The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  The Gryphon King, beloved where e’er he goes. That was what Aubri had said to his face, mockingly.

  But the real irony of the statement was that it was true: He never left Khimbata without being loaded down with gifts of all sorts. His jewelry collection was astonishing; if he and Zhaneel wore all of it at one time, they’d never get off the ground.

  Between us, if we’re lucky, Keeth and I might manage to be a quarter as famous as he is—and then most of it will be due to the fact that we’re his sons.

  That could have been a depressing thought, if Tad had any real ambition. But to be frank, he didn’t. He’d seen the negative effects of all that adulation—how it was always necessary for Skandranon to be charming, witty, and unfailingly polite no matter what he personally felt like. How when the family visited Khimbata, Skandranon had barely a moment to himself and none to spare for them. And how even at home, there was always someone who wanted something from him. He was always getting gifts, and a great many of those gifts came with requests attached. Even when they didn’t, there was always the chance that a demand, phrased as a request, would come later, perhaps when he wasn’t expecting it and was off his guard.

  There was no way for Skandranon to know whether someone wanted his friendship because of what he was or because of who he was—and the difference was critical.

  No, thank you. I am very fond of obscurity, all things considered.

  It would be no bad thing to be an obscure Silver, always assigned to the Outposts, hopefully collecting enough extra from his discoveries to finance a comfortable style of living. Let Keeth collect all the notoriety of being the first gryphon trondi’irn; Tad would be happy to donate whatever measure of “fame” fate had in store for him to his brother! Just as he had finished that thought, he noticed that the others were looking at him. Evidently Keeth had run out of things to say, and it was his turn again.

  Oh, bother.

  Skandranon cleared his throat. As always, the sound, an affectation acquired from living so much with humans, sounded very odd coming from a gryphon.

  It sounds as if he’s trying to cough up a hairball, actually.

  “Well!” Skandranon said heartily. “Your mother and I are very interested in hearing about this outpost you’re being sent to. What do you know about it?”

  Tad sighed with resignation, and submitted himself to the unrelenting pressure of parental love.

  * * *

  Blade couldn’t bring herself to sit, although she managed to keep from pacing along the edge of the cliff. The stone here was a bit precarious for pacing—how ignoble if she should slip and fall, breaking something, and force Judeth and Aubri to send someone else to the outpost after all! Tad would never, ever forgive me. Or else—he’d take a new partner and go, and I would be left behind to endure parental commiserations.

  Ikala sat on a rock and watched the sunset rather than her. He’d asked her to meet him here for a private farewell; her emotions were so mixed now that she honestly didn’t know what to say to him. So far, he hadn’t said anything to her, and she waited for him to begin.

  He cleared his throat, still without looking at her. “So, you leave tomorrow. For several months, I’m told?” Of course, he knew her assignment, everyone in the Silvers did; he was just using the question as a way to start the conversation.

  The sun ventured near to the ocean; soon it would plunge down below the line of the horizon. Her throat and tongue felt as if they belonged to someone else. “Yes,” she finally replied. Now she knew why people spoke of being “tongue-tied.” It had been incredibly difficult just to get that single word out.

  She wanted to say more, to ask if he would miss her, if he was angry that she was leaving just as their friendship looked to become something more. She wanted to know if he was hurt that she hadn’t consulted him, or chosen him as her partner instead of Tad. Above all, she wanted to know what he was thinking.

  Instead, she couldn’t say anything.

  “Come and sit,” he said, gesturing at the rocks beside him. “You do not look comfortable.”

  I’m not, she said silently. I’m as twitchy as a nervous cat.

  But she sat down anyway, warily, gingerly. The sun-warmed rock felt smooth beneath her hand, worn to satin-softness by hundreds of years of wind and water. She concentrated on the rock, mentally holding to its solidity and letting it anchor her heart.

  “I am both happy for you and sad, Blade,” Ikala said, as if he was carefully weighing and choosing each word. “I am happy for you, because you are finally being granted—what you have earned. It is a good thing. But I am sad because you will be gone for months.”

  He sighed, although he did not stir. Blade held herself tensely, waiting for him to continue, but he said nothing more. She finally turned toward him. “I wanted an assignment like this one very much,” she agreed. “I’m not certain I can explain why, though—”

  But unexpectedly, as he half-turned to meet her eyes, he smiled. “Let me try,” he suggested, and there was even a suggestion of self-deprecating humor. “You feel smothered by-your honored parents and, perversely, wish for their approval of a life so different from theirs. Additionally, you fear that their influence will either purchase you an easier assignment than you warrant, or will insure that you are never placed in any sort of danger. You wish to see what you can do with only the powers of your own mind and your own skills, and if you are not far away from them, you are certain you will never learn the answer to that question.”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, startled by his insight. “But how did you—” Then she read the message behind that rueful smile, the shrug of the dark-skinned shoulders. “You came here for the same reason, didn’t you?”

  He nodded once, and his deep brown eyes showed that same self-deprecating humor that had first attracted her. “The same. And that is why, although I wish that you were not going so far or for so long—or that we were going to the same place—I wanted you to know that I am content to wait upon your return. We will see what you have learned, and what that learning has made of you.”

  “And you think I will be different?” She licked her lips with a dry tongue.

  “At least in part,” he offered. “You may return a much different person than the one you are now; not that I believe that I will no longer care much for that different person! But that person and I may prove to be no more than the best of friends and comrades-in-arms. And that will not be a bad thing, though it is not the outcome I would prefer.”

  She let out her breath and relaxed. He was being so reasonable about this that she could hardly believe her ears! “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think I’ve spent so much time proving who I’m not that I don’t know who I am.”

  “So go and find out,” he told her, and laughed, now reaching out to touch her hand briefly: The touch sent a shivery chill up her arm. “You see, I had to come here to do the same thing. So I have some understanding of the process.”

  “Are you glad that you came here?” she asked, wondering if the question was too personal, and wishing he would do more than just touch her hand.

  Now it was his turn to look away, into the sunset, for a moment. “On the whole—yes,” he told her. “Although in doing so, it became impossible to follow the alternate path I might have taken. There was a maiden, back in my father’s court—but she was impatient, and did not like it that I chose to go somewhere other than to the court of another emperor. She saw my choice as a lessening of my status, and my leaving as a desertion of her. I have heard that she wedded elsewhere, one of my more traditional half-brothers.”

  “Oh—I’m sorry—” she said quickly, awkwardly.

  But he turned back to her, and did not seem particularly unhappy as he ran his hand across his stiff black curls. “There is not a great deal to be sorry about,” he pointed out. “If she saw it as desertion, she did not know me; if I could not predict that she would, I did not know her. So…” He shrugged. “Since it was not long before my so
rrow was gone, I suspect my own feelings were not as deep as she would have liked, nor as I had assumed.”

  “It’s not as if you were lacking in people willing to console you here!” she pointed out recklessly, with a feeling of breathlessness that she couldn’t explain. She laughed to cover it.

  “And that is also true.” His smile broadened. “And it was not long before I felt no real need of such consolation, as I had another interest to concentrate on.”

  Her feeling of breathlessness intensified; this was the nearest he had come to flirting with her, and yet behind the playfulness, there was more than a hint of seriousness. Did she want that? She didn’t know. And now—she was very glad that she was going to have three months to think about it.

  “Well, I think, on the whole, it will be a good thing for you to have six months to learn what it is that Blade is made of,” he said, in a lighter tone. “And I shall have the benefit of knowing that there will be no other young men at this outpost that may convince you to turn your attentions elsewhere. So any decisions you make—concerning our friendship—will be decisions made by you, only.”

  She snorted. “As if any young man could ‘make me change my mind’ about anything important!” she replied, just a little sharply.

  “Which only proves that I cannot claim to know you any better than any other friend!” he countered. “You see? This much I do understand; you have a strong sense of duty, and that will always be the first in your heart. I would like to think that I am the same. So, whatever, we must reconcile ourselves to that before we make any other commitments.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “That seems reasonable… but it isn’t exactly… romantic.” That last came out much more plaintively than she had expected, or intended.

  “Well, if it is a romantic parting that you wish—” He grinned. “I can be both practical and romantic, as, I suspect, can you.” He took one of her hands, but only one, and looked directly into her eyes. “Silverblade, I crossed an empire, I left my land and all I have ever known. I did not expect to find someone like you here, and yet—I do not follow some of my people’s reasoning that all is foredestined, but it sometimes seems as if I was drawn here because you were here. Now I know something of what I am. I believe that there is in you a spirit that would make a match for my own. If, in the end, a few months more will bring us together, such a wait will be no hardship.” He patted her hand. “I trust that is romance enough for your practical soul?”

  She laughed giddily. “I think so,” she said, feeling as lightheaded as if she had just drunk an entire bottle of wine. “I—I’m not nearly that eloquent—”

  “Neither is the falcon,” he said, releasing her hand. “But she is admirable for her grace without need of eloquence. Go become a passage bird, Silverblade. When you return, we shall try out hunting in a cast of two.”

  * * *

  Blade hadn’t needed to do all that much packing last night, but she had pretended that she did—and as soon as she was done, she blew out her candle and willed herself to sleep. The need for rest was real, and if she had not torn herself away from her overly-concerned parents, she would not have gotten any. They would have kept her up all night with questions, most of which she didn’t have any answers to, since all of them were fairly philosophical rather than practical.

  She dressed quickly and quietly, and without relighting her candle. With any luck, only her mother would be awake; Winterhart, for some reason, seemed to be handling this better than her spouse. Don’t people usually complain that their mothers never, see them as grown up! she thought, as she pulled on a pair of light boots, then fastened the silver gryphon badge to the breast of her tunic. The Silvers had no regular uniform; Judeth thought it better that they wear the same clothing as those around them. Uniforms might remind people too much of the regular troops, and war, and even the most battle-hardened wanted to put warfare far behind them.

  Now—if I can just walk quietly enough, I might be able to get out of here without another discussion of my life-view.

  Her father Amberdrake was notorious for sleeping late—to be fair, it was usually because he’d been up late the night before, working—and she hoped by rising with the first light, she might avoid him at breakfast.

  But no. When she carried her two small packs out to leave beside the door, she saw that there were candles burning in the rest of the house. Amberdrake was already up.

  In fact, as soon as she turned toward the rear of the dwelling, she saw him; dressed, alert, and in the little nook at the back of the main room that they used for meals, waiting for her. But so was her mother, which might temper things a bit.

  She sighed, while her face was still in shadow and he couldn’t see her expression. Breakfast with Amberdrake was always a bit strained at the best of times, and this was not going to be “the best” of times.

  He keeps remembering when he was the chief kestra’chern and it was his habit to find out about his fellows when they all drifted in for breakfast. He keeps trying to do the same thing with me.

  “Good morning, Father,” she said, feeling terribly awkward, as she approached the tiny table. “You’re not usually up so early.”

  She wondered if Amberdrake’s smile was strained; he was too good at keeping a serene mask for her to tell. However, it was obvious that he had taken special pains with his appearance. Silk tunic and trews, raw-silk coat, some of his Haighlei gift-jewelry, and Zhaneel’s feather in his hair. You’d think he was having an audience with Shalaman.

  She regarded him objectively for a moment. He was still a strikingly handsome man. Despite the white streaks in his hair, her father scarcely looked his age in the low mage-light above the table, and the warm browns and ambers of his clothing disguised in part the fact that there were dark circles under his eyes.

  Caused by worrying, no doubt.

  “I didn’t want to miss saying good-bye to you, Silverblade,” he said, his voice quite calm and controlled. “If I slept until a decent hour, I knew that I would. You dawn risers are enough to make a normal person’s eyes cross.”

  She knew that her answering laugh was a bit strained, but there was no help for it. “And you night prowlers are enough to make people like me scream when we think of all the perfectly good daylight you waste sleeping!” She slid into the seat opposite him, and helped herself to fresh bread and preserves. He reached across the table and added thinly-sliced cold meat to the plate quite firmly. She didn’t really want anything that substantial first thing in the morning, but she knew better than to say so. Why start an argument? That would be a poor way to leave her parents.

  What can it hurt to nibble a piece to please him! It can’t, of course. Not that long ago, she would have protested; now she knew there was no point in doing so. She’d only hurt his feelings. He was only trying to help.

  And after today he won’t be able to be so meddlingly helpful for six whole months! I should be pitying the people, gryphon and human and hertasi alike, who will wind up as my surrogates for his concern.

  She ate one slice of the meat, which was dry and tasted like a mouthful of salty old leather, and went back to her bread. Amberdrake pushed a cup of hot tea toward her, then made a move as if he was about to serve her a bowl of hot porridge from the pot waiting beside him.

  “Oh no!” she exclaimed. Not for anything would she eat porridge, not even for the sake of pleasing her father! “None of that! Not when I’m flying! I do not want to decorate the landscape underneath me!”

  Amberdrake flushed faintly and pulled his hand back. “Sorry. I forgot that you didn’t inherit my impervious stomach.”

  “No, she inherited my questionable one. Stop badgering the child, dear.” Winterhart emerged at last from the rear of the dwelling, putting the last touches on her hair. Blade admired the way she moved with a twinge of envy. Winterhart managed to combine a subtle sensuality with absolute confidence and a no-nonsense competence that Blade despaired of emulating.

  Now if I looked like
that… Ah, well. Too bad I inherited Mother’s interior instead of her exterior!

  Unlike her mate, Winterhart had not dressed for a special occasion, which much relieved Blade. Her costume of a long linen split skirt, tunic, and knee-length, many-pocketed vest, was similar to anything she would wear on any other day. The only concession she had made to Amberdrake’s sartorial splendor was to harmonize with his browns and ambers with her own browns and creams.

  “I hope we won’t be unwelcome, but we would like to see you and Tadrith leaving, Blade,” Winterhart said, quite casually, as if they were only leaving for a few days, not six months. “We do know how to stay out from underfoot, after all. Yours is not the first expedition we’ve seen on its way.”

  Now it was her turn to flush. “Well, of course I want you there to see us off! Of course you won’t be in the way!” she replied, acutely embarrassed. “I would never think that!”

  The only trouble was, deep down inside, she had been thinking precisely that.

  She gulped down her cooling tea to cover her embarrassment and guilty conscience, as Amberdrake toyed with a piece of bread, reducing it to a pile of crumbs.

  He’s trying to pretend that he isn’t worried; trying to put on a brave face when I know he’s feeling anything but brave. Why! Why is he so worried! If he’s transparent enough for me to see through, he must be all of a knot inside.

  Finally Amberdrake looked up at her, slowly chewing on his lower lip. “I know I probably seem as if I am overreacting to this situation, ke’chara,” he said quietly, “I shouldn’t be so worked up over the simple fact that you and your partner are going off on a normal, peaceful assignment. I realize that I am being quite foolish about this, and I can’t even pretend that I have some mysterious presentiment of doom. It’s all due to old—well, I suppose you’d have to call them habits, habits of feeling, perhaps.”