Harp of Winds

26 A New Day Dawning

Aurian leaned against the icy stone balustrade of the landing porch, watching the sky grow pale in the east. In the bleak dawn twilight, the city of Aerillia looked alien and mysterious, with its buttresses, and carvings both grotesque and beautiful; its lacework arches that pierced the stone at random; its spires and hanging turrets; and its utter lack of streets or any structure that was regular or level, and would give it a sense of order to the human eye. The Mage pushed back the hood of her cloak and shivered, letting the icy dawn wind cut through the cobwebs of fatigue in her mind. She was trying desperately to think of some way of reaching Anvar in time to help him—if it wasn’t already too late. If her fellow Mage was already beyond the confines of the mundane world, she would not know if he died there. Wretchedly, Aurian dropped her head onto her outstretched arms. “Damn you, Anvar,” she sighed. “Why did you have to go and do this, just when I had finally admitted to myself that I loved you?”

Aurian felt helpless and frustrated. Chiamh’s words had filled her with dismay and dread, for without the Staff of Earth, she could not pass into the realms of the High Magic, to go to Anvar’s aid. And mixed with the dreadful, clutching fear she felt for the Mage’s safety, there was an even deeper terror. If the Staff of Earth should be lost, she had nothing left to fight with. No matter what she did, Miathan would have won already.

The Mage blinked in the brightening light, and tried to tell herself that the blurring of her vision was just tiredness, and not tears, Suddenly, Aurian froze, narrowing her eyes against the dazzling dawnlight. That was not the light of the sun! It was brighter, more colorful. Great spars of jeweled light leapt skyward like an aurora. It was coming from the wrong direction: not east, but northeast—from the ruins of the temple!

With a stifled curse, Aurian whirled, shouting for the Winged Folk that Elster had provided to be bearers and messengers for the unwinged visitors in their lofty, inaccessible tower. “Hurry,” she cried, as they emerged from their chamber rubbing sleepy eyes, “Bring your nets! I must get to the temple at once!”

The interior of the Cailleach’s massive tree was dark even beyond the compass of a Mage’s night vision. Anvar groped in panic for the door, to let some light into the chamber, but flail though he might through the cloying darkness, his seeking hands met only empty air. With a muttered curse, the Mage poured his powers into the Staff of Earth. The gem between the Serpents’ jaws flared into life, sending shadows fleeing from its emerald blaze. But its magic did not belong within this timeless world. Some other will opposed it: a power much older than the Staff, and far, far stronger. The great gem flickered, its radiance sinking to a wan, sickly, firefly spark.

Before Anvar had even had time to take note of his surroundings, the darkness crowded round him once again—all except for one pale slip of light at the edge of his vision.

The Mage turned, frowning. What was that? As his eyes fell on it, the phantom glimmer brightened and expanded, the slender bar of light widening like a casement being slowly opened from another world. Anvar stiffened. Was this another of the Lady’s tricks? The line of light writhed, becoming curved and fluid, transforming into a succession of familiar shapes; a swan, a crown, a rose, a leaping salmon. And finally, a harp.

The light flared to incandescent brilliance, leaping out in a thick, dazzling, opalescent beam that fixed upon the Mage like a pointing forefinger. Anvar gave a wordless cry of rapture. The unearthly song of the star music flooded his mind as the power of Gramarye coursed through his body, consuming him, turning his racing blood to molten fire. Not even when he’d wielded the Staff had he known such glory! A sense of Tightness, of belonging, washed over him from some external source, and was echoed in his heart as he accepted the power of the Harp, and the Artifact claimed him for its own.

With a wrenching snap like a whiplash across his soul, the light shut off abruptly. It was as though his heart had been torn out of his breast. Anvar, dazed and bereft and tingling from the aftershock of so much power, came back to his senses with a jolt. He still did not possess the actual Harp, Even though it had claimed him, it was not yet his to wield, And where, in all this time, was his enemy? Had he destroyed her with the Staff? Anvar doubted it. No doubt she was somewhere nearby, recouping her powers—and when she returned, he had better be ready.

“I will unseal your eyes,” whispered the starry voice of the Harp. The dazzling afterimages of the beam cleared from the Mage’s sight. Anvar, blinking, saw a vast, circular chamber that encompassed the interior of the tree trunk. He perceived the walls with a different vision now. No longer that silvery amalgam of wood and stone, they were translucent, like sunlight shining through a shell. Within, he saw the pulse of the tree’s life moving up, in slender, nacreous streams, through channels in the trunk. And there, on the opposite wall from where he stood, he saw the silver outline of a harp. It glittered dimly, as though submerged within the wood like a salmon beneath the surface of a river. Anvar’s heart leapt. Running across the chamber, he thrust the Staff into his belt and pressed his hands against the wall, feeling for the outline of the Harp. To his utter astonishment, his fingers sank into the wood, as easily as slipping into water. The song of the Harp swelled to a crescendo in Anvar’s mind, “Free me,” it sang. “You must free me . , .”

The Mage took a steadying breath, and plunged his fingers deep into the tree. His hands closed on an irregular shape, and his fingers felt the smooth swirling outlines of carvings. A paean of joyful starsong flooded Anvar’s mind as he lifted the Harp free from its prison and held it aloft in triumph.

The Mage could not take his eyes from the Artifact. He was spellbound and awestruck by such beauty. The Harp was formed, not from wood, but from some strange, translucent crystalline substance that glittered like diamond in the fire of its own internal light. Carved around the frame was an endless, ever-changing series of winged shapes: birds of many different species from lowly wrens and sparrows to great, majestic eagles and swans. Turning the frame in his hands, Anvar saw owls, bats, glittering moths, and iridescent dragonflies. His fingers passed, not without a shudder, the tiny shape of a winged woman. All creatures of the air paced the Harp of Winds, framed in fluid swirls of silver that seemed to be the very wind incarnate. In all his life, Anvar had never seen anything so perfect. Except for one thing. The glittering frame bounded naught but empty space.

“Oh gods—where are the strings?” In his dismay, Anvar did not realize that he had uttered the words aloud. A cackling laugh came from behind him, and the Mage whirled in alarm.

The Lady of the Mists stood there, her face young and flawless, her hair frost-white against the blackness of her feathered cloak. “Did you really think it would be so easy, Wizard?” she mocked him. “Just reach into the tree and take it? Why, any idiot might have done the same!”

“I think not,” Anvar retorted coldly. “Not without the Harp’s consent.” He detected a gleam of approval in the Cailleach’s eyes.

“As I remarked earlier, you are a most perceptive Wizard,” the Lady answered, “and an honorable opponent. I would have you know I do not fight you willingly—but I am charged to protect the Harp, and that I must do. Only one who is truly worthy may win it, for it is a perilous thing indeed to be returned to the mundane world.”

“And?” Anvar’s reply was a challenge.

The Lady smiled. “So far, you have succeeded in your first two tests. You overcame the succubus, and then won the Harp’s acceptance so that you could free it. Believe me, Anvar, had the Harp not willed it otherwise, you would have died in agony the instant you put your hand into the tree. Now, like the Staff of Earth, the Harp of Winds must be re-created. You hold the frame, Wizard—with what would you string this Artifact of the High Magic?”

The Harp was no help. In the back of his mind, it sang: “You must complete me—make me whole once more.”

“How?” asked Anvar.

A shimmering sigh came from the Harp. “I may not tell.”

Anvar looked at the Cailleach, aghast. He knew in his heart that she spoke the truth. He had known it all along. But how to accomplish his task, and win the Harp? Remembering Aurian’s tale of her encounter with the dragon, he asked:

“May I ask questions?”

“No,” the Lady said. “You may not.”

“Then give me time to think.” But for all the churning of Anvar’s restless mind, he could come up with nothing. This was ridiculous, he thought. When Aurian had described her ordeal, it had sounded so much easier than his own!

“Why not give it up?” The Cailleach interrupted his train of thought. “Stay here, instead, and be my love. I can be any woman—all women ...”

Before Anvar’s eyes, she began to change, her flawless features altering, her hair changing color, time after time . . . With a pang like the twinge of an old wound, Anvar saw Sara. He saw Eliseth’s cold and perfect beauty, and saw his mother as Ria must have been in her youth . . . The succession of women went on and on, each more beautiful than the last. Angrily, Anvar turned away. “Stop doing that!” he snapped. “Fair you might be, Lady, but I have no interest in remaining here with you. My heart is already given—elsewhere.”

“Indeed?” the Lady said silkily. “From what I gleaned of your thoughts as you approached the Timeless Lake, your loved one’s heart is also given—and not to you.”

“That’s a lie!” Anvar cried. “She needs time, that’s all!”

“How much time? A month? A year? Forever? Your Lady is intractable, Anvar, and grief has turned her fey. Can you be certain she will ever betray the memory of her dead lover? And with the one who, indirectly, caused his death?”

The power of the Cailleach’s voice was insidious. Her moonstone eyes held the Mage’s gaze, hypnotic and glittering as a serpent’s stare. He wanted to protest—to deny what she was saying, but he could frame no words, for she had touched with cruel precision on the dark core of doubts in the depths of Anvar’s soul.

“Why risk it, Anvar? Why take such a chance, when I can be everything that Aurian is—and more!” As the Cailleach spoke, she was changing form again—and the Mage found his beloved standing before him. Aurian, as she had been long ago in Nexis, before hardship had made her haggard, and grief and her desire for vengeance had put that steeliness into her gaze. Instead, Anvar found her looking at him—him with an expression in her eyes that had always been reserved for Forral. Anvar tightened his fingers around the frame of the Harp, to stop his hands from shaking. Aurian took a step forward, her arms outstretched to embrace him. “My dearest love ...” she breathed.

“. . . As long as I have you, I have hope.” As the Mage’s last true words to him echoed in Anvar’s mind, the Cailleach’s spell was abruptly broken.

“Get away from me,” snarled the Mage. “What need have I for a shallow substitute, when I have my Lady’s love in reality?”

In a blinding flash, the vision of Aurian vanished. The Cailleach stood before him in the form of an old woman—and to Anvar’s utter amazement, she was smiling. No longer the seductress, no longer a mighty figure of awe and majesty, she looked like a wise and kindly grandmother. “Wizard, you have passed the test,” she said softly. “Indeed you are worthy of the Harp—for only someone with a loving, faithful heart could be trusted to take such power out into the world once more.”

Taking a silver knife from her belt, the Lady of the Mists cut off a lock of her long hair. Reaching out to the Harp, still clutched in the startled Mage’s grasp, she passed her hand across the glittering Artifact, The snowy lock vanished, transformed into a waterfall of silver strings that bridged the crystal frame. Power blazed up within Anvar, as his mind was flooded with joyful star-song. Green light blazed up from the Staff of Earth in his belt, to join the silver incandescence of the Harp. The Lady raised her hand in farewell ...

And Anvar found himself standing on a snowy mountaintop, looking at the sun rising over the city of Aerillia, One last message from the Cailleach echoed in his mind—and in his hands was the Harp of Winds.

The Skyfolk bearers were terrified of the growing blaze of incandescence within the shell of the temple. Only the fact that they were even more afraid of Aurian, made them take her there at all. They dropped her, net and all, into the midst of the ruined building, and fled as if for their very lives.

The Mage released herself from the meshes of the net, and began to pick her way across the stretch of rubble and shattered stone toward the source of the unearthly light. Her sword—her dear, familiar Coronach, which she had recovered safely from the Tower of Incondor, was in her hand, but she found herself desperately missing the reassuring power of the Staff of Earth. She had no idea what lay behind the flaring knot of rainbow brilliance—but for certain, it would be beyond the scope of any human weapon. But despite the fear that set her heart racing, Aurian went on into the heart of the blaze, irresistibly drawn, like a moth to a candle.

As the Mage walked forward, the scintillating radiance began to shrink and coalesce to form a human shape, clad all in blinding light, A long-limbed, rangy, heartbreakingly familiar figure ...

“Anvar!” Aurian cried. Then she was running forward, ignoring the stones that tilted perilously beneath her feet, her heart flying ahead of her across the intervening space. Then they were embracing, both of them laughing and crying and trying to talk all at once,

“I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Thank the gods you’re safe!”

“Is the child all right?”

“Where have you been?”

As their words tripped over one another, both of them started laughing again, clinging to one another as they rocked with the slightly hysterical mirth that stemmed from pure relief, Aurian dashed away happy tears, and looked into Anvar’s face. His blue eyes connected with her own like a flare of lightning, and Aurian trembled, half amazed by her own longing. “My dearest love ...” she breathed,

Anvar pulled her toward him, and as his lips touched her own, she felt the sudden flash fire of desire spark between them—that same explosive, powerful surge of love and longing that she had used unknowing, so long ago, to release Anvar from the clutches of Death in the slave pens of the Khazalim. And, just as it had happened then, their very souls seemed to touch—to meet and meld, as Aurian felt Anvar’s joy, and her own, commingling to lift them both on the brightest of wings . . .

Aurian gasped. No one had ever told her it would be like this between Magefolk! Having formerly had a Mortal lover, she had never known that this deep, intense linkage of hearts and minds and emotions existed. The Mage felt Anvar’s amazed delight in her mind, matching and augmenting her own dizzy joy. His mouth fastened on hers with a greed that matched her own as his hand explored her face and body, kindling a desire she had missed so long. They never noticed the sharpness of the stones as they sank to the ground, their cloaks their only shelter. And there, in the remains of the Temple of Yinze, in the ruins of an evil priest’s dream, Anvar and Aurian fulfilled at last a love that had started with the seeds of need and mutual dependence, and taken them halfway across the world, through friendship, into passion.

By the time they were ready to notice anything beyond each other, the sun was already high enough to peep over the shattered walls and into the ruined temple. Anvar sighed contentedly and reached over to brush a wayward curl from Aurian’s glowing cheek. “You were well worth waiting for,” he murmured softly into her ear.

Aurian grinned wickedly, “Suddenly, I can’t imagine why I made you wait so long!”

“You weren’t ready, my love,” Anvar said seriously-then he grinned back at her. “Apart, of course, from being the most irritating, stubborn, contrary wretch—”

“Well, of all the nerve!” Aurian spluttered—but he stilled her protest with a kiss.

“What happened to the child?” he asked her, when they could breathe again.

For an instant, Aurian’s expression clouded—then she lifted her chin determinedly.

“He’s beautiful,” she said firmly. “And he’ll be all right, I know he will, just as soon as we work out a way to get Miathan’s curse lifted.”

Anvar listened, with increasing sadness and concern, as Aurian told him about Wolf. He was about to reply, when:

“Welcome back, Anvar!” The voice in his mind came from Shia, of course, and Aurian’s wry smile told him that she was listening, too. “Aurian—I should warn you that they have started to look for you,” the great cat went on, and then her voice grew smug. “Otherwise, of course, I should never have dreamed of interrupting you—”

“You were listening!” Anvar felt his face growing warm, and looking across at Aurian, he saw her blushing, too.

“One could hardly help but hear you,” Shia snorted. “I would say that your emotions were broadcasting clear to the lands of the Xandim!” Her mental voice grew softer as she stopped teasing them, “I am so very happy for you both. Unfortunately, the world will not wait for you. Raven wants to talk—”

“All right, we’re coming,” Aurian sighed resignedly. “That is, as soon as we can flag down some Winged Polk to bring us across,” She rolled over, and swore, “Ouch! What on earth am I lying on?”

“Oh gods,” yelped Anvar in dismay, “It went right out of my mind. The Harp, Aurian! I have the Harp of Winds!”

“What?” Aurian yelled. “Why the bloody blazes didn’t you tell me before?”

Anvar grinned, “Well, I was somewhat distracted before . . . Here, let’s get some clothes on before we freeze, and I’ll show it to you.

“First things first,” Anvar returned the Staff of Earth to Aurian with a flourish, “I believe this belongs to you, Lady.”

Aurian’s expression of joy and relief as she took the Staff made Anvar smile. Then he held out the Harp to her, and her eyes went wide with wonder as she beheld its shimmering beauty.

“Oh, Anvar , . .”

Aurian reached out to take the Harp of Winds—and as she did so, Anvar was seized with a strange and powerful reluctance to let the Artifact out of his hands. The Harp too seemed to object to a change of ownership. Jangling vibrations ran through Anvar’s body as it thrummed discordantly. “No . . .” it sang to him. “No!” Almost of its own volition, it seemed to jerk away from Aurian’s outstretched hands, and Anvar went rigid with alarm as he saw her frown. A shadow seemed to fall between them . . . Then Aurian relaxed, and shook her head with a wry grimace. Once, more they stood in sunlight, and Anvar breathed again.

“Well, it certainly knows what it wants—and that doesn’t seem to be me,” said Aurian ruefully. “How daft of me—I should have known. Everything fits, Anvar. You won the Harp, just as I won the Staff—and frankly, of the two of us, you’re the musician.” She took a deep breath. “It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.”

Anvar was amazed and humbled by such generosity of spirit. “But you were supposed to find the Artifacts,” he protested. Aurian shook her head, “No one ever said that, neither the Dragon nor the Leviathan. They just said that all three were needed. The Dragon did say that the Sword would be mine, but as for the others . . . Anvar, I’m truly glad you have the Harp. After what we’ve just shared, I couldn’t bear to think of the Artifacts coming between us,”

Anvar hugged her—gods, it seemed that he couldn’t get enough of touching her. “You’ll be able to use the Harp, if need be,” he promised, “I’ll make it behave—it’s just that it’s new to me yet.”

Aurian nodded gravely. “I know just what you mean. When I think of the struggle I had to master the Staff at first . . ,”

She sighed. “And speaking of struggles, it’s time we were moving. We need to have matters out with Raven, then I must get back to Wolf. And if we can enlist the help of the Xandim ...” She hesitated, her green eyes seeming to look far off into the distance.

“Then what?” Anvar prompted gently.

Aurian’s expression grew hard. “Then we go back north, to Nexis—and deal with Miathan once and for all—and Eliseth.” She shivered. “Gods, I’m so sick and tired of this endless winter of hers.”

Suddenly, Anvar had a wonderful idea. He was so brimful of wonder, and joy, at Aurian having accepted their love at last, that he wanted to give her something—some great, and wonderful, and special gift ... He turned to the Mage and grinned. “Your wish,” he said cheerfully, “is my command.” And lifting the Harp of Winds, he began to play. The wild, unearthly starsong of the Harp swirled forth, as the power of the High Magic pulsed through Anvar and went spiraling out into the world. High on the roof of the world, the snow of Eliseth’s winter began to melt, and the thaw spread out and out, across the territory of the cats and the lands of the Xandim. In the Jeweled Desert, the lethal, raging sandstorms faltered, and gem dust fell to earth like pattering rain. Warm winds alive with shimmering music spread across the ocean, as spring, at Anvar’s behest, came to the north-lands at last.

As Aurian realized what Anvar was doing, a slow smile spread across her face. For an instant, she remembered the filthy, beaten, cowering servant she had rescued so long ago, and she thought her heart would burst with love and pride. And she too wanted to give him a token of her love.

Putting a hand on Anvar’s shoulder as he played, Aurian summoned the powers of the Staff of Earth, and placed its heel upon the ground. And as its emerald radiance blazed forth, the mountains and the lands beyond grew green. Trees burst into leaf and blossom, and flowers sprang up beneath them, cloaking the earth in vibrant hues as chains of sorrowing winter fell away, and the land, like her heart, was reborn.

Aurian’s mind was awhirl with exultation. She grinned, imagining the wrath of the Archmage. Though much remained to be done, at last, at long last, she and Anvar had struck the first real blow against Miathan,

And far away to the north, in a high tower in the city of Nexis, Eliseth trembled.