Hunter and Fox

by Philippa Ballantine

  Varlesh yelled in delight, while waving his hands. “Get out of here, you blighted creatures! Flee!”

  Si was smarter still. He darted forward with a piece of his jacket wrapped about his arm and snatched the great white eagle out of the air, just as she broke in fright. He snapped her up like a glorious chicken flying the coop. His hands clenched tightly around those mighty talons. Si held her, flapping and screaming, away from his body, least she tear him apart.

  “A binding,” Varlesh yelled, rushing forward, the sound already in his mouth.

  Equo took his hand, giving the melody throat, before reaching out to touch Si lightly on the back of the neck. It was he who whispered the thread of magic to the screaming bird that was Azrul, captain of the Swoop.

  The eagle ceased to struggle, hanging limp in Si's hold, with wings arched down to hang in the dirt. The great curved beak panted open as the avian tongue vibrated with panic.

  Equo felt a great sadness run through him. The scion's emissary should not be reduced to such a situation. He took the eagle from Si, letting her gain a foothold on the shredded coat. She offered no resistance, probably horrified to find herself trapped within the shape of the eagle. He got Varlesh to tear a strip of cloth and tie it around the eagle's eyes.

  “It does seem a little cruel to keep her so,” he commented.

  Varlesh snorted into his whiskers. “With her as hostage we might be able to keep the Swoop away for a time, and she's much easier to control like this.”

  “I don't think Si meant to keep her as a surety.”

  They could have argued further, but the headwoman of the village came rushing over to them. Her flamboyant orange turban was stained dark with her own blood, yet she did not appear to notice the head wound that caused it.

  “Isi,” she gasped, grabbing hold of Varlesh's arm as her long knife dropped to the sand.

  “Is she hurt?” Equo waved urgently to get Nyree's attention.

  “No, no,” the headwoman sobbed. “They took her. They said she would tell them where the gathering was, or they would drop her from the sky.”

  Nyree had run over just in time to hear the end of the conversation. Everyone craned their heads back, scanning the cloud of retreating birds. It was true. They'd been so consumed with getting the eagle caged that they had not noticed the slight shape of the girl borne aloft by the Swoop.

  The Vaerli woman wrapped her arm around the distraught headwoman's shoulders. “Will she tell them?”

  Barely were the words out of her mouth when they saw the girl fall: a small struggling shadow against the pale clouds. The crowd drew in its collective breath, but did not cry out until she had crashed into the forest below.

  The headwoman tilted her head proudly upright while tears carved their way down her cheeks. “She did not.”

  The Swoop banked abruptly southwards. The headwoman looked away sadly, and she offered only choked words. “Baraca's gathering is to the south at Lake Quene. Isi was young. She must have been very afraid.” She looked up, her expression clenched with hate. “They still let her fall.”

  Equo suddenly realized that everyone was looking at them. Varlesh pulled him aside, while Si trailed in their wake.

  “Baraca's rebellion will be over before it starts,” Varlesh whispered. “Who knows how many Portree youngsters like that girl will be killed.”

  Equo nodded. “Perhaps we have a song to warn Baraca, or maybe get us there before them.”

  The three of them wracked their brains but came up with very little. They had forgotten many of the songs, while others were beyond their current range. The High Songs were required now, and those were still lost to them.

  “No,” Equo said, raking his hands through his hair, “there is nothing to get us there before the birds.”

  “Maybe not for you.” Nyree was looking at them from under darkened brows, her hands clenched at her side. “I will not let any more children be killed if I can help it. How long have we got?”

  Equo did some quick mental calculation. “Quene is at least three weeks away by foot, a week or more even by river, but the birds will get there faster.”

  “They will need to find the warm air currents up over the mountains,” Varlesh reminded him.

  “So,” Equo sighed. “Unless you have some way of getting us there by tomorrow evening, it will be too late.”

  “In that case,” Nyree said, taking the still-trembling eagle from Si, “I will lead you through the White Void to warn the rebels.”

  “You can't do that,” Equo gasped, just as his companions raised their own voices in protest. “It is far too dangerous!”

  “Oh really?” She smiled sweetly. “I can go back to the sanctuary and continue as if nothing has happened, can I? Sleep on happily while all those poor Portree are massacred?”

  They all blinked at her sudden display of anger.

  “Good then,” she snapped, gathering up her skirts. “I will decide what I will and will not risk. Now follow me.”

  Just like that, the Vaerli took charge. Equo didn't know what to expect of the White Void, but if Nyree's pale, strained look was anything to go by, it would be at least an unforgettable experience.

  Byre dreamed of his sister. He saw the shadows around her as she walked away from the light. He called out to her, nightmare making his voice thin and tiny. She glanced back once and he realized her face was that of a Kindred stretched in horror.

  He called out her name—her true name that she could no longer claim—and chased after her, but the darkness would not let him. His outstretched fingers ran right through her as though one of them were made of smoke. Hot tears were running down his face as he yelled her name, even as she receded into the darkness.

  He woke with a gasp into his father's angry face. “Even in your sleep, you must not call that name.”

  Byre bit back his own anger. Talyn had done many terrible things, so he understood the place she'd been driven to. Surely her name was still something she could come back to, but even though Retira was his father, he hadn't earned a window into Byre's thoughts yet.

  “Where are we?” he asked instead.

  The sternness drifted from his father's face, and Retira pointed to the top of their pod. It was glowing a soft green, as though held up to a bright light. “Nearly there.”

  Byre fingered his fighting stick and thought of his sister again. It was strange that she had come to him in such a place and at such a time. He had dreamed more in the last few months than he had in all his life—well, as far as he could recall. Being nemohira, his memory was selective.

  If his father was keeping all his memories, the consequences could be grave. He looked at his father, searching for the signs of insanity, but Retira was only smiling slightly. It was not the mad grin it should have been. “I had to, there had to be one who remembered it all; someone to hold all the history within them. It has been a most…enlightening experience learning how to read expressions rather than thoughts.”

  Byre blurted out, “Why would you try and remember everything? That is a path to madness.”

  “Vaerli are not…well, they are not all that they might be. We chose to forget those things that we should have remembered.”

  He was teetering on the edge of revelation. Byre could see his father was making a choice, to speak or to refrain. He knew he was being judged.

  “Tell me.”

  Retira looked away. “Perhaps it is better that you do not know your people, my son. Perhaps that is your blessing.”

  “I want to know them! I'm not one of them until I do.”

  The decision was made behind his father's eyes. “Then my silence is your best protection.”

  Byre would have spoken, tried to draw him back, but the pod lurched to a stop and the moment was lost. Retira got to his feet as the top of the pod peeled back, and Byre followed him. “Welcome to Achelon,” his father said, and stepped aside so that Byre could take it all in.

  Many secretive peoples had come to Co
nhaero from the White Void. When the Vaerli called, those that had answered had been races and religions pursued or persecuted in their own world. So it was natural that those lesser in number than the Manesto chose to hide. The Phaerkorn with their blood rites were easy to fear, but the Choana who called themselves World Builders were less well known. They had quickly taken themselves to the long white wastes of Conhaero. Centuries of foolish adventurers died blue and frozen trying to reach them.

  It was strange indeed, then, that as Byre stepped out into their world he was suddenly hot and drenched in sweat. He climbed from the pod out onto a surface of polished black stone and looked up into the roof of the earth. After so long in half-light he was dazzled, which was totally confusing, until he realized the ceiling was lit with clusters of gleaming crystals.

  Once his eyes adjusted, he took the rest in. The vast cavern was almost totally covered by a sprawling plant mass of which their pod was part. It looped and curled around boulder and rock to hold aloft the vaulted ceiling. Carved into every portion of its thick trunk were houses, doors, and windows, while long suspended gangways linked them all. They stood out from the plant that gave them form, brightly painted and cheerfully human among all the greenery.

  No snow or ice could reach this place, and looking around, Byre could only marvel at the scale and beauty of the work. At this the lowest level, he could also see pods, much like their own, lying quiet and still. It was obvious that the inhabitants of Achelon were not nearly as isolated as the rest of the world imagined.

  “The Choana like to travel.” Retira was scanning the row of doors at the level on which they stood.

  Byre now understood why they were called World Builders. The temperature was balmy, the faint light of the rock crystals was nearly as bright as that of the sun, and the Caisah had never been here. He was still turning about trying to take it all in, when a woman emerged from one of those doors and ran toward his father.

  Byre's stick came up, ready to knock back her attack, but Retira caught his hand. The woman, wrapped in purple silks, threw herself into his father's arms. It was strange with the memory of Mother overlaying it. Byre stepped back in confusion.

  The woman was tall and had to bend her blonde head to kiss Retira. She was laughing, as well. They spoke quickly in a strange language and hugged easily.

  It was an awkward moment, no doubt of that. Yet if his father had found happiness with another woman, he would be churlish to be angry. Three hundred years was long enough to mourn, even for a Vaerli.

  Retira pulled away and spun the woman around. “Forgive me Byre, this is Moyan. Moyan this…this is my son.”

  Byre found himself embraced with great vigor, and Moyan kissed him on both cheeks. Up close she was beautiful, not in the Vaerli way, flawless and untouched, but in the way of mortals. Her blue eyes were surrounded with a fine web of lines; her hair was gray at the temple but still thick and heavy. She must laugh often, for the history of each one was written on her face. Byre had read that many Vaerli despised the signs of age, but memories of his foster mother made them beautiful to him.

  Moyan turned to Retira, her voice husky with emotion. “I am so glad you found him—but what about your daughter?”

  He shook his head sadly.

  Byre gritted his teeth, mindless to the words of consolation the woman murmured to his father. He turned his mind from anger and instead examined the rows of houses that towered above him. It was a large place, bigger than Perilous certainly, and thus any of the known cities in Conhaero. Yet it brought no warmth to him, as a haven from the Caisah should have. Perhaps it was the silence. Apart from the woman's constant stream of words, there was no other sound in the whole place. A great city such as this should have echoed with the noise of many.

  Nothing stirred and no people could be seen along any of the balconies.

  “Is this a ghost town?” he asked Moyan, as his skin began to crawl.

  “It is the festival of Souls,” Moyan replied evenly. “Families will spend the next few days indoors. Come home, Retira, it is not wise to be out.”

  The mention of “home” reminded him he still knew nothing of Retira's life since the Harrowing.

  Byre cleared his throat. “Why is that?”

  The woman exchanged a look with his father. “The earth lets forth the souls of the dead.”

  “The Great Cleft opens,” Retira said holding his gaze steadily, “and you may enter.”

  The smile froze on Moyan's face and her fingers tightened on his father's shoulder.

  “It's all right darling,” Retira murmured.

  Her eyes were wide and somehow desperate. “You know what it is then—the Cleft? You can't let him go there!” She gestured wildly, as if to suggest they might as well climb into another of the strange pods and leave.

  Retira's face sagged and he passed a weary hand over his face. “I am sorry, Byre. I should have told you sooner; the Cleft is the place we call Ellyria's Gate.”

  The overwhelming fear from his dreams rose up all around him. Byre took a step back. Even in a land of chaos there were places, special and sacred places, which stood still. V'nae Rae and the Bastion were the most well known, but there were others, some that had never even been seen by Vaerli. The stories of Ellyria's trials were the first tales whispered to children, and the Gate was where she stepped from the mortal world into the realm of the Kindred.

  His father was talking, his voice soothing, but the words were lost on Byre. It all made sense, the pain, the glimpses of Kindred, and the fire that had haunted his dreams.

  “You can see it now.” Retira's hand rested heavily on Byre's shoulder. “Another as innocent and brave as Ellyria must go to the Kindred—must offer himself up for trial if the Gifts are ever to be returned to us.”

  Byre laughed aloud. It was terrible irony that he had only just escaped one torture to be thrown into another. Only, the fires of the Kindred would be worse—far worse than anything humanity could dream up.

  He shook off his father's hand. “You rescued me for this? Your own son a sacrifice to creatures you are too afraid to face yourself!” How the Sofai must have laughed after he had left her caravan—the sacrificial lamb having to find its own way to the altar.

  “No,” Retira's voice shook. “Do not say that. If I could, I would have given myself to that place decades ago—but I cannot. The sacrifice must also be one from the line of Ellyria, and it was your mother who was of that blood.”

  Moyan shot Retira a disgusted look. “You used me for this? Is this the only reason you claimed to love me, to get access to the Cleft?” She shot them both a withering look, and spinning on her heel, ran back to the houses.

  Byre took a deep breath while watching his father trying to conceal his tears. Looking down at his boots in a confused mixture of rage and embarrassment, he tried to let his thoughts get beyond the pain he had seen in his vision.

  One fact remained that did help: Ellyria had survived. Despite the pain of the Kindred's tests, she had triumphed, winning the Gifts for her people. Concentrating on that fact, keeping it before him like a good-luck talisman, Byre rested his hand on his father's shoulder.

  They bleakly stared at each other for a while. Byre broke first, hugging his father hard. He noticed something else. Retira was thin, lighter than he remembered, and so much smaller too. It could not all be childish recollection. Whatever Byre had to suffer, his father had already given up more. He'd given up any chance of reunion with his people and his children by shedding the Gifts. He had even cut loose the ties of immortality and would die soon enough, perhaps never seeing the ending of the Harrowing.

  Compared to that mighty sacrifice, Byre's chance to take the trials was insignificant.

  “Forgive me, Father,” he whispered, pulling back and holding Retira at arm's length. “I spoke rashly. I know you would have done this if you could.”

  “If there was another way…”

  “Ellyria survived, Father. She triumphed, and I will glad
ly attempt the same.”

  His father smiled grimly, but Byre wondered if he was thinking the very thing he was. Ellyria was a hero. Byre barely even knew his own race. He hugged his son tight until Byre could feel nothing but the warmth of his arms.

  Retira spoke into his ear. “When the way opens, I will show you to the place, Byreniko. I will wait for you there until you emerge.”

  Byre clutched his father and hoped that he could believe him. Neither was ashamed of the tears on their cheeks.

  “Come then,” Retira said gruffly. “Let me soothe Moyan's feelings, and then we can get some rest.”

  Byre turned to follow him, but just as he did a cool breeze touched his face. It was strange; it had no place in this vast cavern, surely. He couldn't understand it, yet his head felt clearer than it had for weeks and somehow a smile was on his lips.

  Then the mist came pouring down from the rock above, enveloping him like a cloud. Though he called out, somehow he knew Retira would not hear.

  A face formed in the mist, dark and beautiful, with sloe eyes and a curved mouth in which he could see the faintest of tipped teeth. The body that gradually resolved from the mist was tall, dark, and spare. The woman smiled and spoke softly. “Do not go with your father.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, noticing how she very much resembled the Sofai in beauty and age. However, there was something else that made him think they had met before.

  “You already know.” The mist was condensing, somehow adding to her solidity. Stepping forward she took his hand. “Part of her is in me, and that means I am part of you as well.”

  “My sister.” Her skin was warm against his, warmer than it should have been. Byre could feel the reaction it provoked in his own. He closed his eyes at the joy of it and images flashed through his brain, a blue-eyed man who made her heart leap, a floor that seemed to be made of gold flickering like flame, and a Blood Witch who fought for her prize. Anger and determination boiled through him, and he knew it was not his. His strength was nothing compared to his sister's; it burned hot enough to consume.

  With a gasp Byre pulled his hand away from the Witch he now knew was called Pelanor. “She sent you to save me.” It was a wonder that any thought of family still survived in the pit of pain and rage his sister had become.