spying out what was happening. “Good,” she whispered. “Keep close watch.”
The mindstealer straightened and swiveled its long neck toward her. “Can’t dig,” it said. “Feet sore. Can’t use hands.” A baleful glare shot from its orange eyes.
She shut hers. “Turn away!” She accompanied the shout with a blind knife thrust that drew a squawk of protest.
Cautiously she opened her eyes and made sure the mindstealer had turned its head. “I’ll dig,” she said, pushing it aside, “but I have to be certain you can’t try anything.” With no tree or shrub nearby, she had to force it against the man and again bind it to his back.
Keeping a firm hold on the man’s tether, she squatted and dug with her knife at the spot the mindstealer had cleared, stabbing the blade into the hard soil and wriggling it back and forth, then scooping out the loosened dirt with her hands.
The wind keened. The mindstealer let out a long-drawn howl. Its cry and the wind’s warning alerted Kyla to distant footsteps. She gave her knife one last desperate jab. It struck something with bone-jarring force.
With hand and knife she scratched and scrabbled until her hands felt something hard and rough. She hacked at the surrounding dirt until she could grasp and lift out a large stone. A wave of disappointment gave way to astonishment as she recognized it as like the stone her father had had. “The mind is in this?”
“Brainstone holds core. Yes.” The mindstealer’s voice squeaked with excitement.
Clutching her prize, she jumped up. Four mindstealers pressed toward her, their gawky limbs moving in unison. She gave a shrill whistle. The wind reddened, swept up pebbles and dirt, and hurled them at the creatures.
Kyla turned the mindless one toward her so the mindstealer faced the attackers. “That’ll give us a shield,” she muttered. The brainstone cradled in the crook of her arm, she steered the man with one hand and gripped her knife in the other. The captive mindstealer screeched protests and thrashed in its bonds.
She could never fight off four mindstealers. Kyla poured all her strength into singing for the wind. The sky darkened. The wind whipped around her, enclosing her and her charge in a protective swirl, its roar drowning the mindstealer’s shrieks. Wild scarlet gusts picked up and hurled aside the four would-be attackers. Her cloak puffed out around her like a sail and sped her along the rocky path, dragging man and captive mindstealer after her back to the main trail and along it to the pool where they’d bathed.
Mist still hovered over the pool. Good! The mindstealers’ fear of water would make this a defensible location.
Kyla’s breath failed; her song died away. The roiling winds slowed, softened to rose. “Thanks,” Kyla whispered hoarsely.
“Wind witch! Promise breaker!” the mindstealer shouted.
She walked around the man to confront the creature bound on his back. “I broke no promise. You tried to trap me. But it’s not easy to trap a windspeaker.” She held up the brainstone. “Now you’ll show me how to restore this man’s mind. Then I’ll keep my word and let you go.”
“You lie,” it wheezed. “Can’t trust wind witch.”
Kyla bristled. “Call me that again, and I’ll toss you into the pond.”
The orange eyes caught her gaze. Kyla’s thoughts grew confused. Her knees buckled and the brainstone fell from her hands. She reached out blindly; her fingers grasped the man’s cloak.
Strength flowed into her as though her hold on the cloak was freeing her from the mindstealer's hypnotic power. Her mind cleared. She ducked her head and snatched off her scarf to bind it over those dreadful eyes.
The creature snarled, showing its pointy teeth. She backed to the pool’s edg
e, leaned down, scooped up a handful of water, and threw it against the mindstealer’s face. “You’ll keep your bargain or drown,” she said.
The creature shrieked but remained stubborn. “Hands hurt,” it sputtered. “No jabbers. Need jabbers to give core back.” It wiggled the stumps of its fingers.
Kyla frowned. “You mean the claws I cut off? I’ll find something else to use. Just tell me what to do.”
“Witch hands not good enough.”
“They’re good enough to throw you into this pond.” Kyla grabbed the mindstealer’s arm.
It squirmed and twisted, straining against its bonds. Unbalanced by its struggles, its mindless carrier staggered and fell against Kyla, knocking her to her knees. She lost her hold, and the man tumbled toward the pond, carrying with him the screaming mindstealer.
The creature’s frantic writhing loosened the ropes that bound it to its victim. It wriggled free, shoved the man into the pond, tore off its blindfold, and ran. Kyla couldn’t chase it; she had to keep the man from drowning. She plunged into the pond, caught him beneath his armpits and tugged until, with his waterlogged clothes working against her, she got him hauled out and away from the water. By that time, the creature was gone.
After assuring herself that her helpless charge was breathing, she took the man’s arm, guided him to a sunny spot, and pushed him to a seat on a large boulder. She stood beside him, recovering from the exertion. With a start she remembered the brainstone.
She hunted around, spied it wedged between rocks, and picked it up. “I have to figure out how to do this.”
She sank to the ground beside the man and rotated the brainstone in her hands. Such a light thing to hold the essence of a man. This stone was whole, not cut in half like her father’s, but she imagined the flashes of light racing through their usual pattern within. Or the stolen mind might have altered the pattern and imposed a stronger, stranger one in its place.
The mindstealer had said it couldn’t transfer the mind without its “jabbers.” Her hands with their five fingers were more dexterous than the creature’s thumbless paws, but they didn’t end in long, curved talons. So what could the creature do with its talons that her fingers could not do?
Pry the rock open, perhaps? Was that why her father’s stone had been cut in half? Her hunting knife would not cut stone; she had no tool that would. She could possibly crack the brainstone open with a rock, but that might destroy the mind within.
She recalled her father saying, “You’ve got to break the pattern.” She remembered how she’d drummed on the brainstone halves to disrupt the pattern of sparks. Drumming—that was something the mindstealers could do with their talons. She gazed ruefully at her short nails, not much good for drumming, no match for those talons.
She could use the firesticks in her pack! She hunted through the pack and found two of the long, bark-covered sticks. Her last two. She’d have to take care not to wear off the bark and cause them to ignite.
After considering how to go about the experiment, she wrestled the man off the boulder onto the ground, where she turned him onto his side. She set the stone on the side of his head, over the ear the mindstealers had pierced. Shifting her weight to one knee, she used the other to keep the stone from sliding out of position. The procedure was awkward and would have seemed ludicrous if so much did not depend on its success.
She set the firesticks in motion. Tap-tap, tap-TAP-tap. Pause. Tap-tap, tap-TAP-tap. Over and over, until her legs cramped and her wrists grew tired. Nothing happened.
She stretched to relieve the ache in her back and saw that the man’s breathing had grown ragged and irregular.
Quickly she lifted the brainstone off his head and rolled him onto his back. Gradually his breathing returned to normal.
Her tapping on the brainstone must have caused the change. The pattern had been wrong, but it had had an effect. Maybe she simply needed to find the right pattern.
Watching his steady breathing, she had a flash of inspiration. She bent and pressed her ear to his chest, fixed the rhythm of his heartbeat in her memory, and again rolled him onto his side. The brainstone replaced over his ear, she resumed her drumming, this time reproducing the rhythm of the beating heart.
The brainstone shook. A shudder coursed through the man’s frame. An eerie blue light bloomed around the stone and circled the man’s head, sparking and crackling like miniature lightning. The firesticks exploded into flame. The stone burst into fragments.
The man’s eyes blinked. His head moved. The blue light faded. Kyla thrust the burning sticks into the dirt to extinguish the flames. The man tried to sit up; she helped him straighten and lean back against a boulder. He pressed his hands to his face. His fingers massaged his forehead and probed his injured ear.
Kyla knelt beside him. “Good sir, are you well?”
At the tentative query he lowered his hands and glanced frantically from side to side. “Claid? What—? Where—?”
His gaze fixed on Kyla. “You—you’re not Claid.”
He stood with a look so wild that Kyla rose and backed away. “Please,” she said. “You should rest.”
“Who are you? What’s happened?” He ran his palms over his wet clothes. An angry crease deepened between his eyes. “Where’s Claid?”
“I’m Kyla.” She edged farther back, poised to run if he headed toward her. “I saved you from the mindstealers. I don’t know who Claid is.”
“Saved me from the mindstealers!” His roar made it sound like a crime. “What about Claid?”
His mind was still unsettled, no doubt of it. Kyla spoke in a slow and soothing voice. “Mindstealers caught you. I killed one and declawed the other. It promised to restore your mind in exchange for its freedom. It tried to trap me, but I got the brainstone with your mind in it. The mindstealer got away before I could bring you around.”
As she spoke, he grew calmer, and the gaze he turned on her seemed more focused. “Tell me your name again.”
“Kyla Cren.”
His eyes widened as if in recognition, though she was positive they’d never met. He regarded her thoughtfully and said, “Kyla, eh? And Kyla traded my life for that of a single mindstealer—a maimed one.” She couldn’t tell whether the glint in his eyes signaled anger or amusement. “How did you accomplish the feat?”
She told of the mindstealer’s leading her to the cairn, and of digging up the brainstone. She described running from the “collectors” and reaching the pool. She explained how the mindstealer had escaped and the way she’d reasoned how to transfer the mind. It was, she thought, an impressive tale even though she’d carefully avoided mentioning her windspeaking.
He gathered the brainstone fragments and regarded them curiously. “So my mind shattered the stone, did it? It couldn’t withstand the power of a mage mind.”
“Mage!” Had she heard correctly? “You’re a mage?”
“Mage Alair.” He dropped the fragments and dusted his hands.
“Mage Alair!” Kyla’s shocked outcry caused the man to stare at her.
“You didn’t know?” he asked as though his identity should have been obvious.
Too awed to speak, she could only shake her head. The villagers spun tales of Mage Alair of Starwind Peak, northeast of Nine Falls. Folks whispered of a tropical garden on the summit above the snow line. Of white birds fashioned of snow and sent forth to fly errands. Of sticks shaped into men and animated to be his servants. It was even rumored that he could bend Dire Lords to his bidding. Once, she had asked her parents about those tales. They grew strangely serious and told her not to believe all the stories. Her father added that some day she should discover for herself whether the tales were true or false.
It seemed that day had finally come.
This tall, attractive man was too young to be the legendary Mage Alair. No one had ever described his physical appearance. She’d pictured an old white-beard with wrinkled face and ancient eyes. This man must be mad from the shock of having his mind stolen.
“You’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” she said. “Please sit and rest awhile.”
“No time.” He shook out his cloak and stared in consternation at the ragged edge of the damp and muddy garment. “My cloak! What happened to it?”
“I cut a strip off it to bind the mindstealer’s hands after I chopped off its claws.”
“You cut—Woman, you—YOU tore a mage’s cloak for wound bindings?” He made it sound like a crime that she in particular should have avoided.
“I had nothing else. I didn’t expect you to need it again.”
“You didn’t think! You should know a mage’s cloak is a reservoir of power. You could have—Never mind. I must find Claid.” He caught her wrist and, giving her just enough time to snatch up her pack, dragged her roughly after him.
She tried to pull free. “Let me go. I need to get back to my village.”
His grip tightened. “Sorry, but saving a man’s life puts you forever in debt to him.”
Mad. No doubt about it. So much for her foolish dreams of having intelligent conversation with this man. She raised her knife. “I owe you nothing. Let me go.”
He laughed, a rich, warm laugh she might have enjoyed under other circumstances. “Feisty, aren’t you? Come on. We’ll search Martyr’s Pass.” He strode on, yanking her with him.
She drove her knife at his wrist.
The steel blade crumpled like paper. His swift steps never faltered. “Foolish to try that on a mage,” he said, not sparing her a glance. “Hurry, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t! Slow down. Tell me who Claid is.”
“Claid is …” He hesitated, finished with, “my familiar.”
The rocky entrance to the pass loomed ahead. Kyla had to run to keep up with Alair’s long strides. Angry tears blurred her vision. This won’t do. Blubbering like a child because of this ungrateful wretch. Call the wind.
The mage pulled her after him into the pass. The wind sharpened its claws like an angry cat and roared through the narrow passage, a wild beast caged between high slick walls of banded rock. She had only to sing it to her bidding.
Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1) Page 4
