Harp of Winds

10 Aerillia

Raven had been put back into the old turret room in the Queen’s Tower, with its walls of rose-pink marble, that had been hers for all the years she could remember. It was unchanged, exactly the same as she had left it when she’d fled into that stormy night—how long ago it seemed now. There were her familiar furnishings: the rounded scoop of her fur-lined bed, where she had curled up to sleep so many nights beneath the shelter of her drooping wings; the same warm rugs on the floor; and the night table, made of scarce and precious wood, with its mirror of polished silver. There, wrought in a sturdy filigree of gleaming iron, was the tall backless stool with its cushioned seat, on which she’d sat for hours by the window, watching the changing sweep of cloud and sunlight across the mountains.

There were her frayed old wall hangings, which she had loved too much to have replaced, with flights of Winged Folk soaring like eagles across a backdrop of snow-bright peaks and valleys that had once been green. In the wall niches concealed behind them, Raven found the favorite playthings of her childhood still in place; old and battered now, but too beloved to ever throw away. The only change in the room was the grille of sturdy iron that now barred the window.

Her mind still numb with the shock of her betrayal, Raven surveyed the room with an increasing sense of unreality. Her escape, and all the adventures that had followed it, seemed like a fading dream amid the old, familiar surroundings of her childhood—or had that brief time of freedom been the only reality, and was this the dream?

The chamber might be the same, but Raven had changed beyond all recognition from the young innocent who had climbed out of that same window some three short moons ago. In that time she had grown up—and, it seemed, grown old in bitterness and regret. Oh Yinze, how she hated herself! How could she have been so blind, so gullible, so false to her new friends! She had betrayed the companions who had helped her in the desert and taken her in as one of their own. She had betrayed poor motherly Nereni, who had taken such good care of her. Who had trusted her. She had defiled herself, beyond all redemption, with an alien, an outsider, a ground-grubbing human who had used and discarded her like the worthless offal that she had become. And now she had come full circle. She was back in the vile clutches of Blacktalon—and no doubt it was all that she deserved.

Her mother, the Queen, was dead. Due to the terrible and terrifying things that had happened to her, that brutal fact had barely begun to penetrate the winged girl’s mind. Flamewing had never been gentle and kind like Nereni—she was a Queen, after all, with many responsibilities to occupy her mind and time. She had been forced to rear her daughter in a hard school, to fit her for her future burdens—among the Skyfolk, the Monarch must rule and stand alone. Nonetheless, Raven knew her mother had loved her, and had shown it whenever she could. Flamewing had been proud of her, and the winged girl’s stomach turned sick at the thought of how she had abused that pride. Did her mother know? Did the dead know everything, once they had passed Beyond, as the Priests of Yinze claimed? Raven flung herself, weeping, onto her bed. “Mother, I’m sorry!”

The winged girl wept for a long time, but at last the storm passed; she was too drained and exhausted to weep any more. Wiping her eyes on the bed’s fur coverlet, Raven looked again around the room that was her prison. Food had been left for her, but she was too sick at heart to eat. She felt soiled and defiled, and her tears had done nothing to wash the stain of guilt from her conscience. There was wine on the table in a silver flagon. Raven poured a brimming goblet and drained it in one gulp, choking slightly at the unfamiliar burn in her throat, and remembering, with a guilty pang, that Flamewing had never allowed her to drink the stuff. But her mind was turning now from the guilt of the past to the terrors of the future. Soon, Blacktalon would be coming for her—and when he did, she would do well to have her senses dulled as much as possible.

Father of Skies—would she ever feel clean again? Pouring more wine and taking the cup with her, Raven walked through the curtained archway into her bathing room, where a hollow with a drain hole at the bottom had been carved out of the marble floor. A pull of a silken rope would send water cascading into the basin from the great peaktop cisterns that caught up rain and snowmelt from the mountain storms. Raven drained her wine and set the cup aside, then cast off her worn, much-mended leather tunic—the very one in which she had originally made her all too brief escape. She turned it in her hands, looking at Nereni’s neat rows of tiny stitches with eyes that blurred with tears, then threw it away from her with a bitter curse.

For a time the winged girl splashed beneath the icy cascade—she had often heard Aurian speak wistfully of soaking in a tub of hot water, but such outlandish human customs were not the way of the Skyfolk. The snow-cold water helped to numb the ache of her bruises where Harihn’s men had ambushed her, but did nothing to quell the pain within her heart. Inside, she was sick and shaking with fear at the thought of Blacktalon and what he would do to her now that he had her in his power.

Once she had dried herself Raven returned to her chamber, and spent some time preening her disordered plumage, sorting the ruffled feathers with her clawlike fingernails, and pausing often to sip more wine. It was long since she had eaten, and the drink was making her head spin. The sensation alarmed her at first, but Raven soon became accustomed to it, and after a while, began to welcome it. The glimmerings of a plan came into her head as she preened. Not much of a plan, to be sure, but it held out a slender hope that she might after all escape the attentions of Blacktalon. By custom, the Winged Folk mated for life, and not one of them would touch someone who had already bedded with another. So deep in thought was she, that when Blacktalon entered the winged girl was slow to react. With hammering heart, she turned to face him. The High Priest said nothing. He simply stood in the doorway, running greedy eyes across her body, with a pair of goggling guards, warrior-priests in the livery of the Temple, behind him. Witnesses, thought Raven. Perfect! But without the wine, she could never have done it. Though Raven’s skin crawled to feel their eyes on her, and the blood rushed scalding to her face for shame, she did not trouble to hide her nakedness. She forced herself to lift her head and look the High Priest brazenly in the eye, though it was the hardest thing that she had ever done in her life.

“You come too late, Blacktalon,” the winged girl spat. “That is, unless you care to soil yourself on one who is already defiled. Your fellow conspirator beat you to the mark, High Priest, The human had me—not once, but many times! Raven heard the gasp of horror from the Temple guards, and forced herself to laugh in Blacktalon’s face. Then the High Priest joined in the laughter, and Raven knew she was undone. “So Harihn told me,” Blacktalon chuckled, with a knowing leer. “He said that you’d proved an apt pupil, my little Princess, and he hoped he had taught you sufficient to keep me entertained during Aerillia’s long, cold nights!”

As though he had cut her throat, Raven’s laughter came to a choking halt.

“You fool,” Blacktalon sneered. “Had you chosen one of the Winged Folk it might have been different, perhaps, though with the throne at stake, I could still have forced myself to take you . . . But as it is, what difference does a human make? They are not our kind! You might just as well have been consorting with a mountain sheep—and to as much effect!”

He walked into the room, and poured himself a goblet of wine, glancing as he did so into the depleted flagon. “For shame,” he mocked her, “wantonness and drink! Is there no end to the vices you have learned among those groundling insects?” He shrugged. “No matter. In the main, it is your hand I require—though your body I will take in due course! Joining with the heir to the throne will establish my claim on the Kingship beyond all possible doubt—and by tradition, you must come to that Joining A virgin—technically at least,” He snickered, “Humans, as I said, can scarce be said to count! And since our Joining may not take place until the moon has waxed and waned, because of the period of mourning for the late lamented Queen, I must forbear until that time—though the anticipation may have pleasures of its own!”

While he spoke, Raven had been struck dumb by horror, but when she heard Blacktalon mock her mother’s memory, her boiled up beyond controlling—and beyond all wisdom, “You abomination!” She hurled the wine, cup and all, into the High Priest’s face, “You’ll never lay a finger on me while I live, I swear it! And I’ll see you rot in torment through all eternity before I’ll join with you! Not all my folk are loyal to you, Blacktalon—you treacherous, murdering upstart. Do you think you’ll hold me with your bars and guards? I’ll be avenged on you if—”

His blow sent the winged girl spinning across the room. “Foolish, deluded child.” Blacktalon stood over her, shaking his head reprovingly. “Did you think I would give you the chance to escape again, and lead an insurrection?” His eyes were pitiless and hard. Raven shrank away from him, and a shudder of dread went through her. The High Priest pressed her mercilessly, playing with his victim to prolong her torment. “There are certain laws of the Winged Folk, my Princess, that not even you can circumvent. Who, among your people, would follow a crippled Queen?”

He beckoned to his warriors, and for the first time, Raven saw that they were armed with heavy maces. Her heart turned to ice within her. “No! she whispered, as they advanced. “No ...”

Blacktalon stood watching, calmly sipping his wine and savoring the sound of her screams. The Heavy iron maces lifted, over and over again, and came smashing down with all their weight upon the fragile bones of Raven’s wings.

Afterward, Anvar could remember little of his airborne journey to the citadel of the Winged Folk All that remained in his, mind were vague impressions: half glimpsed shapes of four winged figures clasping the net above him, darker silhouettes against the dark night sky, and the ceaseless rhythmic drumming of their tireless wings; the discomfort of dizziness and nausea from the swinging net; the piercing cold searing into his face as Miathan’s knife had done; the latticed pattern of the net’s coarse rope digging into his skin; fierce pain from the burn on his cheek and the dull throb of bruises where he had been struck and manhandled by his captors. But though the Mage was still half stunned, fear and anger and desperation all combined to keep his consciousness struggling back to the surface, again and again. Anvar’s first clear memory was coming back to awareness as though waking from, the clinging clutch of some dread nightmare, and seeing Aerillia in the dawn. For a little while, all thoughts of his plight vanished from his mind, for that first sight of the city was utterly breathtaking. Most of the sky was covered by a thick layer of ominous cloud, the purple-gray of slate, but the rising sun slipped through a narrow gap between the white-fanged backdrop of the mountain range and the darkly shrouded sky above. The delicate architecture of Aerillia threw back the level rays of sunrise into the Mage’s eyes, gleaming like a filigreed coronet of pearls across the craggy brow of the mountain peak. Closer, and the towers and spires of the city took shape under Anvar’s marveling gaze—unbelievably delicate structures wrought in the palest of stone that looked, from this distance, as fragile as spun webs of milky glass. Now Anvar knew from whence had come the shimmering stone with which the ancient buildings of the Academy had been wrought. But the structure of Aerillia was so alien, yet so perfectly beautiful , . . Notwithstanding his own pain and peril, and his desperate fear for Aurian, the Mage was lost in wonder.

Carved from the living mountain, the pinnacle towers formed fantastic shapes and structures that no earth-bound builder would ever have attempted. Clusters of dwellings seemed to grow out of the sheer rock like the delicate corals that Anvar had seen underwater in the warm southern bay where Aurian had taught him to swim, Others, of varying shapes, had been suspended like bubbles or drops of water or icicles, hanging from outthrust ledges over a terrifying drop. Yet others grew upward in spirals or helices or fluted, tapering spires, their slender tips so high that they were veiled in tattered banners of low-hanging cloud. The stone of their construction glowed rose and cream and gold in the delicate light of dawn, against the grim and threatening background of the slate-gray sky—then the lowering cloud closed in like a lid, shutting off the sun, and the city became a wraith of its former self, sketched in brittle penstrokes of silver and grisaille.

The wind was blowing harder now. As the Mage, hanging in the net between his captors, neared the city, he became aware of a desolate, dissonant keening that ached in his teeth and ears, vibrating within the bone of his skull and chilling his soul with an overwhelming sense of oppression and terror. The sound grew louder and more shrill as they approached the city, until the clouds that veiled the top of Aerillia peak were swept away like a curtain drawn aside. Anvar looked up—and was transfixed in horrified disbelief.

There, on the utter pinnacle of the mountain, loomed a huge and ghastly structure of night-black stone. Every inch of the asymmetrical, buttressed monstrosity was carved with leering gargoyle images of demons, horned and beaked and breathing fire, and winged, like great carrion birds with decaying corpses clutched between their claws. Anvar, fighting a desperate urge to vomit, found it impossible to look away. The hunched and twisted edifice was topped with five inward-curving spires that raked the sky like ebon claws—the source of the gut-wrenching pain that throbbed with exquisite agony between Anvar’s ears. Each of the spires was pierced with a multitude of holes, dark and round as the eye sockets in a skull, and through these the freely moving winds had been trapped and strained and twisted, then spewed forth in this distorted, tortured form to howl their agony at the unfeeling peaks.

The trembling Mage was relieved when his Skyfolk escort bore him lower, and the grotesque structure was lost to sight behind the towering walls of a precipice. The sound, unfortunately, still followed to torment him. Below the level of the city, the mountainside plummeted in a sheer, featureless cliff, curving round to the western face of the mountain, and after a time, Anvar saw an opening in the rock ahead, a gaping black maw with bristling stalactite fangs. The meshes bit into his skin as his winged captors gathered up the net and flew directly at the aperture, moving at tremendous speed, and Anvar cringed, biting down on a scream as the jagged rocks around the mouth of the opening came hurtling toward him. Too small! It’s too bloody small! We’re going to—

The air was knocked from Anvar’s lungs as his net brushed the lintel of the cave. As the Skyfolk let go, he went rolling over and over, carried forward by his own momentum, entwined in the meshes so tightly that he could hardly breathe. For an instant, the world turned dazzling black as he crashed into the wall at the rear of the cave. The winded Mage heard a rustle of feathers as the Winged Folk stood over him, their half-spread pinions filling the space of the cavern and blocking the light from the entrance. “Is he conscious?” one of them asked.

Wings folded—Anvar blinked in the light, and saw a sharp-boned face above him, upside down. It nodded once with a jerky motion. “He wakes.”

“Then let us make haste.”

Anvar felt steel snick against his skin as they reached through the meshes of the net to cut the ropes that bound him. Then one by one they launched themselves quickly from the mouth of the cave—had the notion not been ridiculous, Anvar would have said they were afraid of him—leaving the Mage to free himself from the net as best he could as the hissing thunder of their wings faded into the distance.

Stiff and numb as Anvar was with cold and fatigue and all his hurts, it took him a long, frantic age to free himself from the tightly wrapped meshes of the net. So firmly was he entangled that more than once, the Mage came close to throttling himself as he writhed and rolled on the cavern’s uneven floor. Again and again, he had to force himself, with a desperate effort of will, to cease the panic-stricken struggling that was only binding him tighter, to relax, and think it through, and try to twist himself another way until the ropes that cut into his body were slackened once more. Though the open cave was cold indeed, sweat was soon drenching his body and running down his face in rivulets, stinging the blistered skin of his burned cheek. And all the time, as he tired, his chances of freeing himself grew less and less. When the Mage finally thought of the obvious solution, he was ashamed that it had not occurred to him sooner. What was he doing, struggling like a mindless rabbit in a snare, or some common, helpless Mortal without magic! What would Aurian have said, if she could see him? Oh Gods, the thought of her in Miathan’s power was an agony to him! Anvar swallowed hard. Not now, he told himself. You need all your concentration to get out of this accursed net! But first, he had to rest a little, to gather his strength. It was only then that Anvar became truly aware of the piercing cold within the cavern. He did his best to ignore it, and occupied his mind instead with how best to use his powers to achieve his escape. Reluctantly, he decided it would have to be Fire—not his preferred element, and decidedly risky, so close to his skin. After Miathan’s torture, the thought of being burned again made his skin crawl and cringe with terror.

Nonetheless, Fire it must be—and luckily, he would only need a tiny fireball. That was all he had the energy to produce, and since his control was not too good, the smaller the Fire, the less chance he’d have of immolating himself! Craning his neck, the Mage looked down at his chest where the meshes were wrapped tightly, three or four times around. In order for him to ever get his arms free, that tangled mass of rope would have to go,

Biting his lip (how many times had he seen Aurian do that when constructing a spell?), Anvar, with an effort, thrust the image of her face to the back of his mind, and reached deep within to find the wellsprings of his power. Ah. Compressing the magic that he found there with all the force of his will, he crushed it tighter and tighter until it formed a tiny spark of fiercely growing energy. In his mind’s eye, the Mage placed it where he wanted it, where the meshes crossed each other on his chest—then he fed it with all the strength of his love of magic, nurturing it, encouraging it to grow and blossom—just a little at first, then a little more . , .

There was a sharp smell of singeing hemp, then a whiff of smoke. Before Anvar’s eyes, strand after strand of the twisted rope began to blacken and glow red, breaking apart and unraveling thread by thread, with a little spark of fire gleaming like a dragon’s eye at each fractured end.

Then the Mage became carried away with his success—or perhaps it was only that the rope was tinder dry. All at once, a section of the net the size of Anvar’s hand burst into flames. With a yell he rolled over and over, trying to douse the fire—and the net burst apart to free his arms. His rolling had almost quenched the flames, and he beat frantically at the smoldering remnants until he was certain that the fire was out. Half cursing, half laughing with relief, Anvar sat up and began to undo the tangle around his legs with shaky hands.

At last he was free, but Anvar had been bound for so long that at first his legs would not support him. He crawled to the cave mouth, where a pile of windblown snow had collected at one side. His hands had not been badly burned by putting out his self-made fire, but he plunged them into the soothing snow until all the feeling of heat had been drawn away from his palms, and then plastered more of it on the tingling skin of his chest, where the flames had come too close for comfort.

That done, Anvar looked out from his prison, but the storms had closed in once more, and he could see nothing beyond the opening but dark gray clouds and thick, slanting curtains of snow. How far it was to the ground, he had no idea, but one thing was certain—if they had imprisoned him here, it must be too bloody far! At any rate, nothing could be done until he could see. Sighing bitterly, Anvar crept back into his prison—-and found that it was better provisioned than he had expected.

Blacktalon, obviously, had sent messengers on ahead, In one corner stood two great crocks of water, and a generous basket of food. Beyond them, stacked along the far wall of the cave, was a large pile of firewood and kindling. Very carefully, with the memory of his recent mishap all too clear in his mind, Anvar lost no time in lighting a fire. It took a little trial and error with a smoking brand to find the best spot for a blaze, where the swirling draft from the entrance would blow the smoke out of the cave, without freezing the Mage to death in the process. After a time, he found the ideal place, where the left-hand wall of the cavern jutted out in a sloping spur, about half his height at its highest point. Behind this outcrop was a sheltered corner, where the smoke from his fire would blow over the top of the spur and out. Anvar was cheered by the fire—the saffron flames brightened the gloom within the cavern, and the crackle and snap of the burning logs helped to cover the screeching, nerve-grating plaint of the hideous edifice on the peak. The fire danced and talked and needed to be fed—it seemed a living thing, and company. Nonetheless, despite the fire, it was still bitterly cold within the cavern. Anvar wondered, for a time, why his enemies should go to all this trouble just to freeze him to death—until a more detailed exploration of his cavern provided the answer, an answer that froze his blood with horror.

Not far from the food, in a shadowy corner at the back of the cave, lay a thick pile of dark-furred animal skins, overlooked until the flames had thrown them into light. Anvar, much relieved, went quickly across to take one—and snatched his hand back with a vile and livid oath. How well he knew that fur—its depth and thickness and heavy, silky feel! Those bloodthirsty freaks expected him to wrap himself in the pelts of Shia’s people!

“Murderers!.” he howled. He struck his fist against the cavern wall. “I’d rather freeze! I’d rather freeze to death a thousand times over, than to wear the hides of these slaughtered folk!” Anvar thought of Shia, of her loyalty and courage; her understanding and her sharp, wry humor; the lithe and graceful beauty of her sleek, steel-muscled form; the glory of her glowing golden eyes . . . Shia with her fund of calm common sense, who would have been the first to tell him to be practical: to save his own life. He had no other choice.

Anvar steeled himself to place one of the furs around his shoulders, though his skin cringed away from its touch as though it were still steeped in blood, and its weight on his back was his own burden of guilt for profiting from the poor creature’s death. Had this been Shia’s friend? Her mate—her child? With a shudder, he forced the thought away from him. The poor cat was dead, as were its companions. His sacrifice could do nothing to bring it back to life, and he had to survive. Somehow, he had to find a way to escape this prison and go back to help Aurian. And if in doing so, he could strike a blow at the ones who had committed this atrocity, then by the Gods, he would at least avenge these cats who, by their death, had saved his life!

Anvar hid his face in his hands, fighting back tears. He had been unable, until then, to think of Aurian—the agony of losing her had been so unbearable that his mind had shied away from the pain. The memory of Shia, and the pitiful remnants of her poor murdered kin, had served to trigger all his grief at last—but survival was still the stronger imperative. His dying of cold and hunger in this accursed cave would not help Aurian. Anvar wiped his face on his sleeve, in an unconscious echo of his lost love, and got up to heap more wood on his guttering fire. By now, the Mage felt dizzy and sick with hunger and thirst. He found a cup beside the water jars and drank deeply, filling the cup again and again, before dragging his basket to the fire and rummaging through its contents. He found flat cakes of moist heavy bread, plainly not made from grain. But of course no grain would grow up here. Perhaps it was some kind of tuber, Anvar thought, as he wolfed it down. Nereni had experimented with similar foodstuffs in the forest. There were chunks of roast goat, and the meat of some enormous fowl that had been delicately spiced and smoked. No greens or fruit, but if Raven had spoken the truth, Aerillia had been in winter’s grip too long for such luxuries. At the bottom of the basket, Anvar round strong goat’s cheese, and best of all, a flask of thin red wine. When it came to it, the Mage could summon little appetite. His throat was dry and aching and his stomach churned, but he warmed the sharp wine with a little water in the metal cup, and drank it all. Then, heaping wood on his fire, he made a nest of catskins in his sheltered corner, and curled up in them. Though he was hot and shivering with fever, Anvar fell asleep in a surprisingly short time, clutching the thought or Aurian to his heart like a talisman.