The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  And the closest thing I am ever likely to have, now.

  When—best say, if—a kestra’chern ever found a mate, it was nearly always someone from within the ranks of the kestra’chern. No one else would understand; no one else would ever be able to tolerate sharing a mate with others. But for such a pairing to work, it had to be between equals. The altercation between Jaseen and Lily had only shown how easily quarrels could spring up over a client. And if one kestra’chern in a pairing was of a higher rank than another, such quarrels—and, even deadlier, jealousy—were more than likely, they were inevitable. Beneath the surface of every kestra’chern Amberdrake had ever met was a lurking fear of inadequacy. So unless both in a pairing were equal…

  The lesser would eventually come to envy and fear the greater. And fear that his or her own skills would not be enough to hold the partner.

  Amberdrake was the equal of no kestra’chern here; that was an established fact. And it meant even temporary liaisons must be approached with great caution.

  Which left him even more alone.

  Even more alone—no. This is ridiculous. If I were a client, I’d be told to stop feeling sorry for myself and concentrate on something that would make me feel good. Or at least stop me from being engulfed by the past.

  The sleeve was done; he picked up a second garment and began sewing a fringe of tiny beads back in place. Thousands of tiny beads had been strung into a heavy, glittering fall of color, in luxurious imitation of a Kaled’a’in dancing costume where the fringe would be made of dyed leather. It was a task exacting enough to require quite a bit of concentration and, with gratitude, he lost himself in it.

  Until someone scratched at the tied flap of the tent-door, and he looked up in startlement. The silhouetted shadow on the beige of the canvas was human, and not that of a hertasi.

  Now what? he wondered, but put his mending down and rose to answer it.

  He was a little disconcerted to find yet another young Healer—another stranger, and another newcomer—waiting uneasily for him to answer the summons.

  “Are you—ah—Amberdrake?” the youngster asked, blushing furiously. “The—ah—kes-kes-kes—”

  “Yes, I am Kestra’chern Amberdrake,” he replied, with a sigh. “How may I help you?”

  The youngster—barely out of a scrawny, gawky adolescence, and not yet grown into the slender and graceful adult Amberdrake saw signs he would become—stared down at his shoes. “I ah—have a patient, and—my senior Healer said my patient needs to see you and if I wanted to know why—I, ah, should ask you myself.”

  “And who is your senior Healer?” Amberdrake asked, a little more sharply than he had intended.

  “M’laud,” came the barely audible reply.

  At that, Amberdrake came very near to destroying the poor lad with a bray of laughter. After having sent one of M’laud’s juniors up the hill with his tail on fire, the senior Healer had evidently decided to teach his juniors about kestra’chern directly.

  But he kept control of himself, and when the lad looked up, it was to see a very serene countenance, a mask that would have done the Silver Veil herself proud.

  “Come in, please,” Amberdrake said calmly. “I think you are probably laboring under a great many misconceptions, and I would be most happy to dispel those for you.”

  When he held the tent-flap wide and gestured, the boy had no choice but to come inside. Amberdrake noted with amusement how the youngster stared around him, while trying not to look as if he was doing so.

  What does he expect to see? Never mind, I think I can guess.

  “Take a seat, please,” he said, gesturing to a hassock at a comfortable distance from the cushion he took for himself. “I take it that you are afraid that I am going to hurt your patient. Is that true?” At the boy’s stiff nod, he smiled. “I take it also that you have never had the services of a kestra’chern yourself?”

  “Of course not!” the young Healer blurted with indignation—then realized how rude that was, and winced. But Amberdrake only chuckled.

  “Young man—what is your name, anyway?”

  “Lanz,” came the gurgled reply.

  “Lanz—by now, I should think that M’laud has made you aware that the preliminary training for Healers and kestra’chern is practically identical. And I know—I began my training as a Healer.” Amberdrake raised his eyebrow at the boy, who gaped at him.

  “But why didn’t you—I mean—why a kestra’chern?” Lanz blurted again.

  “You sound as if you were saying, ‘why a chunk of dung?’ do you realize that?” Amberdrake countered. “When you consider that the Kaled’a’in rank the kestra’chern with shaman, that’s not only rude, that’s likely to get you smacked, at least by anyone in the Clans!”

  Lanz hung his head and said something too smothered to hear, but his ears and neck turned as scarlet as Amberdrake’s favorite robe.

  I seem to be making a great many people blush, today. Another Gift? “Lanz, most of the reasons I became a kestra’chern are too complicated to go into for the most part—but I can tell you the only simple one. I am also Empathic, too strong an Empath to be of any use as a conventional Healer.” Amberdrake nodded as Lanz looked up cautiously from beneath a fringe of dark hair. “That doesn’t mean I became this because I am afflicted by some horrible mental curse—but as a kestra’chern, well, I never see those who are so badly injured that their physical pain overwhelms everything else. But I can use my Gifts and my training to Heal the deeper and more subtle pains, injuries of mind, body, and heart they may not even be aware they have.”

  “But not all kestra’chern are Healers,” Lanz said doubtfully. “Or Empaths…”

  Amberdrake smiled. “That is true. Most of them are not. And those who have no Gifts must work the harder to learn how to read the languages of body and tone; to see the subtle signals of things that the Gifted can read directly.” As Lanz’s blushes faded, he allowed himself a chuckle. “My friend, there is one thing that the kestra’chern have learned over the centuries: people who believe they are coming to someone only for an hour or two of pleasure are far more likely to unburden themselves than people who are confronted with a Healer or other figure of authority. If we honey-coat the Healing with a bit of enjoyment, of physical pleasure, where’s the harm: Now—is your patient the last one on my roster tonight?”

  “I think so.” Lanz sat up a little straighter now, and he had lost some of the tension in his body that had told Amberdrake the boy was afraid of him.

  “M’laud sent me a briefing on her. The reason she is coming to me is that she is under some kind of great inner tension that M’laud has been unable to release, as well as some severe battlefield trauma, and that is making it impossible for her damaged body to heal.” Lanz’s face lit up—and Amberdrake decided that he must have thought her failure to heal was his fault. “M’laud suspects that she suffered some kind of abuse in her childhood, which is the real root of her problems—essentially, she is unconsciously punishing herself for being such a bad person that she deserved abuse.” He sighed and shook his head. “I know that this makes no sense, but this is something that kestra’chern in particular see and hear all the time. And it is not something you have any chance of dealing with, for I greatly doubt you would ever get her to trust you enough. Not because you are not trustworthy, but simply because of her own problems. You have other responsibilities to take your time, and you are less experienced with this kind of problem than I. I am a stranger, and it is often easier to say terrible things to a stranger than it is to someone who has known you, for the stranger will not pre-judge. I will not be anywhere near the front lines, ever, and thus she will know that I have no chance of being cut down by the enemy—I become safe to think of as a friend, because she knows she will not lose me.”

  Lanz shifted a little in his seat, looking rather doubtful, and Amberdrake decided to overwhelm him, just a little. “Here—I’ll prove it to you,” he said, in an authoritative voice.

&
nbsp; And he told off the litany of all the formal training he’d had, first with the Chirurgeons, then the Silver Veil, and finally Lorshallen. It took rather a long time, and before he was finished, Lanz’s eyes had glazed over and it looked to Amberdrake as if the poor boy’s head was in quite a spin.

  “You see?” he finished. “If you’ve had half that training, I’d call you a good Healer.”

  “I never knew,” the youngster said in a daze, “and when Karly came up the Hill from talking to you…”

  “Karly? The red-head?” Amberdrake threw back his head and laughed.

  Shyly, Lanz joined the laughter. “I heard that one of the other senior Healers said, ‘I hope he has a regular bed-mate, because after talking to Amberdrake the way he did, there isn’t a kestra’chern in all of the camp who’ll take him for any price!’ I suppose he was awfully rude to you.”

  “Rude?!” Amberdrake replied. “That doesn’t begin to describe him! Still, Karly needn’t worry. We’re obligated to take those in need, and I can’t imagine anyone more in need of—our services—than he is!”

  Lanz smiled shyly. “And—Karly’s rather thick,” he offered. “After talking to you—you being so kind and all—well, if you take any of my patients, I think I’m going to be awfully grateful, and kind of flattered.”

  This time Amberdrake’s smile was as much full of surprise as pleasure. “Thank you, Lanz. I will take that as a very high compliment. Can I offer you anything?”

  The boy blinked shyly. “I don’t suppose a cup of bitteralm would delay me much—and could you tell me a little more about some of the others down here?”

  Amberdrake rose, and Lanz rose with him. “Why not come with me to the mess-tent and see for yourself?” he asked.

  “I think I will!” Lanz replied, as if he was surprised by his own response.

  By such little victories are wars and hearts won, Amberdrake thought with a wry pleasure, as he led the way.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Zhaneel flexed her talons, digging them into the wood of her enormous block-perch. She checked over her harness again—wire-scissors, bolts, spikes, rope-knife, pre-knotted ties, all sized for her large, stubby “hands”—and stared out over the obstacle-course she herself had set up. The course covered several acres by now, built mainly in erosion-trenches and brook-cut hollows that were of little value to anyone in Urtho’s camp, dotted with fallen trees and sandstone boulders. To get from here to the end of it, she would have to fly, dodge, crawl, and even swim. There were water hazards, fire hazards, missiles lobbed by catapult—

  And now, magic.

  She had already gotten the help of Amberdrake’s hertasi, Gesten, in this endeavor. He’d been there. from the very beginning; somehow he had known, perhaps through Amberdrake, what she was going to attempt. He had never asked her why. He simply showed up unasked, acted as her hands, then found three others to aid him in setting up the course and in triggering the hazards. At first, no one had paid any attention to what she was doing, but gradually her runs attracted a small audience. This had bothered her, until the day when, after several unsuccessful tries at passing a hazard of simulated crossbow-bolts, she made it through untouched and the tiny group applauded wildly.

  That was when she realized that they were not there to make fun of her, but to cheer her on.

  She had honestly not known what to make of that; it bewildered her. Why should anyone take an interest in her?

  Then again, she had never been able to effectively figure out why hertasi and humans did most things…

  But today, she had a larger audience than ever before, and she knew precisely why this time. Word had spread that her obstacle course included magic.

  She hadn’t planned on including magical traps; those took effort and much energy, and she had never for a moment believed that there was any mage in the entire camp willing to devote so much as a candlemark of practice-time to helping her. Or so she had thought, until a few days ago.

  A young mage, a Journeyman named Vikteren approached her for help. He needed spell-components. Still-living spell-components, which were not at all interested in becoming components of anything.

  Zhaneel’s speed and agility were what caught his attention; speed and agility were precisely what he lacked in going after starlings, rabbits, and other small, swift creatures. So they struck a bargain: she would hunt for him, and he would provide her with magical obstacles.

  He had been doing so for several days now—and he had told her yesterday, grinning, that he was very impressed. Actually, what he had said was, “You’re good, gryphon! Very damned good!”

  So, much to her shock and amazement, had the gryphons’ trainer, Taran Shire. The day after Vikteren began helping her, Taran showed up on the sidelines. Now, along with the young Journeyman, the seasoned trainer joined her every day, working with her on his own time.

  She tried to put her audience out of her mind, although that was far from easy—her own kind were out there, other gryphons, those from other wings as well as her own. And what was more, some of those same gryphons had taken to training on the course and leaving her tokens of appreciation.

  Every time she made a pass on the course, people cheered her efforts, from hertasi to humans, from gryphons to a lone kyree who seemed to find her fascinating. Now, they waited for her to start yet again.

  A white and red striped flag midway down the course went up and waved twice, and she launched from the block. This was a rescue mission—to free a captured gryphon. The details had been kept secret, at her request, so she had only a general idea what to expect. One thing she knew for certain—Vikteren and the hertasi planned to make her work harder than ever before.

  The first danger came only twelve wing-strokes after starting—a sudden gust of wind from her right. It hit her hard and pushed her towards a downed tree’s spidery limbs—an easy place to lose feathers and find lacerations. She reacted by rolling in midair and grounding, folding her wings in tight while she clutched at stones and brush. The wind gusts ceased, and Zhaneel leapt over a ravine, to the cheers of the audience.

  She crept into the next erosion-channel, popping her head up to look for danger every few seconds. A quick bolt of fire shot towards the ravine from behind a boulder, and was followed by a huge fire-ball that roared like a sustained lightning-strike. It burned slowly through the ravine, catching the underbrush afire. She heard the audience gasp even over the roar, as Zhaneel scrambled out of their line of sight, disappearing from their view. She knew what was in their minds. Had the game gone too far?

  But she couldn’t worry about them. They’d see her soon enough…

  She popped up again at the far end of the adjoining erosion-cut. She leapt to the sandstone boulder with a growl, and drew her rope-knife on the surprised mage hiding behind it. Hah! Hello, Vikteren.

  “You die!” she sang out, and Vikteren grinned and fell backwards.

  “I’m dead here,” he reminded her as he stood up and brushed off his robes. “See you further on, maybe.”

  “You might not see me at all, dead body!” she laughed, then sheathed the knife. There was a mission to accomplish, a gryphon to rescue, and the adventure had barely begun.

  * * *

  Amberdrake felt like a proud and anxious father as he watched the young gryphon waiting on her block-perch. Every line and quivering muscle betrayed her tension and her concentration. He had arrived after she took her position, but still managed to commandeer a place in the front beside Skan. The Black Gryphon had recovered from his injuries nicely, although he was still officially convalescing on the orders of Lady Cinnabar. He was keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, however—as if he was afraid his presence would distract the young female at some crucial moment.

  Well, it might. The youngster had been patently overawed by the Black Gryphon; if she knew he was watching, she might well lose her concentration.

  Skan’s tail twitched impatiently, but as Amberdrake put a comradely hand on his shoulder
, he gave Amberdrake a sideways gryph-grin, before riveting his attention on the distant gray and buff figure of Zhaneel.

  At the end of the course, a flag dropped. Zhaneel left the block with a leap, followed by an audible snap of wings opening.

  Amberdrake had never seen a gryphon run an obstacle-course before, though he’d heard from Gesten that Skan had been out here to watch for the past three days in a row. He hadn’t been able to imagine what kinds of obstacles could be put in front of a gryphon, whose aerial nature made ordinary obstacles ridiculous. He was impressed, both with Zhaneel’s ability to create the course, and her ability to run it.

  More to the point, so was Skan.

  He gasped with the others when it appeared, briefly, that a rolling fire-ball had accidentally engulfed her; he hadn’t realized that there would be some hazards on this course that were real, and not just illusions. He sighed with relief when she reappeared, and cheered when she “killed” someone, a Journeyman mage by his clothing.

  Skan remained absolutely motionless, except for the very end of his tail, which flopped and twitched like a fish on land. Like a cat, the end of his tail betrayed his mental state.

  Well, every other gryphon in the audience was watching her closely too; gryphons were by nature impressed with any kind of fancy flying. It was part of courtship and mating, after all. But none of the others had quite the same rapt intensity in their gaze as Skan did.

  In point of fact, he looked as much stunned as enraptured, rather as if he’d been hit in the back of the head with a club.

  Amberdrake smothered a chuckle when he realized that Skan’s eyes had glazed over. Poor Black Gryphon! He was used to impressing, not being impressed!

  Zhaneel neatly dodged a set of ambushes; crossbow-bolts, dropping nets, and an illusion of fighters. “She’s good, isn’t she,” he said, feeling incredibly proud of her. She wasn’t just good, she was smooth. She integrated her movements, flowing from flight to ground and back again seamlessly.