Heritage Of The Xandim

32

THE CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY

Since Corisand had succumbed so quickly and completely to exhaustion, they had left her to rest until morning. When the first of the birds started singing to usher in the new day, and Taine emerged from Esmon’s tent and went to seek Iriana, who was crowded very tightly into the same tent with Avithan. She was sleeping, curled up in a way that could not be comfortable, lying across the feet of her wounded companion. Taine took one look at her pale, strained face, and decided to let her get what little repose she could.

The morning was cool, damp and grey, and he very much wanted some taillin, and something hot to eat, but all the wood was soaked through from the rains of the night before, and he found it impossible to get the fire started. Eventually he was forced to awaken Iriana after all because he needed her rather specialised powers.

Grumbling under her breath, obviously not awake enough yet to hold a conversation, she emerged bleary-eyed from the tent and stumbled across to the fireplace. With a careless gesture, she launched a sizzling little ball of yellow fire into the midst of the pile of kindling, which immediately burst into spluttering, rather smoky flames. He would never have believed it, had he not seen it with his own eyes. A Wizard with the powers of all the elements - as far as he knew, such a thing had never happened before. He wondered uneasily if this was some kind of omen - a sign that the catastrophe foreseen by Cyran was not far away . . .

In the meantime, however, life went on. Iriana, still using Esmon’s black horse as her eyes, tended the animals while Taine fried bacon, then Corisand joined them, with the warhorse standing nearby.

While they ate, Taine watched with bemusement as Iriana and Corisand - the grey horse that apparently was not a horse - exchanged histories and information. The Wizard had had a hard time convincing him that this creature - for no matter how magnificent it was, it still looked like a simple horse to him - was one of the legendary Xandim, and that all of Hellorin’s precious steeds were descendants of the same long-lost race, enslaved aeons ago by the Forest Lord’s magic. He wondered whether Aelwen had ever guessed.

However, there was no denying Corisand’s tidings from Eliorand. Her tale, as relayed by Iriana, filled him with increasing alarm; he heard with dismay of Tiolani’s deteriorating mental state. For a moment his thoughts drifted away from Iriana’s words as he imagined bringing this bad news to Cyran, who would already be devastated by Avithan’s fate. The Archwizard had trusted Taine to guard and help his son. What would he say in the face of such abject, terrible failure?

Through the night, Avithan had slipped further and further away, until Taine and Iriana had to face the fact that they were losing him. Out of sheer desperation they had cobbled together a time spell - a risk in itself, for Taine had never attempted time magic, and Iriana, though she had read the theory, was similarly lacking in experience. Nevertheless, it had been Avithan’s only chance. Now he lay in the tent, unmoving beneath the magic’s eye-defying shimmer, and until they got him back - somehow - to Tyrineld, and the spell could be removed, they would not know whether they had saved or killed him.

Looking at Iriana now, Taine marvelled anew at her courage. For a little while the previous night, before they had performed the spell, she had sobbed broken-heartedly and he had tried in vain to comfort her. Having given vent to her grief and anxiety, she had pulled herself together and set about doing what needed to be done. He had nothing but admiration for the young Wizard. When she spoke of Esmon’s death, Taine had realised how deeply she was grieving for the murdered Warrior. The loss of her animals had affected her profoundly, both emotionally and practically, and he sympathised with her frustration that she could no longer see unless the stallion was near, or be of much practical assistance to her companion. Yet she had remained capable and steadfast throughout her ordeal. He felt humbled by her courage. How would he have managed, sightless, bereft and in peril from both assailant and storm?

All at once, his wandering attention snapped back to her words, as she translated Corisand’s thoughts: ‘And then Tiolani threatened Aelwen, Hellorin’s Horsemistress. So Aelwen decided to flee, and I decided we should escape together, along with—’

‘What? What?’ Taine all but pounced on Corisand. ‘Say that again. What about Aelwen? She escaped? Where is she? Is she all right?’

He leapt to his feet, pacing the clearing, scarcely able to contain himself as Corisand’s narrative continued. When he heard that his beloved had been lost in the storm, his heart turned over. So close. He had come so close, and now she might be dead.

Iriana had stopped speaking and was watching him open-mouthed. Even Corisand looked astonished, and he realised that he must have been babbling out loud. ‘We have to find her.’ His voice grew urgent as he rounded on Corisand. ‘Tell me again - I mean, tell Iriana. Tell us exactly what happened. How far away from her were you? What direction was she moving in, when you went down?’

‘I’m sorry, Taine, but I have no notion.’ Corisand’s words came back through Iriana. ‘Too much was happening - we were a goodly distance apart, and as well as the storm, I had Ferimon and that accursed Huntsman to deal with. You have no idea what it was like up there. The wind hurled us around so much, I had no idea of anyone’s direction. Aelwen could be anywhere - close by, or fifty miles away. We can’t possibly hope to find her.’

‘And what about Avithan?’ Iriana laid a hand on his arm. ‘We must get him home now. We must take him back to the healers.’

In his heart Taine knew she was right, and that only made it worse. But how could he leave Aelwen?

‘Taine, we can’t stay here,’ Iriana said urgently. ‘The Phaerie—’

‘But Corisand said she threw her rider,’ Taine protested. ‘If Tiolani has fallen, there will be no flying magic. It will take them two or three days to come out this far - and even then, this is a big forest to search. If they cannot see us from the air, they can’t find us. We have a little time left, surely?’

‘But there is something I didn’t tell you. Cyran may know very soon that we’re in trouble. Last night, when I was running from the assassin who killed Esmon, I sent out a cry for help in mindspeech. I think the distance was too great, but I was desperate. I called to Challan, my foster-father in Nexis. We had such a close bond once, I thought there might be a chance. If he heard, he could have sent a message through by carrier bird—’

Taine sighed. ‘Iriana, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your foster-father can’t have heard you, because he wasn’t in Nexis. I met a Wizard called Challan on the road a few days ago. He was going to Tyrineld, to search for his daughter. She had run away, apparently, after some sort of family quarrel.’

He wondered at the bitter look that crossed her face. ‘Chiannala,’ she muttered, then he saw her square her shoulders, shrugging away whatever had upset her. ‘All right. So Cyran can’t know of our danger. But Corisand also said the others tried to catch Tiolani, and she didn’t see whether they succeeded or not. She may not be dead, or even badly hurt. What if she’s planning, right now, to bring the Hunt out after Corisand and Aelwen and her friend? We must get away, as far and fast as we can—’

‘There is no need to run away. I will protect you.’

She had come out of nowhere, the woman with the face of ageless beauty and the fine-spun silver hair that glowed around her head like an aureole.

Taine and Iriana leapt to their feet, she with a cry of astonishment, and he with a curse. Corisand’s head snaked out aggressively, her ears going back flat to her head. Swiftly though Taine snatched at his weapon, the stranger was faster. His hand closed on emptiness as the blade sailed through the air and thudded to earth on the far side of the clearing.

‘See? I can protect myself, too,’ the woman smiled wryly. ‘But you have nothing to fear from me, Iriana, Corisand, Taine.’

‘Then what do you want?’ Taine demanded.

‘How do you know our names?’ Iriana asked at the same time.

‘I am not from this world, and I am here to help.’ She smiled as their jaws dropped at this bald statement. ‘You may call me Athina, or the Cailleach. Trust me. The fate of your world is truly hanging in the balance, and I know that your Archwizard has also foreseen this, Iriana. I have, shall we say, a very great interest in your world, and I am trying to save it from utter destruction. I too believe that the crisis is nearly upon us. I have had my own visions. I know that the future lies in the hands of a very small group of people: one is Hellorin’s daughter—’

‘Her?’ said Corisand. ‘Are you insane? That must be wrong.’

Even as Iriana began to translate, the woman held up her hand. ‘There’s no need for that, Iriana. I understand the Windeye of the Xandim perfectly. Which is just as well, because you, Corisand, and you, Iriana, were the others in my vision.’

A storm of protest broke out, with everyone speaking at once. All but the strange woman, who stood quietly and let their words break around her like waves. ‘Then let me prove it.’ Her quiet words were suffused with such powerful compulsion that the others were silenced as effectively as if she had shouted at the top of her lungs. ‘Both you, Iriana, and you, Taine, are yearning for missing companions.’ She turned to the trees behind her, and cast her arm out in a sweeping gesture. ‘Behold, I restore them to you.’

There was a snapping of twigs in the underbrush, then out of the trees stepped Aelwen, riding her midnight stallion.

Her face was drawn with weariness and her hair hung down in tangles, snarled with leaves and twigs. She was shivering, Taine noticed, and her clothing had been darkened by the soaking rain. The linen shirt under her leather jerkin clung to her body in sodden wrinkles, and was ripped down one sleeve. There were bruised shadows under her eyes, a scratch on her forehead and a long smudge of green bark down one cheek.

He had never seen anyone so beautiful.

She froze, staring at him with wide, stunned, vulnerable eyes. He could see the emotions chasing across her face: disbelief, amazement, joy. A mirror of his own feelings. For Taine, time stopped. For a moment they simply stared, utterly transfixed, drinking in the sight of one another like desert travellers who, parched with thirst, reach an oasis at long, long last.

Their absorption was broken abruptly by a cry from Iriana. ‘Melik! Oh, my Melik.’ As she ran forward, the cat struggled out of Aelwen’s unresisting arms and was scooped up into the Wizard’s familiar, safe embrace. Though tears ran in profusion down Iriana’s cheeks, her face was radiant with happiness. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she sobbed as she stroked the soft fur. ‘I thought I had lost you too.’

Iriana’s reunion with her cherished companion broke the enthralment that had held the other two. Even as Aelwen slid down from her horse, her beloved ran forward with a choking cry. Then they were in each other’s arms, and to Taine, it was as if all those years of loneliness, of yearning, of not belonging, had never been.

‘Oh, my love—’

‘I thought I would never see you again—’

‘I can’t believe it’s true—’ They were both talking at once, their words tangling with kisses.

The Cailleach stood to one side and smiled. The joys of bringing such happiness far transcended Uriel’s threats and warnings - whatever the cost to herself.

Kelon walked along in a daze of weariness and unreality that had come in the wake of his fight with Ferimon. In one way he regretted parting from Danel and her outlaws. Now that he was on his own once more, he was very lonely without them. But he could not desert Aelwen, though how he could ever hope to find her in this vast tract of wilderness, he did not know. The glowing sphere floated on ahead of him, tantalisingly out of reach, luring him towards some unimaginable fate.

Hunger gnawed at him and fatigue dragged at his bones. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open, so when he heard the sound of voices, he wondered if he was dreaming. He followed the globe forward to where the undergrowth thinned - and walked into a nightmare. A clearing, a lake, light and horses. A young woman embracing a cat, an old woman looking on with a benign expression: all of these details were noted and forgotten in an eyeblink. He only had eyes for the couple embracing in the centre of the clearing.

Aelwen had found her lost love - and all Kelon’s dreams and hopes crashed down in ruin.

The sight of them together seared into his mind like poison. Oh, she had never been his; had never given him any encouragement but good, honest friendship. He had always known where he stood. And yet . . . How could he be blamed for yearning, for wanting, for hungering? So he had persuaded himself that given time, he must succeed with her. Taine had been gone for years - how much longer would she continue to wait for a lover who clearly would never return? Chances were that the wretch was dead. He was almost certainly dead. So Kelon had told himself over and over until, eventually, he had come to believe it.

The truth almost brought him to his knees.

There had never been anyone else for him - and for Aelwen, there had never been anyone but Taine. He was a fool. He should have known better. A crimson mist of anger boiled up from some dark place inside him - though he knew not whether he was more angry with Aelwen for not loving him, or with himself for his folly in loving a woman who would never return his love. Alil, sensing his mood as horses were wont to do, squealed out a strident challenge to the unknown black warhorse in the clearing. Aelwen tore her eyes from Taine’s face, and saw Kelon.

He had been watching her for so many years now that he recognised every emotion that chased across those expressive lips and wide, green eyes. Surprise; delight at seeing him safe; dismay that he should have the joy of their reunion tarnished. But the pity was by far the worst - and in that instant, Kelon knew he could not stay, could not bear to watch them happy together, hour after hour, day after day. Every time he looked at Aelwen, worked with her, spoke with her, it would be plain that she felt sorry for him. Even their friendship could no longer exist now, for with the sudden appearance of Taine, everything had changed.

Better to go, and keep his pride. It was all he had left.

Aelwen, who had recovered her equilibrium, hastened towards him, her hand outstretched. ‘Kelon, thank providence you’re safe. It’s good to see you, my friend.’

‘I can no longer be just your friend.’ Coldly, Kelon knocked the proffered hand away.

Hurt and anger flashed in her eyes, tightened her mouth. ‘I never led you to believe you could be otherwise.’

Despite all his rancour, how could he deny it? And seeing her standing there, her eyes stormy with distress, how could he hate her? ‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘I know. You can’t help who you love, any more than I can.’ Then he glanced across at Taine, who was watching the exchange, wary and alert as some forest animal whose mate is threatened. Kelon had no trouble hating him.

His mouth thinned to a bitter line as the future seemed to unroll before him: sooner or later there would be words exchanged between himself and Taine, then blows - there was a chance that one of them would die. And he still would not have Aelwen’s heart.

‘I can’t stay.’ The words were out of his mouth almost before he realised what he was saying.

‘Here.’ He thrust the leading rein of the packhorse into her hands, then, not without a dreadful pang, he gave her Alil’s reins. ‘I can’t take them with me. The ferals eat horses. You’re better able to protect them. You seem to have found yourself among friends.’ He could not keep the sneer out of his voice. ‘I’ll take the provisions, if that’s all right. I’m sure these folk have more.’

A frown darkened Aelwen’s face, and her eyes grew hard as flint. ‘Curse it, Kelon, don’t be stupid. I don’t care if you’re angry, or upset, or disappointed, you can’t go marching off alone into the wildwood. You’ll die.’ She gripped his shoulders. ‘There’ll be someone else in time. Someone who’s meant for you. But that can’t happen if you get yourself killed.’

He twisted out of her grasp. ‘There was never anyone else for you.’

‘Kelon, stay, please,’ Aelwen begged. ‘It’s too risky out there. What about the Phaerie?’

‘I don’t have to worry about Ferimon at least.’ He shrugged. ‘I killed him.’

‘What? Kelon, wait.’

But he turned and walked away, grateful when the trees swallowed him in their shadows and hid her from sight.

Sorrowing, Kelon walked, neither knowing nor caring where he went. Climbing the steep bank, he came to the trail and crossed it, heading north-west. With his eyes fixed on the ground, he walked in a black haze of loneliness, misery and self-pity, his thoughts whirling with images of Aelwen in Taine’s arms; the incandescent joy on their faces; the aura of absolute unity that surrounded them. And himself, standing on the sidelines, alone and ignored.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ Kelon jumped, his heart hammering, and heard the sound of a soft female laugh. There in front of him was Danel, the leader of the ferals.

Kelon swore, his temper snapping. Her laughter was one humiliation too many, and he rounded on her savagely. ‘What the bloody blazes do you think you’re doing?’

She shrugged. ‘When you left, I thought I would stalk you in case that spell you were following got you killed.’

‘Then you could loot my gear and take the horses after all.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, you wouldn’t have been using them.’

He looked at her coldly. ‘I’m sorry my survival has proved such a disappointment.’

‘We gamble on our survival every day.’ Danel threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Will we find food? Will the shelters hold up to the weather? Can we stay warm enough and keep our bellies full enough to live to see another sunrise? Or will the Hunt come in the night and lay waste to everything we’ve become?’ Her voice sharpened with a harsh edge of bitterness. ‘We do what we must - and sometimes that’s not enough.’

For a moment the jaunty courage left her stance, and she looked weary and beaten and sad. For the first time, Kelon looked at her closely and realised how thin she was: how pale, hollow-cheeked and pinched with the cold. The ragged clothes she was wearing must offer little protection from the elements. In that instant, his heart went out to her. She seemed so young for her responsibilities. She put his own troubles in perspective, he realised. Shame flooded over him as he contrasted her courage in the face of such appalling difficulties with his own self-pity over nothing more than a broken heart. The Phaerie viewed ferals as nothing but vermin, a dangerous nuisance to be exterminated wherever possible. He had never truly understood that they were people too, with the same feelings and physical needs as their masters.

‘Let me join you.’ The words sprang unbidden from his lips.

Danel cocked her head, put her hands on her hips. ‘And why would I be wanting another hungry mouth to feed?’

‘Because I can be a help to you, not a burden. My human grandfather, my mother’s father, was a forester. He taught me how to set snares, how to track and to hunt with a bow, how to butcher my kill and prepare the hides. Thanks to him, I also know how to catch fish and find dry firewood, and how to build a shelter in the open.’

Though less than an hour before, Kelon had been convinced that he would never smile again, he somehow found a smile for Danel. ‘So you see how useful I could be, if you’ll have me?’

The feral girl’s tired eyes brightened. ‘Everyone in our band was an escapee from the city. When we fled out here, none of us knew a damn thing about surviving in the wilds. All these years, we’ve been scraping by as best we could.’

Kelon remembered from several years ago the mass escape of slaves that had so angered Hellorin. Though a search had been made for them, using the Hunt, they had scattered far and wide into the depths of the forest. A goodly number had fallen prey to the Phaerie hunters - Hellorin had decreed that none of the troublemakers were to be brought back alive, no matter how great the inconvenience and expense to their former owners in Eliorand - but apparently, some had managed to keep both their freedom and their lives.

‘I think that what you’ve done is admirable,’ he told Danel. ‘Truly, I would be honoured to be part of your group, and glad to help you in any way I can. Eliorand holds nothing for me any more. Even if you won’t accept me, I won’t be going back. I’m finished with the Phaerie for good.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Join us and welcome, Kelon.’ She offered him her rough, nicked, dirty little hand, and he clasped it in his own.

‘Follow me. I’ll take you back to the others. We’re following the instructions of someone who wasn’t there, and heading for a place that doesn’t exist.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll explain on the way - though in all honesty, I don’t expect you’ll believe me.’ With that, Danel slipped away through the trees, a shadow among shadows, forcing Kelon to hurry after her in order to keep her in sight. From over her shoulder, her voice came floating back to him. ‘I wish you’d hung on to the horses, though.’

Back in the clearing, Aelwen, swearing bitterly, began to hurry after Kelon, but was restrained by a hand on her arm. She swung round. ‘Taine, I can’t just let—’ But to her surprise, she looked into Athina’s face.

‘Take comfort, Aelwen.’ The Cailleach’s silver eyes turned as huge, sharp and gold as those of a bird of prey, gazed far into the distance, as though her vision could pierce the intervening trees - and not only the trees, but the veils that hid the future. ‘Kelon must walk his own path now, but do not fear. He will be as safe as any of you in these troubled times, and he will not be alone, or friendless, for I brought him hither to encounter some new companions, and to these he will go now.’

She took Aelwen’s hands. ‘Do not fret for him. It is better so. It would not be good for either of you to remain together now. You both need to be heart-whole: you to walk the ways of the future alongside the one you lost long years ago, and Kelon to live for himself and forge his own fate, instead of ever walking in your shadow. All will be well, child. All will be well.’

‘How can you possibly claim to know these things?’ the Horsemistress demanded.

Athina reached into thin air and brought out another red globe, tossing it carelessly to hover beside the others that had led Aelwen and Kelon to her. ‘I know them. And I brought you here, as I was explaining to the others before you arrived, because this group, all of you, will greatly influence the fate and survival of the world that we know.’

‘But—’

‘Enough. I want you all to come with me to my tower now. It is safe there, and we can deal with all the explanations, and plan our next move in comfort and safety.’

‘But—’ said Iriana.

‘Yes, I can use my power to move your injured friend without risk. Hopefully, I will be able to help him.’

‘But—’ said Corisand.

‘Yes, of course there will be food and shelter for the horses.’

‘But—’ said Taine.

‘Yes, you can trust me. Yes, it’s not that far. Yes, it is concealed from the Phaerie Hunt.’ By this time, the Cailleach’s voice was beginning to hold an edge of irritation.

Iriana swallowed hard. ‘Athina?’

‘Now what? Oh, I see.’ Her voice dropped from irritation to gentleness. ‘Yes, my dear, of course we can tend to your fallen friends before we go.’

For Iriana this was a necessary task, but one fraught with deepest sorrow. Save for Avithan, the newly united companions clustered around Esmon’s body. The Warrior had been moved from the trampled, blood-soaked mud of the clearing to a gently sloping bank, soft and green with cushioning moss and overhung with fern, that reached down to the edge of the pool. Iriana had cleansed his body as best she could, and the others had helped her array him in the spare clothing from his pack, which hid the wound in his chest. But his clothes could not conceal the gaping gash in his throat, and Aelwen, seeing Iriana’s distress, went to her pack and took out the one treasure she had allowed herself to bring from Eliorand: a scarf of moonmoth silk, coloured by Phaerie magic in the shimmering hues of the rainbow. It had been a gift from Taine many years ago, before they were parted, and had absorbed many of her tears during the lonely years of their separation. When he saw what she carried, their eyes met in a lingering, secret look, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. Aelwen gave the scarf to Iriana.

‘But I can’t take this,’ the Wizard protested. ‘It’s a treasure of yours, I can see that.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Aelwen told her gently. ‘During all the time that Taine and I were parted, this was always a token of hope to me, that one day he would come back and our life together would be renewed. Now that he has returned,’ - she glanced at Taine, her heart in her eyes - ‘I have no need of such keepsakes. Let it stand instead for Esmon, as a symbol that one day he too will return, to another, happier life.’

‘Thank you, Aelwen.’ Iriana arranged the scarf around Esmon’s neck, hiding all evidence of the dreadful wound. Then, with a glimmer of tears in her eyes, she turned and took the limp body of Seyka, and laid it on Esmon’s breast. At least the owl would not be alone. Melik, still a little weak and nervy, but determined to fulfil his usual task as Iriana’s eyes, touched his nose once to the owl’s wing as if making his own farewell. Iriana stroked the cloud-soft feathers one last time and clasped Esmon’s cold hand in parting.

‘Stand back,’ she told the others softly. Lifting her staff to help her concentrate her power, she reached inside and found the hottest fire she could conjure. With a soft word she loosed the fierce energy. The bodies of the fallen vanished in a single flash of incandescent flame, and when the dazzle faded from the eyes of the watchers there was only a drift of soft ash, already blowing across the surface of the pool like a grey, translucent veil. Thus passed Esmon, consummate Wizard and dauntless Warrior; leader, mentor and friend. Thus passed Seyka, windchild, spirit of dusk and dawn; with courage and heart too great for one so small. Long would her winged ghost whisper on the winds of Iriana’s memory.

When the last of the ashes had blown away, Athina raised her hands and a shimmering silver mist rose up from the ground, enveloping the reunited companions, the horses, the entire campsite. When it dissipated, the clearing which had been the home of both tragedy and joy was empty once more.