Sword of Flames

2 Journey’s Beginning

In the moonlight, the lichened gray stones of the Tower of Incondor looked as though they had been dipped in silver. On the slope between the ancient, crumbling pile of stone and the reaching shadow-fingers of the thicket, every blade of the blossom-starred turf was sharply outlined in a chiaroscuro of sharp-cut shadow and frosty light, almost as though winter had stolen back again on stealthy feet. But the air was alive with the tingling fragrance of spring, and it was somehow reassuring: a promise that the days of endless cold were gone at last, though the night breeze was still cool enough and the two winged couriers were grateful for the warmth of their close-wrapped wings.

Finch and Petrel, the two Skyfolk messengers stationed here at the behest of Queen Raven and the groundling Mages, sat perched like a pair of gargoyles on a high projection of worn stonework at the rear of the tower, as far away as possible from the presence of the wingless aliens with whom they had been forced to associate. Following their refusal to sleep with the foreigners inside the tower, they had been allotted a place on the roof in a crude lean-to shelter constructed against the warm stones of the chimney; but the constant circuits of the rooftop sentry had disturbed their slumbers, and the brilliance of the night—for the dazzling moon was just past its full—had made them restless. Eventually they had been driven to this dizzy perch between sky and ground where they could think in peace and talk softly and privately about the momentous changes that had taken place in their city over the previous two days.

Apart from the monotonous footfalls of the sentry as he made his rounds on the rooftop above the Winged Folk, nothing stirred in the moondrenched stillness. After a time the quiet speech of the couriers grew fitful, and faltered into silence. Then, breaking into the profound peace of the night, came the tiniest of sounds: a faint, high-pitched creak as the tower door eased open.

The two Skyfolk stiffened, instantly alert, and glanced at one another in wide-eyed alarm. They did not completely trust these groundling strangers, and anyone skulking about in the middle of the night must surely be up to no good! An unspoken signal flashed between the two winged figures. Silently, stealthily, long knives were eased from sheaths, and the couriers tensed their wings for flight. Soft footfalls could be heard… Someone was creeping around the side of the tower!

It was fortunate for the prowler that the moonlight was so bright. As soon as Finch and Petrel saw the silhouetted figure of their stalker, they sheathed their weapons and relaxed their combative stance, their expressions changing from alarm to amused astonishment. Why, it was that little woman who seemed to feel the need to mother everyone in the encampment—the one who kept plying them with such delicious food! The one groundling among the lot of them that the Skyfolk trusted to pose them no threat.

“What in the name of Yinze can she be doing?” Petrel hissed to his companion. At the sound of his whisper the groundling looked up, placed a finger to her lips to signal silence, and beckoned them down. “Aerillia, Aerillia,” she whispered urgently, tugging at the arm of the nearest Skyman and pointing first to herself and then to the dark heap of meshes that was their cargo net, left safely at the foot of the tower wall.

For a few moments, the winged couriers had difficulty believing what they thought she meant by her urgent gestures. At last, however, Finch turned to Petrel in dismay. “She wants us to fetch the net and take her to Aerillia? Tell me it’s not true!”

His companion shrugged. “She can mean nothing else.” Finch, by far the smaller of the pair, looked ruefully at Nereni’s plump form and flexed his wiry arms. “Why her?” he sighed. “Couldn’t they have sent one of the others, for Yinze’s sake?”

Aurian, narrowing her eyes in concentration, peered into the deceptive, shadowed gloom of the cramped tunnel, and blessed the gods once again for the gift of her Mage’s night-vision. “Shift that torch a little, would you, please?” she muttered over her shoulder to Cygnus. “I’m working in my own shadow here.”

Beside her the Mage felt Anvar’s shoulder brush her own as he wormed his way forward to take a closer look into the narrow gap between the fallen stones. “That’s the place we want,” he said. “There—can you see it? Where that big slab of rock has slipped at an angle. If we can just wedge it upright somehow, it should prop the others…”

“Look out!” Aurian’s sharp cry was all but drowned by the ominous grinding overhead. As her soulmate leaned forward to point, even that small movement had disturbed the delicate balance of the stones. As one, the two Magefolk flung their magical shields outward and upward, extending the fields of force to support the shifting slabs. After an endless moment the grating rasp of stone on stone wore down into silence, leaving only the liquid patter of a stream of grit and dust that sifted through the cracks.

The last spark of fitful torchlight vanished. The Mages leaned against each other in a darkness that only their eyes could penetrate, panting slightly from the effort of holding the sagging roof in place. “Bugger!” Anvar muttered. “That was a bad one.”

“He obviously thought so,” With a tilt of her head Aurian indicated the deserted stretch of clear tunnel behind them, down which their winged companion had, unsurprisingly, fled.

“Skyfolk!” Anvar grimaced in disgust, although the Mage knew that he blamed their frightened companion no more than did she. Or did she? Aurian frowned. This mad notion to explore the ruins of the priestly archives below the Temple of Incondor in search of clues that might lead them to the Sword of Flame had been suggested by Cygnus. It had seemed a good idea the night before when discussed at length with the winged physician over a flagon of wine, but the reality of burrowing through these unstable tunnels had proved to be a perilous undertaking indeed. Surely Cygnus must have known of the dangers involved. He had certainly wasted no time saving his own skin when the roof began to crumble. Aurian shook her head. I’m too suspicious these days, she thought. Why should Cygnus harm us after we freed him from Blacktalon and saved his Queen? It could only have been honest fear. Though she and her partner had been shielding the group from the start, she knew it was hard for the Skyfolk to put their trust in something they couldn’t even see. The strain of holding up the sagging roof forestalled any further reflection. Aurian looked across at her partner, and the two Mages shared a wry grin. “Think we can do it on our own?” Anvar’s words were a challenge.

“Why not?” Aurian shrugged. “Besides, the Skyfolk will be back shortly—if only to erect our memorial!”

Anvar chuckled. “Come on, then. Which would you prefer? Keeping the shield up, or heaving stones?”

“The shield,” Aurian said decisively. “Because I have the Staff of Earth, I’ll have more power to take the weight of these rocks above us.” She glanced up doubtfully, at the tons of stone balanced precariously over their heads. “The last thing we want is the whole bloody mountain coming down on top of us—What’s wrong?” She had caught a glimpse of Anvar’s stricken expression.

“Nothing,” Anvar muttered. “I was just remembering the last time I was down here…” He shuddered. “It’s a good thing for us that the Moldan’s dead.”

“Hold on… Just a moment more…” Anvar’s voice was harsh with strain, and Aurian, feeling as though she bore the entire weight of the mountain on her trembling shoulders, knew exactly how he felt. The great slab of tilted rock that Anvar had worked loose from its surroundings teetered on its base and began to rise slowly upright, impelled by the force of the Mage’s will. As Aurian watched, her partner began the tricky part of the operation, maneuvering tne massive stone snugly into position to support the sagging tunnel roof. Almost there, and…

“Lord! Lady!” The sound of hurrying feet echoed down the tunnel, shearing like a blade through Aurian’s tight-stretched concentration and scattering the delicate balance of opposing forces that Anvar was using to move the rock. The great slab went crashing over, and in the split second before the roof came down on top of them, Aurian snatched the faltering shield back into place and felt Anvar throw the weight of his power behind her own. With one quick look at one another, they fled back down the tunnel that they had opened with such labor, crashing into the messenger as they went. Aurian snatched at a flailing arm and pulled the Skyman along behind her, and all three burst out of the tunnel into the daylight together. Behind them there was a thunderous crash within the tunnel, and loose stones toppled from the temple’s ruined walls as the ground shuddered beneath them. Then there was nothing to hear but silence, and nothing to see but the cloud of dust that came drifting from the tunnel’s dark maw and eclipsed the pale light of early day.

“You bloody fool!” Aurian snarled, rounding on the hapless, quaking messenger. “You nearly got us all killed.” Ignoring the Skyman’s stammered apologies, she looked around for Cygnus, who ought to have had more sense than to let stray wanderers into the tunnel when there was magic at work. She was sure she’d caught a glimpse of him as she’d emerged, but he had vanished now—presumably until she and Anvar had managed to get over the worst of their rage.

Anvar, his blue eyes icy with anger, was looking down into the tunnel mouth and scalding the air with curses. He put his arm around her shoulders and sighed bitterly. “That’s done it,” he muttered. “We won’t find anything down there now without excavating the entire peak.”

Aurian’s heart sank. “Well, it was a slender hope in any case, that we’d actually discover something down there that might lead us to the Sword. We’ll manage somehow, love.”

“We’ll have to,” Anvar agreed grimly. “We don’t have any choice.”

The two of them stood hand in hand, gazing gloomily down into the dark mouth of the collapsed tunnel. After a moment Aurian noticed the winged messenger, who was still lurking nervously in the vicinity and clearly trying to pluck up enough courage to attract the attention (and possibly the ire) of herself and her fellow Mage. She turned to the Skyman with a sigh. “Well?” she snapped. “Spit it out, man! What was so desperately important that you had to risk all our lives for it?”

The messenger turned pale beneath her withering glare. “Lady,” he blurted. “A visitor has arrived for you, from Incondor’s Tower. She demands to see you at once.”

“She?” Anvar was frowning, perplexed. “There’s only one woman at the tower just now, if you don’t count the Xandim, and that’s Nereni. But she would never dream of—”

“It has to be Nereni,” Aurian interrupted. “Who else could it be? It could be one of the Xandim, I suppose, but I doubt that Parric would send a stranger when the courier could bring a message just as well alone. But if it is Nereni, and she has actually flown all this way alone, her errand must be urgent indeed. We’d better go and see what she wants.”

Nereni wrapped numbed fingers around the thin metal of the goblet and took another sip of the warm spiced wine, in the hope that it would stop her hands from shaking. The desperate courage that had brought her so far was threatening to slip away now, for the airborne journey in the fragile, swinging net had been a nightmare beyond her worst imaginings. It hadn’t seemed so bad at first, while darkness hid her surroundings and her thoughts had been wrapped up in anger at her unreasonable, mule-headed husband and the cold, sinking fear that Eliizar would, indeed, force her to make a choice between himself and Aurian—the two people she loved most in all the world. Eventually, however, at that freezing altitude, sheer discomfort had taken her mind off her worries. Then the sunrise had caught up with her winged escort, and Nereni, unwisely glancing down, had been treated to a dizzying view of the jagged peaks so far—so terrifyingly far—below. At that point she had forgotten both discomfort and concerns, and had simply shut her eyes tight and started to pray.

The nightmare had ended abruptly as she was dumped unceremoniously onto an unyielding surface. Nereni, muttering imprecations, opened her eyes to find herself upon a narrow balcony without any railings. On one side of her was a mass of ornately carved stonework that proved to be the wall of a tower. On the other… Nereni stifled a gasp and quickly tore her eyes away from the seemingly endless drop.

A tall, arched door of beaten copper led from the balcony into the tower. Nereni was puzzled for a moment by its unusual construction, for metal doors must surely be heavy, inconvenient, and cold; then she realized that wood must be very scarce among these barren peaks, but metal could probably be mined from the mountains’ bones. The smaller of her two winged bearers gave her a mocking bow and gestured toward the doorway with a grin that Nereni wanted to strike from his smug face. She was annoyed that she had let him see how badly the flight had terrified her. The other Skyman, however, proved more considerate. He patted her arm comfortingly and, standing between Nereni and the edge of the chasm, disentangled her from the meshes of the net and helped her to climb unsteadily to frozen feet that had as much feeling in them as two blocks of ice. Leaning heavily on his arm for support, she hobbled as quickly as she could into the chamber beyond the landing platform—and staggered, as her guide dropped her arm and bolted at the sight of the massive black shape that came arrowing out of the shadows.

“Shia!” Nereni cried delightedly. It seemed so long since she had seen the great cat—not since that dreadful night when the weak Prince Harihn, his mind controlled by the evil sorcerer who was Aurian’s enemy, had turned his troops loose on the Tower of Incondor. Frankly, when Shia had escaped from the tower bearing the precious Staff of Earth to safety, Nereni had despaired of ever seeing the cat again. Now she was ashamed of her doubts and bent to hug Shia as the cat rubbed a huge head against her, almost knocking the little woman from her feet.

“You did it!” Nereni cried. “You wonderful, brave creature—however did you manage it? To come all these leagues through cold and hunger and hardship with the Staff…” Her voice trailed away as she suddenly took in her surroundings—and the two other great cats that seemed, to her shocked eyes, to take up most of the space within the chamber. One was curled, asleep, in the down-lined circular scoop that must pass for a Skyfolk bed, while the other sat nearby, watching her with blazing golden eyes.

The little woman froze, her heart hammering wildly—then Shia gave her a quizzical, somewhat disgusted look and went to rub heads with the other cat. Nereni realized, rather sheepishly, that if these awe-inspiring beasts were friendly with Shia, she would have naught to fear from them. Nonetheless, she felt safer keeping her distance. Shia was an old, familiar companion, but these strange, wild, and unpredictable beasts could be another matter entirely—and she was all alone in the chamber with them. Of Aurian and Anvar there was no sign.

Nereni, suddenly at a loss, wondered what her next step should be. Her winged bearers, obviously terrified of the cats, had beaten a hasty retreat, and there was no one to help her. Even supposing one of the Skyfolk had been nearby, she could not speak their language. Nereni’s rash courage had been enough to bring her thus far, but it would get her no further. She looked helplessly at Shia, wishing that she could communicate with the cat as Aurian and Anvar could. “Now what am I going to do?” she muttered.

She did not have long to wait for an answer—only long enough to mull herself some wine from the ingredients that she found near the brazier that was the only source of heat in the chamber. While she sat there, trying to recapture her fleeing courage, Nereni heard the thrumming of wings outside, and the thud of someone landing on the platform. Shia snarled, loud and long, her eyes kindling with a menacing light as the door swung open and Raven entered.

The winged girl looked very different from the waif in the patched tunic that Nereni remembered. Now Raven was dressed in sumptuous crimson robes, cunningly designed to leave her wings and limbs free for flight, and a coronet of beaten gold gleamed richly amid her clouds of dark hair. Lines of sorrow gave an unexpected maturity to her face, and behind her eyes lurked the shadow of a bitter sadness that would never go away.

For an instant the motherly woman felt her heart clench with pity for the suffering in the young girl’s face. Then she remembered Eliizar, hurt and imprisoned in the dark, dank dungeon beneath Incondor’s Tower. She remembered the suffering Bohan, chained to the wall, his wrists a festering mass of sores beneath his manacles. She thought of poor Aurian, forced to give birth amid terror and turmoil, and shuddered at the memory of that moment of utter horror when reality had twisted and the Mage’s child had changed shape within her hands. Nereni’s mouth tightened. As Raven stepped forward hesitantly, plainly unsure of her welcome, she lifted her hand and slapped the winged girl as hard as she could across the face.

Raven took the blow without flinching, though her huge, dark eyes brimmed with tears. “Would that you’d strike me a hundred times, Nereni, rather than stare at me with such contempt in your eyes.” The winged girl’s voice was shaking with such anguish that Nereni’s heart was almost softened—save that the events of the preceding months had changed the little woman so that she barely recognized herself. “Do you think you deserve anything other than contempt?” she retorted bluntly. “I loved you like a daughter, Raven, but without a thought you betrayed me to die—and Eliizar and Bohan with me.”

“No!” Raven gasped. “Harihn promised! I didn’t realize—”

“Yes you did,” Nereni went on inexorably. “You should have known better—you did know better, in your heart, than to set the word of Harihn—the word of a stranger—against the safety of those who had loved you and cared for you when you were alone and afraid. Had the Prince not had a use for Bohan, Eliizar, and myself, we’d have been slaughtered out of hand—and even were that not the case, you had no right to betray the Magefolk to their enemies. Well you knew the fate that lay in store for them!”

Raven squirmed beneath Nereni’s accusing gaze. “But my people were suffering, and the Mages wouldn’t help me…”

“You stupid girl!” Nereni snorted. “Of course they would have helped you—eventually, once Aurian’s powers had returned. You were not the only one in difficulties at the time, remember? If you had used your common sense instead of behaving like a spoiled, pampered little…” She got no further, for her words were drowned in the storm of Raven’s tears.

“Forgive me…” the winged girl sobbed.

“Why should I?” Nereni snapped.

Raven took a ragged breath. “Because you are the only mother I have left…”

As she heard Raven’s anguished plea, the woman realized, with a pang of guilt, that she had let the pain and terror of the last few months get the better of her. She remembered, belatedly, that Raven had been made to suffer the consequences of her folly—for not only had the girl been dreadfully, horribly injured by the evil High Priest, but she had lost her mother, besides.

Nereni’s motherly instincts finally triumphed over her anger—and, she thought ruefully, probably her common sense as well. She sighed, and went to put her arms around the weeping girl. “There, there,” she muttered roughly. “We can’t have the Queen of the Winged Folk bawling like a lost calf! Come, dry your tears, child. Just remember, however, that you weren’t the only one to suffer as a result of your folly. Strive to atone for your mistakes, and you’ll find that folk will forgive you in due course. And then, in the end, you might be able to forgive yourself.”

“Fine words, Nereni—if somewhat optimistic.” With a start Nereni recognized Anvar’s voice. The Mages had arrived, unnoticed, and were standing in the doorway. The woman saw Raven flinch away from Anvar’s stony gaze, and shivered. Here was one, at any rate, who would not forgive the winged girl in a hurry! Raven, sensing Anvar’s hostility, made her hasty farewells and left the chamber.

“Nereni!” The coldness fled from Anvar’s eyes as he came forward to embrace her, and Nereni heaved a sigh of relief at the reappearance of his old, broad grin. She was so glad to see him safe and well! And at least the Mage’s ordeal had not embittered him completely. No, Nereni thought, it’s only Raven that he hates—and more, I’ll wager, because of what was done to Aurian and her child than because of what happened to himself.

“But what in the world has brought you here like this?” Aurian asked anxiously as she embraced the little woman in her turn. Remembering the gravity of her mission, Nereni felt obscurely comforted by the Mage’s staunch presence. “It’s Eliizar,” she blurted. “Aurian—he wants us to leave you!”

Bit by bit the story came out. Aurian, sitting hand in hand with a grave-faced Anvar, frowned. “What? He wanted to leave? Without even letting you say good-bye to us?”

Nereni nodded. “Jharav and his folk were preparing to leave for the forest this morning. Already they will be searching for me…” She tried to keep the rising note of panic out of her voice. Seeing the glint of anger in Aurian’s eyes, Nereni shifted uncomfortably on her flimsy Skyfolk stool and struggled with her feelings of disloyalty toward her husband. “Eliizar is terrified,” she tried to explain. “Battle and privation he can deal with, in any amount, but the sorcery…” She shook her head sadly. “Something about your magic unmans him—especially after what happened to the child—so he must hide his fear in angry bluster. What am I to do, Aurian?” she pleaded. “I love Eliizar—I cannot leave him, not for all the world—yet how can I leave you and Anvar, whom I have come to love so deeply? I feel so torn…”

Aurian knelt beside her and took Nereni’s hands in her own. “What do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want us all to stay together,” Nereni replied simply. “I want you to come back with me and talk Eliizar out of this nonsense.”

Anvar had been listening to the conversation with increasing dismay. He didn’t want to lose Eliizar and Nereni as companions, but the more he thought about the alternatives… “Nereni, are you sure?” He frowned. “In some respects Eliizar is right. You’d be far safer returning to the forest with your countrymen. There’s bound to be fighting where we’re going—and knowing Eliizar, he’ll be in the thick of it. Do you want to take that risk? If anything should happen to him, what would become of you, stranded in a foreign land?”

“Why, we would take care of her, of course!” Aurian’s voice was sharp with indignation.

“So long as we’re in a position to do it,” Anvar said somberly. “There’s no guarantee that we’ll survive ourselves. And what about Eliizar’s fear of magic? Once we return to Nexis, that’s what this fight will be about.”

“Are you saying that you want us to go?” Nereni asked in a small voice that trembled on the edge of tears, and Anvar hated himself for killing the hope that his soul mate had put into the little woman’s eyes. But it was for the best. “Yes,” he told her brutally. “That’s exactly what I want.”

“Anvar—why?” Beyond that one pained gasp Nereni, for once, was shocked into speechlessness, though Anvar recoiled from the look of hurt on her face. Aurian was glaring at him in a way that, if the look could be solidified, would have flayed the flesh from his bones. “Anvar—what the bloody blazes are you doing?” her mental voice resounded sharply in his mind.

Anvar sighed. “The right thing for Eliizar and Nereni.” His own mental tones were hushed with sorrow. “It may not be what you or I or Nereni want, but think about the alternatives, Aurian. It’s by far the best option for their survival.”

Aurian bit her lip. Anvar could see how much she wanted to deny his logic, but… “Curse it, you’re right,” she told him softly, and turned away—but not before he had glimpsed the sheen of tears in her eyes. When she turned back to Nereni, however, she had her emotions back under control. “Anvar and Eliizar are right,” she told the woman firmly. “I’ll miss you so much, dear friend, but we must think of your future. Once our quest is over—”

“Don’t lie to me, Aurian!” Nereni snapped. “We’ll never see you again.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “Reaper curse you—I came to you for support—not this! Don’t you care about us anymore? Eliizar and I were good enough to help you through the desert and the mountains beyond—and in the forest you had a use for us, while supplies needed gathering and there was clothing to be made…” Nereni’s voice was harsh with bitterness. “But now that your other friends have arrived from the north, you no longer want us!” And she burst into tears.

“Nereni, that’s not true!” Aurian cried.

“It certainly isn’t.” Anvar leapt to his feet and went to put an arm around the little woman’s shoulders, persisting even though she tried to shrug him away. “Nereni—listen to me. Aurian and I will be traveling far to the north, across the ocean, and we’ll be going into greater peril than anything we’ve experienced so far. Frankly, if it were up to me…” He smiled ruefully. “Well, if there was any way we could do it, Aurian and I would be going back to the forest with you right now, to make a new life for ourselves in peace. But that’s just not possible. We have to go on, into more hardship and danger, but it would help us to know that some of our companions, at least, will be safe.”

“But you need me,” Nereni protested. “Who will look after you? I’ll be sick with worry—and what about the child…?”

“Wolf is another reason why you ought to go,” Aurian told her gently. “You know that Eliizar has a horror of the poor child.” Her eyes smoldered at the idea, but she controlled herself with a deep breath. “It’s not his fault, really. You know Wolf was born as a human child—you were there—but Eliizar never saw him as he was before. He doesn’t want you to have anything to do with the babe, and I don’t want that to come between you. Besides,” the Mage went on persuasively, “you’ll have enough folk to take care of without fretting about Anvar and me. As well as his surviving soldiers, Harihn’s household folk were left behind in the forest. You’ll have enough people to start a thriving little colony, and it will need leaders, Nereni. If Anvar and I can win through, and bring peace back to the world, it will be an enormous help in the future to have allies in the south.” She smiled. “Why, next time we see you, we’ll be coming back to visit the King and Queen of the Forest!”

“If we all survive that long,” Nereni said sourly, but the anger had fled from her voice, and Anvar began to hope that she was coming round to the idea of staying behind. “So you’ll do it?” he cajoled. “For us?”

“Do I have a choice?” Nereni snapped.

Aurian put a hand on her shoulder. “Of course you have a choice,” she said. “If you really want to come with us, that’s fine by me—but I have a feeling you’ll be doing it without Eliizar. Is that what you really want?”

Defeated, Nereni lowered her face into her hands. “No,” she whispered in a muffled voice. Anvar saw a single tear trickle from between her fingers. Aurian, with tears in her own eyes, knelt to embrace the woman who had been such a staunch friend to her throughout so many hardships. “It’ll be all right,” she murmured. “It’s for the best—you’ll see. And the next time we meet, all this trouble will be over, and Wolf will be a human boy again…” She turned to Anvar. “Would you mind leaving us alone for a little while, Anvar? If you would send for Raven to say farewell, we can make arrangements to take Nereni back.”

“I’ll organize that,” Anvar agreed. “We’d better hurry. Eliizar will—”

“Eliizar won’t say anything,” Aurian said shortly. “Not after I’ve spoken to him, he won’tl”

“You’re going, too?”

“Yes, to talk to Parric. And I’d like to say good-bye to Eliizar and bring Wolf back with me. Want to come?”

“Indeed I do.” As the Mage left the room, he took pains to screen his thoughts from his soulmate. He didn’t want to worry Aurian unduly, but… Anvar also needed to speak with Eliizar—to pass on a warning.

Possession of the Harp of Winds had left Anvar with a preternatural awareness of the weather patterns over a very wide distance. When the Mages had brought spring back to the world, there had been one unfortunate effect of which Aurian had not been aware. The lethal sandstorms over the Jeweled Desert had ceased completely. With a shudder Anvar remembered Xiang, the cruel tyrant King of the Xandim. When the Mages had escaped his clutches, along with his son, Harihn, Aurian had managed to terrify the King into letting them go. By now, however, Anvar had: a feeling that the fear would be wearing off. Xiang was a vengeful man—it seemed impossible that he would not try to pursue them sooner or later. And now that the desert was safe once more, the way to the north lay wide-open—and passed directly through the great forested valley that Eliizar wanted to colonize. If Xiang should come… Anvar shuddered. Eliizar had to be warned.

Soft curls of morning mist drifted around the feet of Incondor’s Tower. The jingle of bits and the impatient stamp of horses’ hooves carried clearly through the cool, damp air, while cloaked and hooded figures, their voices hushed and low in the predawn stillness, hurried to and fro from the tower to complete their last-minute preparations for departure. Others, such as Jharav—the veteran Khazalim captain who had befriended Nereni during her captivity—had been more efficiently organized than their tardy companions and were already mounted and waiting, impatient to leave. At the edge of the thicket, away from the bustle in the tower, sorrowful farewells were taking place.

“I’m sorry you can’t go on with us, but I understand your reasons.” Anvar clasped Eliizar’s hand. “Go well, my friend. Take good care of yourself—and Nereni.” He glanced across at the little woman who stood nearby, deep in conversation with Aurian. “You have a very special lady, there, Eliizar. If you find, in the days to come, that she’s full of surprises, try to understand how much she has been growing in these last hard months.” The Mage grinned wryly. “It’s strange, but traveling with Aurian tends to have that effect on people.”

Eliizar shook his head ruefully. “Her changes will take a good deal of getting used to. The way she went off like that, alone to Aerillia—my timid Nereni, of all people! But how could I be angry with her?” He spread his hands helplessly. “I was so afraid that something dreadful had happened to her or…” Anvar could see the struggle in his face, as he tried to form his next words. “Or that she had left me, because of my cowardice,” the swordmaster finished softly.

Anvar laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not a coward, Eliizar,” he reassured the older man. “It takes a great deal of courage to face up to your fears as you did. And, unfortunately, I’m convinced that you’ll still have a part to play in the struggle to come.” At the earliest opportunity he had taken Eliizar aside and told the swordmaster his fears of an attack by the vengeful Khazalim King.

Now Eliizar nodded gravely—but there was a twinkle in his one good eye, and Anvar was certain that the aging warrior was looking forward to the prospect of a battle. “Your warning has been well taken,” he assured the Mage. “In coming from the desert Xiang must bring his army through our valley—a narrow place, indeed.” He bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. “We may be outnumbered, but our forest is the ideal place for an ambush—indeed, for any number of them! When Xiang comes, he will find a welcome he will not forget.”

“Good man, Eliizar!” Anvar clapped him on the back. “Remember, though, that two winged messengers are going with you, now that Aurian has worked the same spell on them that she did with Raven, so that they can speak the Khazalim tongue. If you do find yourself in difficulties, send for help to Aerillia.”

“We will need no assistance from those winged traitors,” the swordmaster snapped. Like Anvar, he was finding Raven’s treachery very hard to forgive—but the Mage did not want Eliizar’s antagonism to cost him his life.

“Now, listen,” Anvar began firmly. “You will be very badly outnumbered, Eliizar. Don’t let pride deceive you into—” He broke off abruptly as Aurian approached. The last thing he wanted was to start worrying her with this business. Luckily, Nereni was issuing a stream of last-minute instructions that had drowned out his words.

“And don’t let the little mite get wet,” she was saying, “and remember to keep him warm, Aurian—tell that Bohan to make sure to keep him out of drafts—and—”

“Don’t worry, Nereni,” Aurian protested with a smile. “He’s a wolf, remember—a tough little thing! But never fear, we’ll take the best possible care of him.” She turned to Eliizar. “All ready to go?”

The swordmaster nodded. The farewell was brief and awkward, with Nereni, weeping bitter tears, hugging first Anvar, then Aurian, as if she would never let them go. Then she tore herself away with the first curse that Anvar had ever heard her utter and ran off toward the waiting group of riders, followed closely by Eliizar.

Anvar turned to Aurian. “Poor Nereni. I’m going to miss her—and she’ll be worrying herself to a shadow, wondering how we’ll manage without her.” He grinned wryly. “I don’t hold out much hope of a quiet life for Eliizar in the next few months.”

The Mage’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t you?” she said brightly. “Well, I wouldn’t count on that, my love. With luck I may have arranged a little surprise for Nereni—and within the next few months she could have other matters to occupy her than the fate of two stray Magefolk.”

“What do you mean?” Anvar demanded—but Aurian, looking annoyingly smug and secretive, refused to say another word on the subject.

As Eliizar and Nereni reached their horses, Anvar saw a lean figure, still with the slightest trace of a limp, detach himself from the knot of onlookers and put his hands on the swordmaster’s shoulders in a warrior’s embrace. At his side the Mage heard Aurian sigh with relief. “Yazour unbent, then, in the end,” she murmured. “I’m so glad.”

Anvar, too, was pleased. Yazour had been appalled by what he had seen as Eliizar’s defection from their group. He had always held the older warrior in the greatest esteem; the swordmaster’s weakness, therefore, had disappointed him all the more. As the group of Khazalim made their way down the hillside, the young warrior came over to join the Mages. “That’s that, then,” he muttered.

“Yazour, are you sure you won’t be too lonely without them?” Aurian asked. “Now that Eliizar and Nereni have gone, you’ve lost all your countrymen save Bohan. If you want to change your mind and go with them—well, Anvar and I would hate to lose you, but we’d understand.”

“Lady, do you take me for a skulking coward?” Yazour looked affronted. “You are my companions—where you go, I go!” With that he walked stiffly away.

Aurian sighed, and laid her head on Anvar’s shoulder. “I had to go and say it, didn’t I?”

“Actually,” Anvar comforted her, “I think you did.” He tightened his arms around her, enjoying the feeling of closeness. “Yazour is only feeling prickly because Eliizar has gone. He’ll get over it.” Suddenly troubled by a vague sense of unease, he looked up, over Aurian’s shoulder. A short distance away, at the edge of the thicket, Parric stood watching them. The little cavalrymaster’s expression was cold and bleak as stone. Meeting Anvar’s eyes, he turned away sharply and melted into the undergrowth. A shiver, like a finger of ice, ran down the Mage’s spine.

Three days after her miraculous rescue, Hreeza demanded, much to the surprise of Aurian and Shia, to see the child who had saved her life.

“Are you sure?” the Mage asked doubtfully as she sat with Shia beside the old cat’s bed. Hreeza’s words had captured her attention with a jolt, for Aurian had been paying scant attention to the mental murmur of conversation between the two cats. She had been brooding over the events of the previous day, when she and Anvar had returned with Nereni by net, courtesy of Raven’s winged bearers, to the Tower of Incondor.

A great many matters had been arranged among the companions in a very short time. The Mage had returned Chiamh and Yazour, both protesting bitterly, to Parric’s forces—for the little cavalrymaster was desperately in need of translators for the widely assorted group who would be under his care during the ride back to the Xandim Fastness. Aurian chuckled wryly. Trust Parric. Only he could find himself suddenly ruling a race whose language he couldn’t even speak!

After bidding a sorrowful farewell to Eliizar and Nereni, the Magefolk had seen them off on the first leg of their journey back through the mountains, and Aurian had arranged for the winged couriers Finch and Petrel (who had volunteered, the Mage suspected, with thoughts of Nereni’s cooking uppermost in their minds) to accompany them in case of emergencies. Only then had Aurian been free to collect her child and its lupine foster parents—and to placate Bohan, who had been determined not to leave the wolfling, even for a little while. The matter was taken out of his hands, however, for the Skyfolk were unable to transport one of his vast size and wisely refused even to make the attempt. Instead the eunuch was to go with Parric, on the sturdy, stolid horse that had borne him all the way across the desert. He would meet the Magefolk again at the Xandim Fastness.

While the cavalrymaster made the slower journey by horseback to the Xandim lands, the Mage planned to return to Aerillia and use her mother’s Earth-magic to speed the growth of the new crops that the Skyfolk were currently planting—and she still had a great many matters to resolve with Raven. There was also the matter of Anvar’s continuing hostility toward the newly crowned Queen of the Skyfolk—but she would resolve that, too, given time. In the meantime, Aurian’s immediate concern had been to persuade her child’s foster parents to leave their pack and make the journey by net to Aerillia—and even more difficult, to persuade the winged bearers to take them. By the time everything had been arranged and the Mages were ready to return to the Skyfolk city, Aurian had been ready to tear her hair out and scream.

Hreeza’s words, however, drove all these matters to the back of the Mage’s mind. The old cat, though she still slept for much of the time, seemed well on the road to recovery, but perhaps the experience had turned her brain. Aurian raised a questioning eyebrow at Shia, who returned the mental equivalent of a shrug.

“I would have thought,” the Mage suggested cautiously, “that you’d have had enough of the Skyfolk for the time being.” Following the cat’s ordeal at the hands of her people’s ancient foes, Hreeza had acted with undisguised hostility toward any of the Winged Folk who had entered her chamber.

Shia, in her usual style, was much more forthright. “What do you want with the cub?” she demanded. “Be still, you old fool: rest. Have you forgotten how close we came to losing you?”

“No, I have not forgotten.” Hreeza’s mental voice, though faint and weary, still held a spark of her old acerbic spirit. “That is why I wish to see my rescuer. Had it not been for that cub of the Skyfolk, I would have perished for certain—and it is against my nature to let a debt go unpaid, as well you know, Shia. I must thank the little one—and as it galls me to be beholden to any of these skyborne scum, I wish to get the unpleasant business over with as soon as possible.”

“Pah! You don’t fool me!” Shia retorted. “I know you too well, Hreeza. You are keeping something from us, or I’m a chunk of Xandim horse meat! Come on, spit it out!” And when Hreeza remained obstinately silent, the younger cat continued: “I won’t let Aurian send for the child until you do.”

Hreeza grumbled through her whiskers, but she knew when she was beaten. “Very well,” she conceded grudgingly, “but you won’t believe me.” She shot Shia a challenging glare. “The Skyfolk can hear us, Shia. They have the potential to understand our mindspeech just as the Mages can!”

Aurian, listening in on this conversation, uttered a startled exclamation, but Shia was silent, too stunned for speech. After a moment she collected herself. “Nonsense!” she snapped. “Delirium—that’s all it was. You imagined it!”

“I did not!” Hreeza snarled. “I called out for help, I tell you—and that winged cub heard me!”

Aurian, lacking Shia’s background of inborn hatred and resentment of the Winged Folk, was quicker than her friend to grasp at the possibilities. “But if the two races can communicate, then surely there must be a way of making peace between you,” she suggested cautiously.

“Never!” Shia spat. She turned on Aurian, eyes blazing. “What of our slaughtered people? Have you forgotten so quickly the skins that the Skyfolk gave you and Anvar to warm yourselves? Have you forgotten how Raven betrayed us and almost cost us all our lives—including your child? The Winged Folk are not to be trusted! They are base, treacherous, murderous…”

“Hush.” Hreeza’s voice cut firmly through Shia’s snarling tirade. “The slaughter of our people has gone on long enough,” the old cat declared. She looked sympathetically at the dumbfounded Shia, and sighed. “In my heart I agree with you, my friend, but my head tells me this war between our people and the Skyfolk must cease. The slaughter of our race has gone on long enough—and I would never wish another cat to suffer as I did. Someone must call a halt to these senseless hostilities, and if the winged cub holds out a hope for the future, then let us take advantage of it!” Her head drooped with exhaustion, and she laid it down on her outstretched paws. “Enough, Shia. I am weary. While I sleep, you must consider my words—find Khanu, too, and discuss it with him. Then, when I awaken, you must send for the little one.”