Heritage Of The Xandim

21

KEEPER OF THE TRUST

The Forest Lord’s stables shimmered like a mirage in the sunshine. To the unmagical eye the scene might have consisted of trees and clearings, bluffs and boulders and banks of shrubs, for the glamourie that disguised the Phaerie city was very strong at this time of day, when the sun was highest in the sky. In order for them to be able to function, the mortal slaves who laboured in the city were bespelled to see through the enchantment. The companion animals, the horses, hounds and hawks beloved of Hellorin’s folk, seemed immune to the deception.

By this time, Corisand had grown used to seeing both illusion and reality. It was one of the many changes that were taking place within her since the feral humans had slain the old Windeye, catapulting her into this strange new life. Luckily, the Phaerie had left her alone to work things out. Since Hellorin was not able to ride her, she was still turned out into the far pasture with its own stable. Now that the weather had improved, five of the brood mares who’d already delivered foals had been put into her field, ostensibly to keep her company, though in fact they all seemed to sense the sudden, inexplicable difference in her, and treated her accordingly. Sometimes she felt even lonelier among the other horses than she had been when she was on her own. Occasionally she found herself longing for the old days, when she had led a life of simple pleasures, comfortable surroundings and the good companionship of the herd. But those days were over, never to return.

If only Taku had called her back quickly to the Elsewhere, the problems of this world wouldn’t weigh so heavily, but months had passed while the seasons turned from late winter to early summer, and there had been no summons. Her two friends among the Evanesar had explained to her that time flowed differently between the two realms. She understood that they would not bring her back until Hellorin was distracted, and no longer looking for her. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but be worried and impatient. And even worse, doubts had begun to creep in. Was it possible that she had dreamed the whole thing? Surely she could never have imagined the amazing, wonderful differences between her equine body and the human form that she had occupied in that other, magical world? In the face of all the doubts and difficulties, she somehow managed to cling on to hope and faith as the days slipped by.

If there seemed no solution at present for that particular problem, however, there were plenty of others with which Corisand could deal. As a priority, she continued to work on her mental shielding. A technique of retreating into a safe place in her mind had too many limitations, for it would not let her function efficiently among others, or cope with the practical demands of everyday existence. So how could she protect her mind from the intrusive mental emanations of others, yet still reach out with her thoughts and senses to the world beyond? After a number of ideas had been attempted and discarded, she’d finally hit upon a workable method quite by accident.

One fine day in spring, two of the Phaerie children had been brought down by their father to see the horses. The elder of the two, a little girl, had been enraptured, but her brother was much less impressed. While the elder child and the father were organising her first riding lesson, the boy wandered off, unobserved, and climbed on the fence of the enclosure that Corisand shared with the other mares. Corisand watched him closely, afraid that he might climb down into the paddock and be accidentally trampled, or kicked or bitten by mothers protecting their foals. She knew that she must be on her guard to protect the brat, for, if he should be hurt, the wrath of their Phaerie masters would fall on all her people.

Much to her relief, however, the child remained in place. As she continued to keep an eye on him, he began to amuse himself with a little magic. Putting his thumbs and forefingers together to form a ring, he held them in front of his face and blew. To the Windeye’s astonishment, a gleaming, iridescent bubble appeared between his fingers and floated off across the paddock. Bubble after bubble he blew, which bounced and swirled among the startled mares, never bursting and continuing to hold their form, while the little boy sat on the fence and giggled with delight.

Corisand ceased to be aware of the child, as an amazing revelation struck her. Was this the answer? Maybe her problem would be solved if she could place a similar kind of barrier around her mind; one that would let her observe and interact with the world and her fellow creatures on the physical level, while keeping their thoughts and emotions at bay.

The idea was worth a try, but it turned out to be easier said than done. First, she had to work hard at her visualisation, in order to form her shield and make it function in the way she wanted, before learning how to maintain it in the face of all distractions. Time and again, her concentration would be broken at a crucial moment, the turmoil of outside thoughts and emotions came flooding back into her mind, and she would have to start all over again. Gradually, however, Corisand mastered the technique, and as spring blossomed into summer, she found that she could get her barrier to hold its form, and could finally call her mind her own once more. And with her protection in place, at last she could settle down in earnest to explore the ramifications of the new role that had been placed upon her.

She had always been different from the other horses, she could see that now. As a youngster she had perplexed her mother, the equable Maiglan, for she was more intelligent and curious than the rest, always the first to stick her nose into trouble. She had been more stubborn and rebellious than the others, too. It had taken Hellorin himself to get a bit into her mouth and a saddle on her back, for only in the Phaerie Lord had she discovered a will to match her own. And now, at last, she’d discovered the reason.

As the Windeye of the Xandim, a different world had opened up before her, ripe with possibilities and promise, yet with a set of challenges that were daunting in their immensity. She knew that, trapped as she was in her equine form, she could only scratch the surface of her new potential, and the same applied to the rest of the Xandim. Their enslavement had been far more cruel and complete than mere imprisonment. They had been confined as horses for so long that they had forgotten how to think and reason in the sophisticated way that humans could, and they had lost all memory of the history and heritage of their once-proud race. Deprived of their past, denied their future: what would become of them? As their Windeye, Corisand knew that no one could liberate them but herself. Yet, like her predecessors before her, she had already discovered the difficulty, ambiguity and frustration that lay at the heart of her role.

In the meantime, without even noticing, Corisand had risen to the position of lead mare among her people. When horses lived in their wild and natural state, it was a fallacy that the stallion led the herd. They were always led by a mare, more wise and clever than the rest: the one with the ability to find water and fodder, the safest grazing grounds and the best possible shelter from the elements. While it was the task of the lead mare to guide and provide for the other mares and foals, the stallion’s role, apart from procreation, was to keep the herd together, and protect it from outside threats such as predators and other stallions.

Corisand had never aspired to the role of lead mare, and did not do so now. She had been so caught up in her own private world of challenges and discoveries that she had not noticed herself gradually changing positions within the strictly hierarchical system of the mares. In the spring, when the new grass came and all the horses were put out to pasture, the others, who had once preceded her, were now standing aside to let her go through the gate first. She drank first; she had first choice of fodder. If it had stopped at that, she would probably still have remained blissfully unaware of her altered status. But then, most inconveniently, they started to expect her to lead them and, though horses did not have a sophisticated language of words, they were able to communicate their needs with sounds, stance, body language and subtle movements of ear and eye.

They wanted her to let the grooms know that one of the older mares had taken ill and laid herself down in the long grass beneath the trees, out of sight and away from help. They looked to her to intervene in a squabble, when one mare took a fancy to another’s foal. They expected her to keep the peace within the little herd, to quell any bullying and make sure that the weakest had their fair share of the food and water. When an unexpected spring blizzard hit the valley of the Phaerie, they immediately assumed that she would find them the best place to shelter.

It was very wearing. Time and again, she was tempted to chase them away, to ignore their needs, to make them leave her alone. But how could she? She was Windeye. No matter how unready she felt, they were her responsibility. If the tribe had been in its natural state, there would have been others to shoulder much of the burden: the Herdlord, and the Matriarch. But that was impossible now. It had been different for Valir, she realised. As a stallion, these problems would not have come his way. The group of mares would have found a natural leader amongst themselves. But now that she bore the Windeye’s mantle, they sensed the change and turned to her, and would not be gainsaid. She had no alternative but to sigh, shoulder the load and lead them as best she could.

Corisand never considered that any of the Phaerie might notice that she had changed. Why should they, when the transformation had only taken place within her? In this, however, she had reckoned without the ever-vigilant Horsemistress.

It was a beautiful day, and with the horses all out at pasture, the workload for the stables should have been considerably lighter than in the winter. Normally, the horses would have been fit and well, the new crop of foals thriving, and Aelwen would have been enjoying the sunshine without a care in the world. This year, unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy.

She was deeply concerned about Hellorin’s condition. When a month had passed and brought no sign of a recovery, she had gone directly to his healers and demanded to know what was happening. They had explained their difficulties and counselled patience, and at first she had trusted their assurances that eventually the Forest Lord would recover. But as winter had run its course and spring had turned to early summer, she had found it increasingly difficult to believe them, and her suspicions that something was badly amiss had grown.

To make matters worse, Aelwen was unable to get close enough to Hellorin or his healers to investigate further. These days, she was no longer welcome in the palace, for her relationship with Tiolani had gone from bad to worse. Since the reins of power had been thrust into her hands, that foolish girl had gathered her own clique about her: sleek, self-serving courtiers who hadn’t given two straws for her when her father had been whole, her brother still alive and she just an unimportant younger scion, and a daughter to boot. Once she had been given a taste of power, Tiolani, still in many ways a spoilt child, had no truck with those who tried to thwart her. Her relationship with Aelwen had foundered over the business of the Hunt, for Hellorin’s daughter had not taken kindly to being upbraided for the ill-use of the horses, and had given short shrift to Aelwen’s rebukes.

Hellorin’s Horsemistress took her duties very seriously, and she was worried about the health of her charges. Also, she was losing sleep because she just couldn’t work out what was amiss with the Forest Lord’s favourite mare. Ever since she had returned from the massacre in the forest, Corisand’s behaviour had been odd somehow: nothing too overt, nothing that could quite be pinned down, and yet . . .

With her brows knotted in a frown, Aelwen leant against the paddock fence, put one foot up comfortably on the lower rail and watched Hellorin’s mare with great concentration. What was wrong with the creature? None of the other horses involved in the ambush had returned like this. Some of them had been scared and skittish for a while, but that wasn’t Corisand’s problem. On the contrary, gone were the fidgets and the flashfire temper of old. Instead, the mare seemed almost oblivious to her surroundings for much of the time, walking round in a daze and standing for hours, simply staring into space.

At first Aelwen had thought that Corisand was ailing in some way, but Hellorin’s expert equine healers could find nothing physically wrong with the animal. So what was the problem? If the Horsemistress had not known better, she would have said that the mare seemed preoccupied with something - but no, that was ridiculous. A horse deep in thought? The very idea was laughable, impossible. And though Corisand’s fits of temper had gone, Aelwen couldn’t say that her temperament had actually improved. When she wasn’t ignoring her grooms, it seemed as though she actually hated them. To the experienced eye, her loathing could be read in her white-rimmed eyes and flattened ears, yet she made no effort to kick or bite her handlers, or threaten them in any way. Even stranger was the fact that, without apparently having made the slightest effort, this irritating animal had somehow become the leader of the mares. Experienced as she was in the ways of horses, Aelwen could see absolutely no reason for this change in the hierarchy of the herd. And there had been one other peculiar thing, one that she had never dared mention to Kelon or anyone else.

Not long after Arvain had been sent to his rest, she had walked down towards the lower fields one snowy night, unable to sleep, and wanting to distract herself from worry and sadness. When she’d reached the furthest pasture, she had seen a sight that had haunted her ever since. The moon, low on the horizon, had broken through the massed banks of cloud, and in the moonlight, the grey mare was dancing.

Hardly daring to breathe lest Corisand discover her presence, Aelwen had watched the horse dance amid the swirling snow; transformed, in those moments of magic, into some otherworldly creature. Then, as if someone had blown out a gigantic candle, the moon vanished abruptly behind the clouds, and the mare became flesh and blood once more, and paced quietly back into her stable. The sound of the bolt being slid back into place sounded loud in the still, frosty air, and a chill that had nothing to do with the wintry weather passed down Aelwen’s spine, as silently she turned and crept away. When she had awakened next morning, falling snow had obliterated the intricate hoofprint patterns in the paddock, and the whole episode had taken on the tenor of a dream. But Aelwen knew, in her heart, that it was not.

At that moment Kelon came walking across from the stables, and the Horsemistress smiled to see him. She had known him for so long that he seemed almost to be an extension of herself. Her second in command, he had been her friend for years uncounted, and she knew that she could trust him with her life, as he could trust her. Though he was a Hemifae like herself, in looks he had taken after the human side of his ancestry, rather than the Phaerie. His hair was sandy rather than the burnished red-gold that was so common among Hellorin’s folk, and his face was seamed and weathered, lacking the pointed delicacy of the Phaerie physiognomy. Though he was a kind man, it was a standing joke around the stable that he was rarely seen to smile.

‘Are you still fretting about that animal?’ Though Kelon would never openly criticise her, his voice held a hint of reproach. She knew he thought that she wasted too much time and energy worrying over Corisand’s odd behaviour. The mare was healthy, wasn’t she? And surely this new, quiet demeanour could only be an improvement? Well, then.

Aelwen sighed. ‘I know you can’t see it, but I am absolutely certain something is amiss with her.’

Kelon looked thoughtfully at the mare. ‘You know, I’m beginning to agree with you. At first, I didn’t think this new behaviour was of much significance - I put it down to shock after the attack, and thought she’d come out of it in the end. But this new business of becoming lead mare - now that’s just plain unnatural. Totally out of the normal pattern of behaviour for the whole group.’

Aelwen frowned. ‘It’s not just her inattentiveness, or even this lead-mare business that’s worrying me. It’s only that - I don’t know - there’s just something about her. She was always a very difficult horse to handle, but now, though she’s all right with the two of us, you would think she hates everyone else. There’s something in her stance and the way she looks at the grooms that sends a chill through me . . . Kelon, do you think she’s going mad?’

For a thoughtful moment, Kelon gazed at Corisand again. ‘What about breeding from her?’ he said at last. ‘She isn’t doing anything useful right now - just lazing around, eating her head off, and she should come into season again about the end of the month. She’s an outstanding mare - if we put her to that black stallion of yours, the foal could be spectacular. And if...’ he hesitated.

‘And if this strangeness does turn out to be a problem, at least we’d still have her bloodline,’ Aelwen finished for him with a sigh. ‘Whatever ails her, we know it’s not part of her heredity.’

Kelon put his hand over hers as her fingers tightened on the paddock rail. ‘It’s got to be faced,’ he said softly. ‘But don’t despair. The worst hasn’t happened yet, and probably never will. She’s been acting strangely, but she hasn’t shown any signs of aggression so far - at least, no more than usual. She’s just odd, that’s all.’ His eyes went to Aelwen. ‘Mind you, what can we expect? Everything here has been out of kilter since Hellorin was struck down.’

‘I know.’ With no one else would Aelwen have dared to be so open and honest, but Kelon was special. Abruptly she switched from open words to mindspeech. ‘Don’t you think, Kelon,’ she went on slowly, testing each word with delicate and deliberate care, like a horse testing its footing as it crossed a bit of boggy ground. ‘Don’t you think that Hellorin is taking an unnaturally long time to recover?’

Their eyes, his grey, hers green, met in a look of understanding. Kelon switched to mindspeech too. ‘It’s wonderful, is it not, how well Tiolani has taken to ruling?’ he said softly. ‘She’s her father’s daughter. Having tasted such power, it must be hard for her to think of giving it up.’

In that moment he had never seemed so dear to her. Out of love, out of loyalty, he had taken it upon himself to voice the heresy she could not bring herself to name. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. ‘Not here and now. It’s not safe.’ Though mindspeech ought to be private, there were ways to overhear it, if the eavesdropper was determined enough. Suddenly she was filled with the overwhelming urge to get away completely from the whole mess: horses behaving mysteriously, Hellorin’s illness, Tiolani’s hostility and the atmosphere of sheer wrongness that poisoned the air of Eliorand these days. ‘It’s a beautiful morning, ’ she said out loud, ‘and I would love to get out of here for a while. Shall we go for a ride?’

Kelon gave her one of his rare, fleeting smiles. ‘What a good idea.’

With a mounting sense of panic, Corisand watched them depart. Damn those Phaerie! Why couldn’t they leave well alone? She couldn’t have a foal just now. It was the last thing she needed. As it was, finding a way to regain her human form and her Windeye’s powers felt like a hopeless task. With a pregnancy and then a defenceless, dependent foal to care for, it would become downright impossible. But how could she prevent it? As the Phaerie reckoned things, they were about halfway through the month. By the time it ended, oestrus would be upon her and, though so far they had never let her breed, she already knew how powerful those drives could be. Would they prove so strong that the instincts of the animal would overcome the reasoning of the Windeye? Taryn was a very attractive stallion and she liked him. He also had an excellent record of success in getting foals. All things considered, she had a feeling that she would be a fool to risk an encounter with him.

Corisand raised her head to look over the fence at the forest beyond. ‘There’s only one thing for it,’ she said to herself. ‘I’ve got to escape.’

She was almost ready to try it then and there, so desperate did she feel - but her Windeye’s intelligence made her hesitate. If she made her escape in such an obvious manner, the Phaerie would find out almost immediately. Without the flying magic that only Hellorin or Tiolani could give her, she had no power of flight, and would simply have to run away into the forest. She was Hellorin’s own mare, and, as she had just discovered, Aelwen and Kelon considered her bloodline to be valuable. They would never rest until they had hunted her down and recaptured her.

No, she had to come up with a better plan than that. But what? How? The caring, conscientious vigilance of Aelwen and Kelon would thwart her at every turn, and it suddenly occurred to her that if she did manage to succeed she would bring a great deal of trouble to the two of them - the only Phaerie out of the whole tribe of them that she didn’t detest.

Never had Corisand felt so helpless, despairing and very much alone. How could she escape this impossible situation? It would take a miracle.