The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  With walls of trunk on either side of her, she felt secure enough to stand out in the open and indulge herself; the only thing that would have improved the situation would have been a bar of soap! But even with nothing but water, she was getting reasonably clean, and that always made her temper improve. She stood out in the downpour until the dark green stains on her tunic faded to match the others already there, until she was as chilled as she had been overheated the moment before, until the swollen welts of her insect bites stood out against her cold, pallid arms and the bites themselves no longer bothered her at all. There was something very exhilarating and elemental about standing out in a storm like this one; powerful storms back home had always been too cold and dangerous to “play” in, something that had disappointed her ever since she was a child. But here—there wasn’t much chance that she would be struck by lightning when everything else around her was so very much taller than she, and to be able to stand out in rain so heavy that it literally stole the breath was an intoxicating experience. It was enough to make her forget her pain, almost enough to make her forget their danger.

  Is this what Tad feels when he flies! If so, I envy him. Is this the way it feels to not face people, not be in a building or cave, and be encompassed by the elements! To stand alone and alive as a living creature only, and not as Someone’s Offspring? Is this the moment that makes all the pettiness of everyday living worthwhile!

  Only when she was so chilled she had begun to shiver did she duck her head and scuttle back to the heap of branches that covered their shelter.

  She pushed past the brush and almost went back out into the rain when she encountered a thick cloud of eye-watering smoke.

  “What—what is this?” she demanded as, coughing, she fanned her hand in front of her face and dropped to the ground where the air was marginally clearer.

  “Sorry,” Tad said apologetically. “I’m trying to get rid of the bugs, both in here and on me. It’s working; I certainly got rid of my little plague.”

  “You almost got rid of me,” she grumbled, crawling all the way inside to settle beside him. More thunder punctuated her statement. “I suppose it’ll be worth it if this smoke-weapon of yours allows us to get a good night’s sleep.” Then she laughed. “But if I’d known that this was how you were going to interpret my wish for an herb to repel insects, I might have been more careful in what I asked for!”

  He gryph-grinned at her, his beak gaping wide. “You didn’t remember Drake’s favorite proverb—‘Be careful what you ask for’—”

  “I know, I know,” she groaned.

  Tad had been snacking, and the bag was almost empty, but he had saved her two of the biggest snakes—though they weren’t very big, being no longer than her forearm. One was brown, one was green, and both looked vaguely orange in the uncertain light. Tad carefully scraped some hot coals to one side with a stick, then added drier wood to the rest of the fire.

  She skinned out the snakes with Tad’s help, then arranged her snakes, along with her harvest of crickets, grubs, and pupae, on the blade of their shovel and placed that on top of the glowing coals: There wasn’t much aroma, but her bugs did toast quickly, and she was very hungry by now. She picked them gingerly off the hot metal and ate them, trying not to think too hard about what she was doing. They weren’t too bad, though; she could almost imagine that she was eating toasted grain if she didn’t pay too close attention to the shapes.

  The snake was better, and made it possible to finish her ration-bread. Tad, meanwhile, had placed his dried meat out in the rain to soak; he wolfed it down with no expression of pleasure when it was soft enough to eat.

  “Do you take first watch, or shall I?” he asked. She put a pan of water on the fire to steep her bruise-remedy in, then made up her potion with the addition of a couple of recognizable, foraged herbs known to numb sore throats. If they soothed a sore throat, perhaps they would make her bites stop bothering her.

  “I’d appreciate it if you would,” she replied. “I’m hoping this stuff will let me fall asleep without clawing my skin off, but it’s bound to wear off before daybreak. If I’m going to be itching, I might as well be awake so I can control myself.”

  He nodded. “The smoke worked as well as an ant hill, and my passengers are no longer with me to bother either of us. At the moment, I’m feeling fairly lively. You might as well get to sleep while you still can.”

  By now her clothing and her hair were both dry, though only her gryphon-badge was as pristine as it had been when they set out. Besides being stained, her tunic and trews were torn in several places, and the hems were beginning to fray. I look like a tramp, she thought ruefully. I hope Ikala is not with a search party… oh, that’s ridiculous. He would hardly expect me to look like a court lady, and I would be so happy to see a rescuer that the last thing I would be thinking of would be my clothing!

  Tad helped her wrap her herb-steeped bandages around the worst of her bruises, and to dab the remainder of the mixture on her insect bites, as best as his large, taloned hands would allow. At first, she thought she was going to be disappointed again in her attempt to heal her bites, but as the mixture dried, she noticed that her itching had ebbed, at least temporarily. The tenderness of her flesh was perhaps in some way eased by the tenderness of the gryphon’s care of her, as well.

  Tad looked at her, disheveled feathers slightly spiked from the moisture, with inquiry in his expression.

  She sighed with relief. “It’s working,” she said. “I’ll have to make more of this up and keep it with me in one of the waterskins. If I keep putting it on, I might find it easier to freeze in place without being driven mad.”

  Tad chuckled. “Good. Now we just need to find something that will keep the bugs off us in the first place—without driving us crazy with the smell!”

  With her mind off her itching, she turned a critical eye on Tad, and without warning him what she was about to do, reached over to feel his keelbone, the prominent breastbone that both gryphon and bird anatomy shared. That was the first place that a bird showed health or illness, as muscle-mass was consumed by a gryphon or bird that was not eating enough.

  It was a bit sharper, the muscles on either side of it just a little shrunken. Not something an ordinary person would notice, but Tad was her partner, and it was her job to do as much for him as she could. “You’ve lost some weight,” she said thoughtfully. “Not a lot, but it has to be either the short rations or the fact that you’re using up energy in healing. Or both.”

  “Or that I’m building leg-muscle and losing wing-muscle because I’m not using it,” he pointed out. “I don’t remember walking this much before in my life. Much more of this and I’m going to look more like a plowhorse than a hawk.”

  She granted him a skeptical look, and crossed her legs and rested her chin on her good hand. “I wish we’d find the river,” she replied fretfully. “No matter what is following us, if we just had the river, we could fish; I’d get some decent food into you. Even if there’s something following us and scaring off the game, I doubt that fish would be frightened off by a land predator.” The river, the promise of the river, it now seemed to embody the promise of everything—food, shelter and rescue as well. Perhaps she was placing too much hope on a strip of water, but at the moment it was a good goal to concentrate on.

  He heaved a huge sigh and scratched at one bug-bitten ear. “I really have no idea where we are in relation to the cliff and the river,” he confessed. “And this kind of forest is very strange to me. If this place were more like home, I could probably find a river, but I can’t see the sky and the ground cover is ten or twelve layers thick here…”

  “I know, and I’m not blaming you,” she assured him hastily. “How could you know anything about this kind of forest? We never trained here. We expected we’d be going to an established outpost, with shelter, a garden, food stores, and weapons.”

  “Emphasis on the food stores,” Tad said hoarsely, as if the momentary thought of all the fo
od he was used to eating made him homesick. He rubbed at his throat a moment and then swallowed. He’d been gulping more air for days than was healthy for him.

  She frowned with frustration. “I’m sure there are plenty of things to eat growing all around us, if only I knew what they were! Roots, stalks, leaves—even some things you might be able to eat, too!” She waved her hand, helplessly. “We haven’t the luxury of experimenting, since we don’t dare make ourselves sick, so we’re stuck. Only a native would know how to find his way around a place like this.”

  “A native like Ikala?” Tad replied shrewdly, and chuckled when she blushed involuntarily. “Well, I wish he was with us.”

  “I do, too—” she began, intending to change the subject, quickly.

  “And probably for more reasons than one!” he teased, not giving her a chance to change the subject, and sounding more like his old self than he had in days. “I can’t blame you; he’s a handsome fellow, and he certainly accounted well for himself in training. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get to know him better.”

  “I suppose,” she said, suddenly wary. There was nothing that Tad liked better than to meddle in other peoples’ love lives. “If we’d had a chance to ask him more about forests like these, we might be faring better now.”

  He saw what she was trying to do. “Oh, come on, Blade!” he coaxed. “Stop being coy with me! Am I your partner, or not? Shouldn’t your partner know who you’re attracted to?” He gave her a sly, sideways look. “I know he’s attracted to you. It’s obvious, if you’re watching.”

  “And you were watching, I suppose,” she grumbled, giving up on her attempt to distract him to something more serious. He laughed.

  “I’m supposed to watch out for you, aren’t I? You’d be happier with a male friend to share some—hmm—pleasant moments with, and I know it would be easier dealing with you if you were happier.” He tilted his head comically to the side.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said sarcastically. “Now you sound like both my parents. They can’t wait to get me—attached.”

  Into bed with someone, you mean, she thought sourly. And Tad knows it. He should know better than to echo them! He knows how I feel about that!

  “They’re obsessed with it, and have built much of their lives around pleasures of flesh. They think of it as a means to all happiness, even if it is by a strange, obscure path! Seeing you bedded with someone is not my goal. I simply want to see you content in all areas of your life,” Tad said persuasively. “He’s certainly a fine prospect. Good-looking, intelligent, and open-minded enough that you wouldn’t get all tangled up in Haighlei custom with him. Good sense of humor, too, and that’s important. And being trained as a prince, he knows that you have to be able to concentrate on your duty, you can’t just devote yourself slavishly to a man. Hmm?”

  Blade fixed her partner with a stern and fierce gaze, neither agreeing nor denying any of it. “You’re matchmaking,” she accused. “Don’t try to deny it; I’ve seen you matchmake before, you’re as bad as an old woman about it! You want to see everyone paired off and living—well, if not happily ever after, at least having a good time while the affair lasts!”

  “Of course!” Tad replied smugly. “And why not?”

  She growled at him. “Because—because it’s invasive, that’s why not! I repeat—I get enough of that kind of nonsense from my parents! Why should I put up with it from you?”

  He only snorted. “I’m your partner, I have to know these things, and I have to try to help you get what you want and need, whether or not you know what it is! I’d tell you, and I’d expect you to help me. We both have to know if there’s something that is going to have us emotionally off-balance, because that’s going to affect how we do our job. Right? Admit it!”

  She growled again, but nodded with extreme reluctance. He was right, of course. A Silver’s partnership was as close as many marriages, and partners were supposed to confide in each other, cooperate with each other, in and out of the duty times.

  And for some reason, what seemed so invasive from her parents didn’t seem so bad, coming from Tad. Perhaps it was because Tad was a gryphon, and not human. Despite the gryphons’ abilities to see things like a human did, Tad would always be one step removed from complete empathy with Blade, and that gave her a barrier of safety.

  “So tell your partner how you feel about it.” He settled his head down on his foreclaws. “What do you think of Ikala, then?”

  Rain drummed down outside their shelter and pattered through the branches they had piled on the roof. Lightning made patterns of the branches screening the front of the shelter, reflecting whitely off Tad’s eyes and the silver gryphon-badge on her tunic. As usual, rain and thunder were the only sounds that could be heard outside.

  Inside—the smoke had finally cleared away and the fire burned brightly. She was dry, full, and warm. Her shoulder didn’t hurt too much, and she was in a well-camouflaged shelter with two very solid walls on either side of her and a cushioning of springy boughs between her and the cold, damp ground. In short, there was nothing to distract her from her thoughts, which were confused to say the least.

  “I suppose I don’t really know,” she said slowly, as Tad’s dark eyes watched her with that intensity that only a raptor could display. “He is very handsome, he’s very charming, he’s quite intelligent… but I just don’t know. Part of the time I think I like him for himself, part of the time I think I’m attracted to him just because he’s so exotic, and part of the time I think it’s because he’s the only person in White Gryphon that my father doesn’t know everything about!”

  Tad chuckled heartlessly. “There is that. I’ve noticed that Ikala has never once had the occasion to patronize a kestra’chern. Amberdrake should find him more of an enigma than you do.”

  “That would certainly be an improvement,” she said acidly. “It would be very nice for once to have a conversation with someone without the person wondering if Father was going to tell me all the things he’d really rather I didn’t know.”

  “And it would be very nice for you,” Tad commented, “to talk to your father without wondering if he was going to tell you things you’d rather not know.” Blade nodded, and Tad shrewdly added, “I don’t go to kestra’chern, so you are doubly safe talking to me about how you feel; word will not reach your father. May I give up all my hedonism if I lie.”

  Blade smiled despite herself. Depend upon a gryphon male to count that as the ultimate oath.

  “He’s under control,” she added. “He’s a very controlled person. I like that.”

  I like it a great deal more than unbridled passion, truth to tell.

  Tad coughed. “Still,” he prompted helpfully. “Some might say that argues for a certain coldness of spirit?”

  She snorted. “You know better than that, you’ve worked with him. He loses his temper about as often as anyone else, he just doesn’t let it get away from him. And—so far as not visiting a kestra’chern—”

  “And?” Tad’s eyes sparkled with humor.

  She blushed again. “And he hasn’t exactly been—well—chaste. He’s had female friends while he’s been here. They just weren’t kestra’chern. Even if they were casual. Recreational.”

  And I could almost envy Karelee. I wish she hadn’t been so enthusiastic about his bed abilities.

  “Oh?” Tad said archly. “He hasn’t been chaste? I suppose you were interested enough to find out about this.”

  She coughed and tried to adopt a casual tone. “Well, one does, you know. People talk. I didn’t have to be interested, people gossip about that sort of thing all the time. I only had to be nearby and listen.” She favored him with a raised eyebrow, grateful to feel her hot face cooling. “Winds know that you do enough talking, so you ought to know!”

  “Me? Gossip?” His beak parted in silent laughter and he squinted his eyes. “I prefer to call it the ‘gathering of interpersonal information,’ for ‘management of sources and receivers of pleasure.’
”

  “Well, I call it gossip, and you’re as bad as any old woman,” she retorted. “You are just as bad when it comes to matchmaking. And as for Ikala—he is attractive, and I don’t deny it, but I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself to tie the two of us together in any way. I don’t even know how

  I feel, so how could I even speculate about how he feels? And anyway, you and I have our missions to run, and when we get out of here, we have a long tour of duty at a remote outpost to take care of. If we don’t die of embarrassment at having to be rescued.”

  If we are rescued, if we do get out of here… The unspoken thought put a chill in the air of the tent that the fire could not drive away. All frivolous thoughts faded; this was the change in subject she had tried to make, but not the new subject she would have preferred. Reflexively she glanced out through the screening branches. It was getting darker out there, and it looked as if—once again—the rain was going to continue past nightfall.

  That might not be so bad, if it keeps our unseen “friends” away.

  “Well,” she said, as lightly as possible, which was not very, “now you’ve got my brain going, and I’m never going to be able to get to sleep. I’ll just lie awake thinking.”

  He yawned hugely. “And I am warm and sleepy. I always get worn out listening to people’s reasons why they won’t be happy. Shall we switch watches?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer, settling his head back down on his foreclaws. She shrugged. “We might as well,” she replied, and edged over until she was in a position where she could see through a gap between two of the branches hiding the front of their shelter. She memorized the positions of everything in sight while the light was still good enough to identify what was visible through the curtain of rain. The flashes of lightning helped; if she concentrated on a single spot, she could wait until the next lightning bolt hit to give her a quick, brightly-lit glimpse of what was there, and study the afterimage burned into her eyes.