Heritage Of The Xandim

4

THE FIRST STEP

At first, Tiolani could barely grasp the fact that Hellorin’s mantle had landed on her shoulders. Though the Forest Lord’s life had been preserved by her swift actions, he had been hovering on the threshold of death when the Phaerie brought him home. Two cadres of skilled healers had been forced to work on him in tandem; one holding him to life while the others fought to repair the horrific damage that the arrows had wreaked deep within his body. Because any one of Hellorin’s injuries would have been enough to kill him, the healers could only work very slowly, and it took so much power to maintain his hold on life, and so much concentration to perform the difficult, delicate and extensive amounts of healing, that the process would be extremely protracted - at least so Tiolani had been told. And in the meantime, due to Arvain’s death, the reins of power had been thrust into her unready hands.

Tiolani’s grief at the loss of her brother was so acute that she simply wanted to crawl into bed, pull the bedclothes over her head and never get up again. What did she care for power? What did she care that the realm of the Phaerie needed a ruler? She didn’t give a damn for the Phaerie. Arvain was dead, her father could be dying, and nothing else mattered.

It took the Hunt to change her mind. Nothing could bring back her brother, but at least she could avenge his death, and she gained a little surcease at the thought of making the accursed feral humans of the forest suffer as he had suffered. Even on the first night following the ambush, with Hellorin hovering on the brink of death and Arvain not yet sent to his rest, she ordered the Wild Hunt out again, though she herself had kept to her chamber all day, seeing no one but Varna; she had no plans to leave it any time soon, not even to ride out in the cause of revenge. Unfortunately, she had forgotten one important detail. Though she had demanded to be left alone, Varna brought someone to see her: Darillan, Gwylan’s former apprentice, now promoted to Huntsman. Taking in his flustered expression, Tiolani realised that he looked about as ready for his new responsibilities as she was for hers, and that small insight of fellow feeling was enough to prevent her from sending him away.

Darillan bowed low. ‘Lady Tiolani, I beg pardon for intruding on your grief like this, but if the Hunt is to ride out tonight as you instructed, then we must have your help.’

‘Why me?’ Tiolani replied listlessly. ‘Whatever it is, get someone else to do it.’

‘But, Lady, you are the only one who can do it.’ Darillan looked agitated. ‘Without the flying magic the Hunt cannot ride out, and the spell can only be performed by one of the Forest Lord’s line.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment, Tiolani could think of nothing more intelligent to say. Embarrassment made her as flustered as the young Huntsman himself. How could she have forgotten such a detail? What a fool she must look. Then dismay overwhelmed her embarrassment. She had never attempted the flying magic before. There had been no reason. She had only accomplished her first Hunt the previous day. Whenever possible, Hellorin had performed the spell himself, and if he could not be present, Arvain had been there to take his place. And though her brother had explained to her how the magic was done, she’d never had the chance to try it for herself. Well, she would get her chance now, and she’d better do it right. If she failed, there was no one else who could work the magic, and if Hellorin did not recover, the Wild Hunt would be finished. For a panic-stricken moment she had thought of putting off the entire business until she felt better able to cope, but the craving for revenge was too strong. ‘Very well,’ she said to Darillan. ‘I’ll come at once.’

Then another idea occurred to her. If she had to face the Phaerie courtiers in any case, she might as well ride out with the Hunt, and wreak some vengeance on the humans in person. She called back the Huntsman, who was already on his way out of the door. ‘Wait, Darillan. I’ve decided to join the Hunt tonight after all. I’ll just need a few minutes to change clothes. Send a message to Aelwen immediately, and have her get Asharal ready. You can tell the others I’ll be with them shortly.’ With that, she turned to her lady-in-waiting, who had been hovering warily by the door. ‘Varna, tell the maid I’ll need my riding clothes immediately.’

When Tiolani emerged from the palace, she found that the number of hunters in the courtyard was seriously depleted. Some, it was true, had been killed or wounded the previous night, but it was patently clear that the heart had gone out of Hellorin’s Wild Hunt. Many had been deeply shaken by the ambush, and many more were downright afraid to enter the forest again. No one had ever expected the prey to fight back. Those who had joined the Hunt this evening consisted mainly of those who, like herself, had lost loved ones in the ambush, and were riding out for revenge. There was no pomp and splendour tonight; no gaiety or chatter or brightly coloured clothes, for all the Phaerie were in mourning. This sombre band of riders, all that remained of the Wild Hunt, were there for one reason only: to kill as many humans as they could find.

As she walked down the steps into the courtyard, Tiolani could feel every eye upon her. For a moment her courage failed her, but she knew that if she retreated now, she would never have the courage to try again. While she’d been dressing she had hastily run through all the details of the spell in her mind, and she could only hope that she remembered everything correctly.

Praying that her nervousness did not show, Tiolani walked across the courtyard with her head held high. When she approached Asharal, he was plunging and sidestepping, despite the best efforts of Aelwen who held him, her brows together and her lips pressed tight in an expression of profound disapproval. Tiolani met her eye coldly, daring her to comment and refusing to feel guilty. Her father may have forbidden her to hunt with her new horse, but Hellorin wasn’t here now, and it was up to her to make her own decisions. Without a word to the Horsemistress, she mounted and rode into the centre of the courtyard, her stomach churning. ‘Are you ready, Darillan?’ she called.

‘I’m ready, Lady Tiolani.’

With a sweep of her arm she included all of the hunters in the courtyard. ‘Then let’s ride!’

Tiolani took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the spell. It wasn’t easy when she was the focus of every eye in the place. To make matters worse, Asharal was shifting and fidgeting beneath her, interrupting her train of thought every time she tried to gather her will. Tiolani knew an instant of doubt. Had it been a mistake after all, to ride the excitable young horse? Had Aelwen been right? The very idea of having to admit to the Horsemistress that she had been wrong was enough to sting her into action. Aelwen didn’t know everything. Sharply, she pulled Asharal back under control, holding him in tightly, and reining in her wandering concentration at the same time.

Reaching deep inside, she focused on the elements of the conjuration, building an image in her mind of the Wild Hunt climbing up through the air and riding the skies over the forest. The more detailed and vivid her image, she knew, the stronger the magic would be. Once she had it clear in her mind, she drew on the Old Magic and accessed the elemental powers of Air, letting the forces build up and up within her. When she felt that the magic was strong enough, she poured it into her image of the Hunt in flight, and then let it go, feeling it flowing out through her fingers to cover the riders, their horses and the hounds.

She did her best with the spell, though she knew it wasn’t the same as her father’s flamboyant magic. Lacking the glittering splendour of Hellorin’s conjuration, Tiolani’s effort only summoned a sickly greenish luminescence that gave the Wild Hunt a grim spectral appearance. Good enough, she decided. It matched her mood entirely. When she took off, followed by Darillan and the pack, then the rest of the Hunt, the horses lumbered into the air with some effort. Nevertheless, she had done it, and she would certainly improve with time. Tiolani felt a warm glow of triumph within her. At least she had made a start on fulfilling her new responsibilities. For a moment she thought of Hellorin, who still lay on the brink of death with the healers doing their utmost to keep him alive, and her resolve hardened. She wouldn’t let him down. She would take the best possible care of his realm, and in doing so she would honour the memory and avenge the death of the brother who was no longer there to take his rightful place.

The Hunt was a bloodbath. This time, Darillan took his hounds to the south-eastern reaches of the forest, where the scouts had previously spotted signs of another band of ferals. These were wild humans bred for the Hunt and, though they were more primitive and less intelligent than their slave counterparts, they were much more crafty and wise in the ways of the forest than the escaped slaves. Nevertheless, it didn’t take the hounds long to track them down.

Tiolani was not the only one out for revenge that night. There was no suggestion of capturing any of the prey alive, and every member of the Wild Hunt set about the killing with grim purpose. In the ensuing carnage she acquitted herself well, not only managing to control her difficult horse through sheer force of will, but also bringing down a number of mortals on her own account, slaying them with both sword and bow. Men, women and even children - it made no difference to her. The crunch of bone, the spurting blood and the cries of agony and terror all served to assuage her grief a little, and by the time there was nothing left of the human colony but piles of slaughtered corpses on the blood-soaked forest floor, she felt calmer and more at peace than she had done since her father’s fall and Arvain’s death.

She rode home with the gore cooling on her body. It reddened her arms and chest, and covered her face in a stiff, stinking mask, plastering her hair down to her skull. Tiolani smiled grimly to herself. She had waded in so much human blood that night that it had soaked her garments - and it felt wonderful. And she had only just started. She knew that now. For killing her brother, she would visit death upon the humans a thousandfold.

Tiolani had been in control while she was out with the Hunt and there was killing to be done. When she returned to Eliorand, however, all her fears and worries surfaced once again, and her grief returned with overwhelming force. She realised, then, that there would be nothing for it but to ride out with the Hunt each night like a driven creature, for only in the killing could she forget her troubles for a while. It would be much more difficult, however, to get through the days, with so much to learn about ruling, the additional burden of new responsibilities, and long, wretched hours spent sitting by Hellorin’s bed, talking to her father in the hope that one day he would open his eyes and respond to her. And how could she face day after day of this grief? The Phaerie were unaccustomed to the death of their own, for it happened so seldom. How could she bear the loss of her beloved Arvain? Things might have gone ill for her indeed, save for the discovery that she was not alone in her sorrow.

Ferimon had been her brother’s best friend, and the object of Tiolani’s girlhood dreams and fantasies for several years. Unfortunately, Arvain had discovered her infatuation for the handsome blond courtier, and his merciless teasing had eventually been enough to put her off the whole idea. She could never be sure that he hadn’t told his companion about her feelings, and the idea of them laughing behind her back made her want to die of humiliation. Ever since then she had avoided Ferimon, just in case. Her pride would never allow her to risk putting herself in such an embarrassing position. Doing without him had been difficult at first, but as time went by she had tried to avoid his company, and if she still looked for him around every corner - well, only she would ever know.

In her own grief following her brother’s death, she forgot how deeply Ferimon would also be affected, until he came to her two days after Arvain had been sent to his rest. The funeral had been very hard on Tiolani. Robed in red, the colour of death and mourning among the Phaerie, she had led the procession of mourners out from the palace to the massive amphitheatre, its basis a natural hollow in the land, which had been constructed on the northern side of the hill, facing the fertile vale of the Phaerie heartlands and the soaring peaks beyond. There her brother’s body was incinerated in a single flash of magic, and the remains taken aloft on horseback to be broadcast to the winds. As Arvain’s sister, it had been her duty to perform the ceremony and scatter the ashes, riding aloft over Eliorand with an honour-guard of Phaerie in the sky behind her.

It was the most terrible thing Tiolani had ever been obliged to do, but somehow, for the sake of her brother, she had managed at least to maintain the appearance of being strong and brave throughout the proceedings, though she had not been able to eat a single morsel of the feast afterwards, and had only choked down a cup of strong wine, in a toast to Arvain’s memory. Though she had gone through the day with jaws clenched and her hands knotted into white-knuckled fists, at least she had comported herself with dignity right to the very end, but when she finally regained the sanctuary of her chambers, she collapsed on the bed as though she had been clubbed, and made herself so ill with weeping that Varna had been forced to send for the physicians.

Ferimon was her first visitor after the funeral. At the time, she had no wish to see him or anyone else, but Varna nagged and nagged until she’d persuaded Tiolani that she couldn’t shut herself away forever - and besides, how could she refuse her brother’s best friend? When he arrived, she was sitting in the window embrasure, looking out at the city and the forest beyond as they slowly faded in the gathering dusk. It was as though all the colour had been leached out of the world, leaving only stark black, chill white and sombre shades of grey. Snow had begun to fall thickly out of a bleak sky and was already lying on the iron-hard ground, the roofs of the buildings and the skeletal branches of the trees.

The evening was a perfect foil for Tiolani’s mood. Everything seemed desolate and dead, as though the whole of nature shared her loss of Arvain. Ferimon’s appearance, however, was enough to jolt her out of her preoccupation. One look at his face told her that she was not the only one who had suffered deeply over her brother’s death. At least she’d had Varna to take care of her while she had been laid low by grief, but she could see at a glance that Ferimon had allowed no one near him since Arvain’s funeral rites. He was still wearing the same red robes, now wrinkled and stained, and his normally immaculate blond curls were matted and uncombed. By the looks of the deep, black hollows beneath his tear-swollen eyes, he hadn’t slept, and judging from his white, drawn face and his shaking hands, she suspected that he hadn’t eaten, either.

Tiolani’s heart went out to him. She had barely tasted food herself since she had sent Arvain to his rest, but Varna had managed to coax the odd morsel into her despite her resistance. (She guiltily glanced at the scars on her door and the stains on the blue carpet, mute evidence of the bowl of soup she had thrown at her lady-in-waiting the previous day.) Stoically, Varna had borne the brunt of her anger at the unfairness of it all; had bathed her sore red eyes with cold water; had brushed her hair and, only that morning, had coaxed, badgered and finally ordered her into a bath and some clean, fresh clothes. And though, at the time, Tiolani had wished her a million miles away, she now felt a rush of gratitude towards her patient companion. Without Varna and her pestering, she, too, would have been in the same dreadful state as Ferimon.

Varna hadn’t managed to improve Tiolani’s manners, however. With a stab of remorse, she realised that Ferimon was still kneeling in front of her, waiting, as protocol demanded, for his ruler to speak first. She summoned him to sit with her in the window embrasure, and poured him a goblet of wine. ‘My dear Ferimon,’ she began, ‘please forgive my abstraction. These last few days have been difficult for us all, but as my brother’s best friend, you deserve better from me. What can I do for you?’

‘My thanks for your courtesy, Lady Tiolani,’ he replied, ‘but in truth, I came to do something for you. On the day before your first Wild Hunt, Arvain asked me to perform an errand for him. He had commissioned a special gift for you to mark the occasion, and he asked me to go down into the city and collect it for him, as he was busy with your father, and had no time to go himself.’ In a shaking voice he went on: ‘He died before I had a chance to give it to him. Please forgive me for not bringing it to you sooner, but my own grief . . .’ He swallowed hard and began again. ‘Arvain would be angry if he knew how long I had delayed. I know how much he wanted you to have this.’

He handed her a small golden box with her name inlaid on the lid in tiny, coloured gems. ‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Your pardon, Lady, but the box itself is not the gift. Look inside.’

With fumbling fingers, she found the catch and opened the little box. Inside, nestling on a bed of white velvet, was a single pale-green gem cut in the shape of a faceted teardrop that hung from a simple chain of white gold. Tiolani’s eyes blurred with tears. ‘It’s perfect,’ she whispered.

Ferimon nodded. ‘How like Arvain, to find exactly the right thing. He loved you very deeply.’ Now both of them were weeping. Afterwards, Tiolani never remembered how they came to be sharing an embrace - it seemed to flow naturally out of their mutual grief and love for her brother. Certainly, at that point, they were simply comforting one another, and when the comforting turned into something deeper, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. And as Ferimon swept her up in his arms and carried her away from her cold window embrasure and into the glowing warmth of the lamplit bedchamber, she suddenly found her grief a little easier to bear.

Firmly, Tiolani pushed away the thought of her father’s disapproval. He need never know. How could he? Frozen outside time, stranded in unconsciousness as he was, he might as well be in another world. Wrapped in Ferimon’s embrace, she was unaware of just how close she had come to the truth. A mortal, or even a Wizard taken out of time as Hellorin had been, would truly be lost in oblivion. For a Phaerie with the Forest Lord’s vast powers, there was another option.

When Hellorin fell, the last thing in his darkening vision had been the face of his dead son. When he opened his eyes again, Arvain’s features were still before him. Seared into his memory, they seemed to fill his world as far as the horizon. Grief and pain struck at him like cold serpents, wrapping him in coils of agony and rage that constricted his breathing and sent his blood hammering through his head until he cried aloud and pounded his fists on the uncaring ground. But it was as though that cry had roused him from confusion. Suddenly it came to him that Arvain’s beloved face had only been etched upon his mind’s eye. It was no longer there in actuality.

The reality was far different. Though he was still sprawled in the same unnatural position in which he had fallen, he no longer lay on the damp, muddy leaves of the forest clearing. Silence had replaced the harrowing sounds of battle, and there was no sign of friends or foes, living or dead. The dreadful pain of his wounds had vanished, and his body had been made whole once more.

He was lying in a vast chamber on a shining floor that possessed the blue-white smoothness of a frozen lake. The distant walls and ceiling, elegantly carved and supported by slender pillars and graceful, springing buttresses, were constructed from a similar material. The roof was so high that wisps and skeins of cloud had gathered, drifting lazily between the pillars and spreading like veils across the open stretches. Far, far above, snow appeared to be falling from the ceiling: a fine, crystallised shower that drifted gently down, glittering as it fell and vanishing just before it reached the ground.

A clawed fist of ice, which had nothing to do with the frigid air of the chamber, clenched itself around Hellorin’s guts. He was no stranger to this place. He had been here before. And he had never expected to be back. There was a world, a dimension, another reality beyond the boundaries of the mundane world which the Magefolk and mortals - and now the Phaerie - inhabited. A mysterious Elsewhere governed by the Old Magic, where elemental beings of great power held sway, and nothing was as it seemed. They had dwelt here, once, he and his people. The Phaerie had been denizens of this land for an eternity, until Hellorin had decided that the mundane world held richer pickings. It had been a long and difficult struggle to release the Phaerie from the bonds of the Elsewhere, and to do so he had been forced to give up one of the greatest heirlooms of his race. So why had he been pulled back into this place? Who had brought him here? His heart plummeted at the thought of being trapped here once again.

‘Hail, O Lord of the Phaerie. I little thought to see you within my walls again.’ The voice, though female in tone, thundered through the immense hall, as loud and overwhelming as an avalanche, so that Hellorin felt physically battered by the sheer intensity of the sound.

The Forest Lord rolled over and sprang to his feet, spinning around towards the source of that monumental voice. Far away, at the furthest end of the hall, was a towering throne of ice that was bigger than his entire palace. There sat a gigantic woman, of a scale to match the vast surroundings. Her grey robes swept down around her feet, and her long mane of white hair fell across her breasts and shoulders, reaching all the way to the floor. Her face was rough-hewn and craggy, made up of sharp planes and angles, and her dark eyes were cold, hard and inscrutable, holding an awesome power in their depths.

Hellorin concentrated all his magic, feeling his body expand to make him an equivalent size to the giantess. It would have been a grave mistake to let her look down upon him as though he were some insignificant insect. Then he walked up to the throne and bowed low. ‘Madam, I greet you,’ he said. ‘It is a joy to see you again, after so long a time.’

Her frosty expression did not alter. ‘Liar. You spurned this place, and risked everything to take your people to another world.’

‘A world which you were never denied,’ Hellorin flashed. ‘Where was the justice in that? You have no right to sit in judgement on me and mine.’

‘Just or not, that world was my birthright. It was never yours. And, unlike you, neither I nor the others of my race sought power or conquest. Know this, Forest Lord: your departure unbalanced massive energies that should never have been disturbed. Would never have been disturbed, but for your treachery, your attempt to go back on your sworn word. You and your folk may have escaped this place, but you caused terrible destruction in doing so. In your absence you have made many enemies, O ruler of the Phaerie.’

Hellorin lifted his head and locked eyes with her. ‘And must I count you among those enemies, Madam?’ he said quietly.

She laughed, a harsh sound like the grinding scrape of a rockslide. ‘Nay, Forest Lord. After all, your attempt to steal what belonged to us was doomed to failure. And since you caused considerable damage to certain of my foes, I owe you my gratitude.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘But only to a point. You have too much arrogance and power to be trusted.’

Hellorin’s gaze remained steady. ‘The same could be said of us all.’

She shrugged. ‘We Moldai are what we are. But most of us, no matter how proud or ambitious, would have had more discernment than to involve ourselves with your plans, and aid you in your perilous experiments with the Fialan, the Stone of Fate. Only Ghabal was rash enough to risk such a thing.’ A flicker of pain crossed her face. ‘He paid.’

‘Paid? What happened to him?’

‘What do you care? You got what you wanted, Hellorin. When you planned to quit this world, you never considered that there might be a cost to those who remained here. Even if you had, I doubt you would have let such a small consideration deter you.’

The Forest Lord knew that he could not deny her accusation. ‘Tell me what happened to Ghabal,’ he repeated.

‘It took both your combined wills and all of your joint powers to work upon the Fialan, in order to open a portal between the worlds for you and your people. But you failed to consider a fundamental law. When such a vast amount of energy has been harnessed, there must always be an equivalent recoil.’

She shook her head. ‘The results were devastating. You know, of course, that the Moldai are the only race to exist simultaneously in both worlds. That is why you needed one of us to help you form your portal. In the mundane world, we take the aspect of mountains of intelligent, living stone. Here in the Elsewhere, we can alter our forms as we choose. The backlash from your portal was so extensive that it hit Ghabal in both realities. In the world to which you journeyed, Ghabal’s mountain peak was riven and shattered by the titanic forces that were unleashed. He can no longer dwell there now. In this world, those same physical forces could have no impact, but . . .’ She spread her hands. ‘The mundane half of Ghabal was now missing, twisted, deformed beyond all hope of redemption. The shock, the agony, drove him insane. Everyone fears him now. Everyone avoids him, for there is no telling what may provoke him, and what he might do if he is angered. His first actions in his madness were to attack the Evanesar, the Elementals of the Old Magic, wreaking great havoc and destruction. That is why I said that you have many enemies here, Hellorin. Your rash actions affected not just the Moldai, but all the denizens of this world. All of them know that you precipitated the disaster.’

The Forest Lord concealed his dismay behind a nonchalant shrug. ‘The misfortunes of the Evanesar trouble me not at all. They were never friends of the Phaerie in any case. But tell me, Madam, if you will - does Ghabal still have the Stone?’

‘You gave it to him. The most powerful heirloom of your house in exchange for his assistance in creating the portal. That was the bargain, was it not? And now that he has it, who would dare try to take it away from him? You fool, Hellorin. Thanks to you, a mad, twisted, unpredictable creature possesses an artefact capable of causing untold damage, not only in our world but also the other, and we have no means of removing it from him. Can you wonder that you are detested and despised by so many?’

Hellorin took a deep breath. His entire future now hung in the balance. ‘And you, Madam? You were my friend and ally down many a long age. Has your friendship also turned to hatred?’

‘You asked me that already.’ Again, she gave a harsh laugh. ‘Is my friendship so very important to you now? But you may rest easy. The Moldan of Aerillia does not alter her allegiance so lightly. What care I for the misfortunes of the Elementals and their ilk? I am willing to stand by our old friendship - for now, at least.’

‘For now?’

‘Indeed. Who do you think brought you here? I sensed your spirit wandering, lost in oblivion beyond the boundaries of Time, and recovered it, though I was unable to reach your corporeal form. That must remain in the other world, who knows where? But I did not bring you here out of kindness. You must make reparation for what you have done, Forest Lord. Your rash actions have loosed a grave peril upon this world, and you must put right your error. Retrieve the Stone of Fate. Make this world safe once more.’

‘And if I cannot recover the Fialan?’

The Moldan’s eyes flashed. ‘Cannot? Or will not?’ Then she shrugged. ‘It makes no difference. Without the Stone, how can you return to your own world? You must be in your current plight because someone took you out of time. Have you made enemies there, as well as here? If you fail to take back the Stone, your corporeal form is at the mercy of others, Hellorin - and what will become of you and your people then?’