Heritage Of The Xandim

by Maggie Furey

  Half an hour later, Chiannala was ensconced comfortably in the back of a wagon, wrapped in blankets, with a half-devoured chicken leg in one hand and a mug of warm taillin laced with honey in the other. As she felt warmth and strength creeping back into her body, her fighting spirit began to return, although she still had no idea what she was going to do, or how she would face the future.

  Her rescuers were already starting to make her sick. She despised this smiling, pie-faced moron who had, by his own admission, thrown away all the opportunities that she yearned for to become a farmer, grubbing in the dirt like some common human. And as for his stupid, beaming lump of a daughter, who wouldn’t stop chattering on and on like a bloody magpie about going to the Academy - Chiannala dearly longed to throttle her. She barely knew this girl, but she already loathed her for having everything she should have had - would have had - if her idiot father had possessed the common decency to wed one of his own kind instead of a common slave.

  Then they started prying. Who are you? How did you come to be lost on the moor? Where are you going? How did a young girl come to be travelling all alone? There was no end to their questions.

  Chiannala responded with the story she’d made up as she travelled from Nexis. Though she’d begun to doubt that it would pass muster with the Archwizard, she was sure it would fool these two innocent peasants. She told them that her name was Estella. Her mother had died when she was born, and grief had driven her father to become an anchorite - a solitary Wizard who dwelt alone, away out in the wilds, to study and perfect his art. Then, just when he was going to bring her to the Academy, he too had died of a fever. The poor orphan, with no other family to turn to, was heading to Nexis to beg desperately for admittance to the Academy.

  They swallowed it whole. Of course they did. She knew she could be very convincing when she chose, and now, with her future at stake, there was everything to play for. The victory was almost too easy, and as she bathed in their kindness and sympathy, Chiannala began to believe that she might actually get away with her tale when she reached Tyrineld. Then the horrible daughter uttered the words that brought all her hopes crashing down in ruins.

  ‘But at least you’ve been to Tyrineld before, right? It won’t be completely strange to you. If you’re coming to the Academy, you must have passed the tests and assessments.’

  Tests? Assessments? Panic clawed at Chiannala’s throat. Her father had never mentioned this! Why would he need to? she thought bitterly. He never meant me to go to the Academy.

  What could she do now? She had told her lie to these people and now she was committed. With a gargantuan effort, she swallowed her shock and dismay, and pasted a smile onto her face. ‘Why yes, of course,’ she replied in bright, brittle tones. ‘But I was so nervous, it’s all just a blur to me now. I can’t remember a single useful thing about the place.’

  ‘Oh, me neither,’ the girl - Brynne - said fervently. ‘For all I can recall of my last visit, Tyrineld might as well be the moon.’ She tucked her hand through Chiannala’s arm in a companionable way. ‘Still, at least now we’ll each have someone we know when we get there. Maybe we can be friends.’

  For a moment, some lonely part of Chiannala’s soul that had been stunted and withered by the half-blood that had set her apart from everyone she knew bloomed and yearned towards this kindly, friendly girl. Then she remembered that Brynne had come so easily to everything for which she, Chiannala, so desperately yearned, and the bitterness and bile rose up to choke her once more.

  Again she forced the smile back to her face. ‘Why, that would be wonderful, Brynne. I’d love to have you for a friend.’

  I hate you, you little bitch. You have everything that should have been mine. I wish you were dead, and that I could take it all.

  Chiannala was shocked by the violence of her own thought, yet, as they drew ever closer to Tyrineld, her mood became increasingly desperate. What would she do when she got there? What could she do? She had passed no tests - the Academy would be closed to her now. Even if she were to apply immediately, it would be months before the next student intake. How could she possibly live in the meantime? And these assessments - would they reveal her mortal heritage? Surely they must.

  By midday they had reached the road that ran along the coast. Shelgan steered the wagon across to the side of the track and halted. ‘We may as well stop here for a bite to eat, girls,’ he said. ‘We still have plenty of time to reach the city before nightfall.’ He beamed at Brynne and Chiannala. ‘It will give you young ladies a chance to spruce yourselves up a little, before you make your big entrance.’

  While Shelgan put a quick drying spell on a patch of turf so that they could sit down comfortably, and Brynne rummaged in the back of the wagon for bread and cheese, Chiannala’s mind was working furiously, searching desperately for a way out of her dilemma.

  Then Brynne gave her the answer, by handing her a mirror. ‘Here you are, Estella. You might as well use this while I’m getting the food ready.’

  Chiannala dug her comb from her pack and looked at the flawless reflection in the mirror. All that work to give herself this new and lovely face would be wasted now that she could no longer go to the Academy. She might as well not have bothered. Her reflection blurred as tears began to gather in her eyes.

  Then, without warning, it slid into her mind. An idea so appalling that it dried her tears and drained all the blood from her face. But once it had surfaced, it would not leave her. A chance. Her only chance. Her entire future was at stake. She thought about the Chimera spell. Looked at Brynne. Shuddered. Doubted.

  Can I do it? Could I? Am I capable of such an act?

  You are. You must be.

  It had to be now, or she would never find the nerve again. This one opportunity would slip by, and her life would be ruined for ever. She glanced around at Shelgan putting nosebags on the horses, at Brynne laying out bread and cheese, at the clusters of tall gorse bushes that dotted the edge of the cliff. ‘Brynne, could you help me, please?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. ‘I want to change my dress and it’s much easier - not to mention neater - if someone else ties the laces.’

  The plump girl beamed. ‘Of course I will. I want to get changed myself. But why not wait until after we’ve eaten? Then we won’t mess up our good clothes by sitting on the ground.’

  A plague on the wretched girl! Chiannala ground her teeth in frustration. Yet how could she argue with such a sensible suggestion?

  Luckily, they put her inability to eat down to nervousness about entering the Academy, though it certainly didn’t seem to be affecting Brynne in that way, Chiannala thought irritably. Would they never stop eating, father and daughter? No wonder the girl was the size of a plough-horse. It never crossed her mind for a single instant that the two of them were trying to garner as many last precious moments together in each other’s company as they possibly could.

  At last, however, Shelgan got up with a sigh. ‘We’d best be getting on,’ he said. ‘I’ll clear this stuff away and get the horses ready, while you girls are putting on your finery.’

  They retrieved their bags from the cart and Chiannala, her heart beating fast, pointed to the place she had chosen. ‘Those bushes over there should hide us from anyone passing on the road.’

  ‘All right,’ Brynne said easily. ‘Over there it is.’

  There was only a narrow space between the bushes and the cliff edge. ‘Goodness,’ Brynne said. ‘Do you think this is safe?’

  ‘Don’t be such a goose,’ Chiannala retorted sharply. ‘Of course it’s safe, if we take care. Come on, help me out of my dress, then I’ll help you out of yours.’

  Brynne, clearly stung by the scathing tones, said nothing, her mouth set in a tight line as she helped her companion undress down to her chemise, then turned around so that Chiannala could do the same for her. As soon as her back was turned, Chiannala triggered the chimera spell that she had been preparing in her mind. In a way, it was easier this time, since s
he had done it before, but this time, she had her whole body to transform. It only took a moment, but before she was done she was trembling with exhaustion.

  ‘Hurry up, Estella,’ Brynne prompted. ‘We don’t have all day.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Hastily Chiannala pulled herself together and loosened the laces. Brynne stepped out of the dress, turned - and her mouth fell open in shock at the sight of herself standing there.

  ‘I’m sorry, Brynne. Truly sorry,’ Chiannala said - and pushed. It was all too easy. Yet she knew that Brynne’s scream, cut off so horribly as she hit the churning water below, would stay with her to the end of her days.

  ‘What happened? Brynne, are you all right?’ As Shelgan burst through the bushes, she hurled herself into his arms. ‘Dad, oh Dad,’ she sobbed. ‘Estella slipped. She was messing about, looking over the edge - and then she was gone. She fell off the cliff, Dad. Estella is gone.’

  And my way to the Academy is open at last.

  PART 3

  THE FIALAN

  18

  THE MAD ONE

  Pain perpetual. It was his whole life, his entire being. It devastated his mind, consumed all his attention, twisted his perceptions. It was his past, his present, his future. Ghabal’s existence was nothing but pain.

  Pain and one other thing.

  The Stone of Fate.

  The Fialan was the entire focus of the Moldan’s world. It had to be. He both loved and hated it. The Stone had reduced him to the pitiful creature he had become, yet it was the only thing that let him recall who he was, and what he once had been.

  He needed it. It allowed him to remember the face of his enemy.

  Hellorin felt as if he was floating, high up among the vaulting of the chamber, where he could make out every detail of the intricate carving with its butterflies, flowers and twining vines. Down below, at floor level, the bed in the centre of the room was the focus of attention. He could see the healers fussing around it, going back and forth, and huddling together to confer in worried-looking knots.

  He noted the occasional visitor. Now and again there was Tiolani, her manner changeful as spring weather, one minute pale and drawn with grief, the next, sparkling with love and happiness. When she looked at the bed and its occupant, her face, eyes shadowed and mouth tight-set, was haunted with a grim, guilty determination. At other times there was Ferimon, a cruel smirk distorting his features and triumph burning in his eyes. And, to his lasting horror, he saw the other healers, the three who came in the darkest watches of the night when the others were absent, and overturned all the progress their colleagues had made.

  The worst thing of all was looking down at the bed, and seeing not a friend or a foe or a stranger, but himself. The body that had moved at his command with a combination of strength and grace. The familiar face that had looked back at him from the mirror every day of his incredibly long life. Though the details were veiled by the silvery shimmer of the spell that had taken him out of time, the sight of his seemingly lifeless form filled his mind with blinding anger and a sickening sense of dread.

  Hellorin was trapped. Exiled from his body and from the mundane world by that accursed time spell, and by the fearful wounds that made its use a continuing necessity. Ensnared by Ferimon, with his dissembling words of concern, that sly and evil smile of triumph; his filthy hands on Tiolani’s body and his vile, corrupting influence spreading poisonous tendrils throughout her mind.

  The Forest Lord knew, now, how the ambush had come about. Knew who had supplied the fugitive slaves with weapons and orchestrated the attack. He was enraged by Ferimon’s treachery, but beyond that, he was sickened to the core by such betrayal. When Ferimon and Varna had been orphaned, he had taken them into his own household, had seen that they were cared for, had given them every possible opportunity to make a good life for themselves as part of the Phaerie Court. And this was how they had betrayed him.

  ‘You know why.’ The rasping voice of Aerillia startled him out of his reverie. Clearly, the Moldan had been eavesdropping on his thoughts. ‘You killed their father and destroyed their family.’

  ‘Because their father destroyed mine,’ Hellorin snarled.

  ‘Blood for blood, life for life. Once you start heading down that endless path, you and all who follow you are doomed.’

  ‘Spare me the homily, Moldan. I care only about getting back.’

  ‘Then you must seek elsewhere,’ the towering figure on the icy throne replied. ‘I have provided you with a means of seeing into this world and your own,’ - she indicated the patch of smooth, clear ice on the floor of her throne room, in which the Forest Lord had been viewing the images that tormented him so - ‘but you know as well as I do that the only one who can assist, voluntarily or otherwise, in your return is Ghabal.’

  ‘I don’t need you to point that out to me.’ Hellorin turned to give her a fulminating glare. ‘You know as well as I do that search though I might, the Mad One has remained elusive so far.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Aerillia said, ‘he knows you are here. I can sense it.’

  Hellorin frowned. ‘Ghabal may be mad, but he is not slow-witted. He sees me as too great a threat to confront directly. Our powers are too evenly matched, so he has opted for the safer course of evasion. This world is no longer mine but his, and he knows every trick, every ruse, every possible stratagem to exploit the powers of the Old Magic. He has concealed himself and the Fialan so well that he can stay hidden, if he wishes, for aeons, until my own people have forgotten me, and the mundane world has changed so much that there will be no point in my going back. Then the Stone will be safe, he imagines, for I will need it no longer.’

  ‘If that is what he truly believes,’ Aerillia said wryly, ‘then he does not understand your capacity for vengeance. If he seeks to deprive you of your realm, he can conceal himself until the stars burn out, but you will still be waiting when he finally emerges. You will use any means at your disposal to destroy him and take the Stone, in redress for all that he has made you lose.’

  ‘How very well you know me.’ Hellorin smiled mirthlessly. ‘You are clever, Aerillia.’

  ‘Not clever enough to understand why you also seek the other stranger who came into this world when you did, and was befriended by those meddling Evanesar.’

  ‘No, you would not. You never paid much heed to what was going on outside your isolated mountain form in the mundane world.’

  The Moldan shrugged her titanic shoulders. ‘I care little for the mundane world. Its magic and its beauties are crude and primitive in comparison to the wonders of the Elsewhere.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Hellorin raised a cynical eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, I can understand why certain of my brethren prefer to dwell there,’ Aerillia said carelessly. ‘It has its advantages.’ The look she gave him was softened, with memories kindling a happy light, and her voice, when she spoke again, had sunk to a murmur. ‘The long, slow dream of eternal stone; the ever-changeful patterns of sun and wind and cloud; the deep vaults of crystal air where the eagles soar; the diamond crown of blazing stars; the dark, secret shadows of the forests; the inexorable power of the bear, the deadly beauty of the lynx and the grace and swiftness of the wolf. The pristine purity of snow and the sharp, icy tang of the air; the jewelled tapestry of summer flowers; the bounding, laughing young rivers where the silver salmon flash and leap—’

  Hellorin cut short her reverie with a laugh. ‘And these are crude and primitive beauties, Aerillia? We both know better. The Elsewhere will always be your birthplace, your first home, the mother of your heart, but with all its imperfections, you still love the mundane world as much as I do.’

  ‘Very well, I admit it. You are right.’ She sighed. ‘I have lingered here so long that I often wonder if I shall ever again be part of those other mountains that are my beauty and joy, my refuge and my responsibility; my own lovely domain. Nevertheless, while Ghabal lurks somewhere in this world, hoarding the Stone of Fate, I have felt it to be my duty to remain. His
body in the other world has been destroyed. He cannot return there in the normal way. But my greatest fear is that, with the Stone, he will discover another method of sending himself through, another form in which to exist within the bounds of the mundane world. The damage he could do there, the havoc he could wreak in his madness, is incalculable.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘Is it any wonder that all my attentions are focused here, where the threat lies? Thanks to the trouble you left behind you, I have had little opportunity to take note of the happenings in the mundane world. So instead of sneering at me for paying little heed, you’d be better off answering my question, and telling me what I need to know.’

  The Forest Lord bowed his head in acknowledgement, as much to hide the anger that he knew she would read in his eyes as in apology. He had done what he’d felt to be right for himself and his people, and had no regrets. What did he care if his actions had left the Moldai with some problems on their hands? Ghabal was one of their race. Let them deal with his madness. And as for those meddling Evanesar . . .