Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1)

by E. Rose Sabin

  She studied his face. His eyes, a deep violet in the firelight, met her gaze without flinching. He looked sincere, devastated by her accusations, but—

  “You didn’t trust him to keep that promise. You thought I’d be more likely to free you than Alair would.”

  “You’re wrong, mistress. I knew that Alair could free me, and I was sure that at your insistence he would do so. Though you’ve loosened the chain, I doubt that you have the power or the knowledge to dissolve it.” He stood and poked at the fire with a long stick.

  She had no strength to argue further. “How will we get him up, out of the canyon?” she asked dully.

  “Better not to try,” Claid said. “We can lay him out properly and build a cairn of stones over him right here. This canyon was the greatest work of the mages before him; it will be a fitting sepulcher.”

  “I’ll help.” She pulled herself to her feet, but stumbled when she tried to walk.

  “I can do it, mistress,” Claid said, taking her arm, steadying her. “You stay here by the fire. Keep warm and try to rest.”

  As he eased her down, the firelight illumined the brainstone hung at his waist.

  “Wait! You have his mind.” Kyla pointed to the stone. “It lives. Use your power to heal his body, then restore his mind to give him back his life.”

  Claid placed his hand on the brainstone. “Mistress, I can heal ills, but I cannot raise the dead. This mind can’t be restored to a corpse. To attempt it would cause the death of the mind as well.”

  Kyla could not respond, only watch him slip away. She slumped against Ruffian. Claid had lied about so many things, had so much more power than he acknowledged. He could be lying now, but how could she know? How could she force him to do anything without Alair’s authority behind her command? She knew nothing about controlling a Dire Lord. Alair should have told her more.

  Her strength depleted, she felt utterly helpless. In a stupor she curled around Ruffian and absorbed the dog’s warmth. Her ears picked up the sounds of Claid’s return and his words to her, but her brain refused to invest the sounds with meaning. Only when he lifted her and shook her did she waken to the urgency in his voice.

  “Mistress, we must find a way to get you out of this canyon and rejoin Marta. I left her with a fire but alone and armed only with her knife.”

  Marta! In her grief she’d forgotten Marta. Of course they had to get back to her right away. The mindstealers were gone, but other dangers abounded, not the least of which was the blizzard that had been raging above.

  “I found a cave for her to shelter in.” Claid must have read Kyla’s thoughts. “She’s safe from the cold and from wild beasts while the fire lasts.”

  “How long will that be?”

  He frowned. “Not much past dawn, I’d say.”

  “How near is that?” Kyla had lost all sense of time.

  “About two hours away, mistress.”

  If she could somehow manage the perilous climb at night, Kyla knew it would take far more than two hours. “You’ll have to get us out of the canyon,” she insisted.

  “I can easily get myself out, but I have no way to carry you out.”

  “You can carry me out the same way you carried Ruffian across the canyon. When you turned yourself into a whatever-it-was.”

  “A pterosaur, mistress, is a creature that can only function in the warmth of the sun. I cannot make that transformation on this cold night.”

  “Then change to something else. You have the power.”

  “I know of nothing strong enough to lift both you and Ruffian and carry you all the way up out of this canyon at night against the wind.”

  Although she was certain he was lying, her pain dulled her anger. She said only, “Go to Marta, then, and keep her safe. I’ll sleep here until daybreak, and when it’s light enough I’ll make the climb.”

  “Mistress, even by day you’ll court death by attempting that ascent.”

  “Ruffian will help me. He got me down here.”

  Claid stroked his chin and regarded her with eyes full of concern. “My master would never approve.”

  “Your master is gone,” she snapped, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. “You won’t help me. Who but Ruffian can I count on? What choice do I have?”

  “You can call on the wind to carry you and the dog.”

  Kyla turned her face away. “The wind won’t hear me.”

  “The wind blows strong outside this shelter,” Claid persisted. “I think it seeks you.”

  “Even if it heard my song, you’ve said yourself that the wind’s direction is wrong. It couldn’t lift me.”

  “As a windspeaker you have the power to change the wind’s direction. You’ve done it before. I’ve brought you your cloak, and I’ve renewed the power it holds.”

  “I can’t ride the wind tonight. Go to Marta. I’ll manage the climb. Maybe the cloak will help with that. Watch for me.”

  “Yes, mistress. But the cloak holds more power than you think. It is made to soak up power as a sponge soaks up water.” He added sticks to the fire, then left the shelter and vanished into the night.

  She hadn’t believed he’d actually leave her. Eager to get back to Marta, Kyla thought bitterly. Marta makes no demands of him. I never told her what he is.

  Will he lie with her? Has he already? What effect can that have on her—having sex with a Dire Lord?

  Maybe no worse than having it with a mage.

  She couldn’t dwell on these thoughts—she lacked the strength. Rolled up in her cloak, she tried to sleep, but the memory of Alair haunted her. She could not repel the image of him as she had first seen him and as she had seen him last, helpless, mindless. In that condition he had fallen to his death.

  He wasn’t dead though. His mind, the powerful mind that saved her from being absorbed into the One, still lived in the brainstone Claid carried. He had saved her; he hadn’t been able to save himself. With no body to return to, the mind was useless. She suspected that it could not survive long in that stone prison. A few days, maybe a week. They could find some other body, some living victim of the mindstealers, and put Alair’s mind into it. In a different body he might not seem the same person, but he would still have his mage powers.

  She recalled how he had animated his housekeeper and Dannel. The thought of the housekeeper made her shudder, but Dannel … Could Alair’s mind be made to animate Dannel again?

  They knew where Dannel was. They wouldn’t have to go on a long hunt, as they might for a mindstealer’s living victim. They’d only have to reach Starwind Peak.

  She thought of what Claid had said about the wind seeking her. Maybe it would respond to her song.

  She had to find out. Calling Ruffian to her side, she skirted the fire and went out into the wind.

  It swooped down on her. She steeled herself against its force. Not far away loomed a large mound of stones. The cairn Claid had built to entomb Alair. She fought the wind to reach it, press herself against its rough contours.

  “You were a stubborn, aggravating man, but I miss you terribly,” she said to the cold, unresponsive stone. “You withheld the power of magic from most of a country, and whether you were right or wrong I guess I’ll never know. You did keep the mindstealers contained, and you gave your life to destroy them. You had so much courage—help me to have a little. I mean to save you if I can. You promised I’d still be able to windspeak.” The bittersweet memory of their single night of love choked off her words.

  Ruffian pawed at her arm. Kyla pushed herself away from the unresponsive stones.

  She spread her cloak, the cloak that Claid said held renewed power. I’ll need every bit of that power. She took Ruffian into her lap, held him tightly, and sang to the wind.

  Her breath clouded the frigid air. She sang a new song, shaped by the memory of Alair’s body, warm and alive, pressed against hers, a song vibrant with the rhythm of their lovemaking, filled with all her passion and longing.

  With an eager rush th
e wind swirled around her. The billowing cloak lifted. Her arms locked around Ruffian, Kyla shut her eyes and soared upward in a triumphant spiral until the sting of snow against her face alerted her that she had left the canyon.

  “Here, mistress, down here!”

  At Claid’s call she opened her eyes and strained to see. In the darkness a light flared, revealing Claid waving frantically below her.

  Her song changed: it softened and pled. In response, the wind gentled and wafted downward, bringing her to rest on a snowdrift not far from Claid. She comforted the trembling dog and let Claid help her to her feet, shake out her cloak, and wrap it around her.

  “I’ll take you to Marta,” he said, and she noted the pride in his voice.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Bring Marta here,” she said. “And our packs. Hurry!”

  Claid loped off, leaving her shivering in a snowdrift. She thought of the light he had conjured and the time he had lied and said he lacked that ability. She wouldn’t tell him about her plan for Dannel. Not yet.

  Clutching her cloak about her, she considered the significance of her ride out of the canyon. Alair hadn’t lied, after all. She could still sing the wind.

  Claid returned with the packs slung over his shoulder and Marta in tow. Marta slogged through the snow to embrace Kyla. “I’ve been so worried,” she said. “Did you find—”

  “He’s dead. Didn’t Claid tell you?” Kyla took off her cloak and spread it on the snow. “Get on. We’re going to Starwind Peak.” As she spoke, she dug a blanket from the pack and wrapped it around herself to replace the cloak.

  The destination she’d announced meant little to Marta, but Claid raised his brows. She glared at him. “We haven’t much time,” she said to squelch his questions. “Claid, I’ll need power for this. I want to get there before daybreak.”

  Motioning Marta to a seat on the cloak, Kyla sat beside her and took the long-suffering Ruffian into her lap. “Make yourself tiny,” she ordered Claid. “Let Marta hold you.”

  For once he didn’t argue, merely shrank to the size of a small doll and slipped into Marta’s lap. “Ready, mistress,” piped a tiny voice.

  Again Kyla sang the wind, her song less erotic, more commanding. The wind swooped them up and carried them aloft as smoothly as it ever had. Pelted by snow, stung by needles of ice, Kyla could not call the journey comfortable, but she marveled at how meekly the wind accepted the guidance of her song.

  Perhaps it was not her song, but Claid’s power that kept them afloat on the mage-cloak. Nevertheless, she meant to reach Starwind Peak before dawn brought a change in the wind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  MAGE MIND

  A tinge of rose crept into the eastern sky. “Hurry, oh, hurry!” Kyla sang, and the wind obliged, sweeping them along like a leaf caught in a gale.

  Stiff with cold, Kyla grew too hoarse to sing. She held on to Ruffian and to the cloak with fingers that seemed frozen in place. Starwind Peak loomed in front of them, high and white. The wind lofted them into air too thin to breathe, swooped down, and dropped them into the snow piled around Alair’s house. The sun’s rim appeared above the eastern horizon. The wind snuffled about them, and, as if in anger and disdain, hurled blasts of snow at them.

  Unable to move, Kyla shivered uncontrollably. Had she come so far only to die of cold? Ruffian lay unmoving in her lap and Marta was collapsed beside her.

  “Claid,” Kyla whispered. “Help us!”

  A diminutive figure crept out of Marta’s embrace. He soared to towering height, stooped, lifted Kyla and tucked her under a huge arm, and from that uncomfortable upside-down position she watched him gather Marta under the other arm, wrap Ruffian in the cloak, and lift the dog in his hands. His mighty legs stamped through the snow, jarring Kyla with every step. He kicked the drifts away from Alair’s front door, clearing the entranceway. At a word from him, the door swung inward. Kyla was set down and Marta and Ruffian deposited beside her, while Claid reduced himself to human size. With his help Kyla stood and staggered inside. He brought Marta in and returned for Ruffian.

  The house was cold and dark, unwelcoming in its master’s absence. Its closed and lonely smell made Kyla sneeze twice. Remembering Claid’s warning about sneezes, she stifled a third. They’d had all the trouble she could bear.

  Dully she let Claid take off her pack, remove the wet blanket beneath it, and install her in a chair by the empty fireplace. Ruffian curled up on the floor by her feet. In a dreamlike state she watched Claid seat Marta in the other fireside chair. She was grateful for the blankets he brought from the bedrooms and tucked around her and Marta but couldn’t react.

  Claid said, “I’ll get a fire going.”

  Marta slumped in her chair, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow. Kyla couldn’t muster the energy to worry about her. Claid would take care of her. Claid would take care of them all.

  Alair had left a supply of wood in his woodbin; from beneath drooping eyelids Kyla watched Claid arrange it in the fireplace. Though the fire roared into life at his command, it was some time before the room lost its chill, longer still before Kyla’s icy limbs regained feeling and the ability to move. She basked in the warmth, her mind closed to troubling thoughts.

  Claid left the room and returned in a short time, bringing a tray that held steaming bowls of soup. He gave one to Kyla and set one on the floor for Ruffian, who lapped it gingerly, his tongue curling and uncurling as it touched the hot liquid. Kyla took the bowl away and blew on it until it cooled enough for the hungry dog to eat. Claid cupped Marta’s hands around the third bowl and lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth. Marta ate what he fed her without moving or opening her eyes. Kyla reasoned that if Marta could eat, she must be conscious. She would soon recover.

  The aroma of herbs and vegetables and beef awakened Kyla’s appetite. How long had it been since she had last eaten? The soup was delicious; she hadn’t suspected Claid of knowing how to cook. She ate eagerly, had almost finished before she allowed her awakening mind to recall what this scene reminded her of.

  She’d sat by this blazing fire before, recovered from the punishing cold, and had her hunger satisfied. Dannel, not Claid, had ministered to her needs then.

  Dannel! At the thought of the wooden statue in the pantry, she set down her bowl. It was time to tell Claid her plan.

  “Claid, Dannel was like a living being when Alair animated him. I didn’t know he wasn’t a real man. If Alair could live in part in Dannel, couldn’t he live in him entirely? Couldn’t we transfer Alair’s mind into Dannel?”

  Claid took the empty bowl from Marta’s hands and put it back on the tray before turning toward Kyla. He gazed at her, stroking his chin, and finally said, “Is this why we came here, mistress? I don’t think a mind can dwell in wood. But I suppose we could try.”

  Kyla threw off her blankets and stood. “We must. What other chance does Alair have?”

  Kyla glanced at Marta. She remained in her stupor, but her color and breathing had improved. Kyla judged it safe to leave her for a short while. “Let’s get him,” she said to Claid.

  Claid led the way to the kitchen. Kyla opened the pantry door and found the wooden statue propped in front of the shelves as she’d seen it before. She dragged it into the kitchen. It stood lifeless and dull in the big, drafty room. The stove Claid must have lit to prepare their meal had already grown cold.

  The cheerless room depressed Kyla. She shuddered and put a restraining arm on Claid’s hand as he reached for the brainstone. “Let’s take him into the sitting room first.”

  He nodded and effortlessly picked up the statue, carrying it as he might a log for the fire. She snatched up a large wooden spoon and trailed after him through a dark hall and into the room where Marta and Ruffian waited. Ruffian looked up when they entered and thumped his tail on the floor. Marta was asleep and did not waken when Claid stood the statue near her chair. The terrifying ride through freezing air must have sapped both strength and spirit. Kyla starte
d to ask Claid to administer his healing power, but Marta’s regular breathing reassured her. It was safe to try this thing with Dannel first.

  She nodded at Claid. He removed the cord tied around his waist, took the brainstone from its sling, and handed it to Kyla, all in a silence that shouted disapproval. She placed the stone against Dannel’s wooden ear and drummed on it with the spoon in a rhythm that matched her own rapidly beating heart. Fixing her gaze on Dannel’s carved features, she watched for any change. Nothing happened. “Help me,” she appealed to Claid.

  From a pocket he took his panpipes and, while Kyla continued drumming, he played a single, sustained high-pitched note that brought an agonized howl from Ruffian.

  The statue’s arms flailed wildly, striking Claid and knocking the pipes from his hands. Dannel lurched forward with the awkwardness of a poorly manipulated marionette. His wooden face took on no animation; his jerky movements seemed random. Kyla ducked behind Marta’s chair to avoid the thrashing arms.

  The fire flared; the room filled with its light. Flames filled the fireplace and spilled out into the room. Ruffian leaped to his feet and raced in circles, barking.

  The house came to life: doors slammed, floorboards creaked, furniture shifted. From another room came an ominous stomping and crashing. The stone figures!

  “Alair, what are you doing? Stop!”

  The house shook. Dannel staggered about, stumbled, and toppled into the blazing fire. “Get him out!” Kyla screamed, and Claid ran toward him, but flames had already engulfed the dry wood. Then, as the unnatural fire used the wooden statue as a bridge to sweep toward the chairs, she cried, “Save Marta!”

  Claid grabbed the sleeping Marta up into his arms. Sparks flew onto the chair’s cushioned seat, setting it and the chair ablaze. “Grab the packs with the books,” Claid called to Kyla as he headed for the front door.