by DAVID B. COE
Trahn began to grin as he looked with wonder at the roiling water. “So it is still here,” he breathed. He turned to Alayna. “I would never have seen this,” he said. “Without you here to point this out, I would have been forced to brave the swamp. Thank you.”
“You would have figured it out in the sunlight,” she assured him. “The water would look much lighter over the path.”
“Nonetheless,” the dark mage commented, smiling broadly now.
Alayna glanced at Jaryd, who was also beaming at her from beneath the mist-dampened hair that clung to his brow. “Well done, Hawk-Mage,” he said.
She was embarrassed, and just a little bit unnerved, by how much his smile and his praise meant to her. She grinned—she could hardly help it—and met his gaze steadily. “Thank you.” She guided her horse closer to his. “Does this mean we’re friends again?” she asked quietly.
“I never stopped being your friend, Alayna. And my feelings haven’t changed overnight. But,” he went on, his voice soft but earnest, “I can’t do this alone.”
Her eyes held his for a while longer as her grin slowly faded. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll try,” she promised him. “Believe it or not, I have been trying.”
She had expected him to laugh at that, or to challenge it. Instead, he just nodded. “I know you have.”
Trahn had drifted off a short distance to let them speak, but now he drew nearer again. “I know that I don’t have to remind either of you, but we do have need of haste. And I have no idea how to navigate a sandbar.”
Alayna smiled. “Then follow me,” she told him, spurring her mount into the waves. Almost immediately the water reached up to her horse’s shoulder and darkened Alayna’s cloak to her thigh. But, though she sensed her mount growing nervous with these initial steps, she soon guided the animal onto the strip of sand. It was surprisingly firm, and, once they were on it, the water barely reached the animal’s shins. Turning to look behind her, Alayna saw Jaryd and then Trahn follow her onto the sandbar, and the three of them began to gallop past the swamp. To anyone watching from the shore, Alayna knew, they would have appeared to be riding on the surface of the ocean. But there was no one on the shore, and there had not been anyone for hundreds of years.
Their journey along the path went smoothly, although, once again, the distance proved much greater than they had anticipated. The three mages rode in silence, accompanied only by the rhythm of the surf, and the sound of their horses’ feet splashing noisily in the shallow water, or, in those portions where the ocean tides had not covered the path, drumming on the damp sand. They switched mounts regularly, but, with barely enough fresh water for themselves and the animals, they had to keep their pace relatively slow. Early in the afternoon, when the sun began to burn off the cloud cover and mist, warming the day considerably and adding to the horses’ fatigue, they were forced to slow their gait even more. While Trahn had tried over the last two days to ease Jaryd’s concerns about Baden, the dark mage was obviously frustrated and discouraged by their slow progress. He rode in front, his green eyes fixed on the northern horizon, as if he might will Tobyn’s Plain to appear and end their ride on Theron’s Path. Jaryd chafed at their slow pace as well, riding at the rear and staring blindly at the sea, his concern for Baden manifest in his tanned face.
Riding between the two of them, Alayna concentrated on the movement of her horse, trying to forget about Baden and Sartol, and the attacks on Tobyn-Ser, just for a short while. But it soon became clear to her that such comfort was beyond her reach. Indeed, as she gazed absently at the shifting waters of the ocean, she found that she could not chase the image of Sartol’s face from her mind. She summoned a vision of her family and of Brisalli, but he was there, charming her with compliments, and predicting that she would someday join the Order. She tried to think about Jaryd and her relationship with him, but all she could see was the young mage’s face twisted with fear and pain as Sartol tried to kill him.
Everywhere she turned, Sartol appeared with his ingratiating smile and his disarming air, until she could no longer fight it. Jaryd was right: until she conquered her doubts and demons, she wouldn’t be able to get past them. And so, riding on Theron’s Path in the heat and the glare, she stopped running, and turned her mind’s eye to face the Owl-Master.
The day before, as the three of them had ridden along the beach, she and Jaryd listening to Trahn as he told the story of Theron’s Path, Alayna had found herself reflecting on how thoroughly her perception of Theron and his curse had changed in the past few days. The people of Tobyn-Ser viewed the Owl-Master as a monster. She herself had until just a few nights ago. But she understood him better now. He had been a man, no more and no less. He had power, to be sure, but, in the end, he had been done in by his human failings: arrogance, pride, envy. And she wondered if the land would ever forgive him. This thought, naturally, had brought her to Sartol, and the pain of his betrayal, which was still a raw wound on her heart. She had wondered if she would eventually come to accept that his treachery had likewise been a product of his humanity; if she would someday find it within herself to forgive him as well. Were not ambition and greed as much a part of the human condition as those faults she now found herself able to forgive in Theron? Now, though, as she embraced her anger and her resentment at his duplicity; as she allowed her hatred for what he had become and what he had done to consume her, she realized that forgiving him was not the issue—had never been the issue.
As Jaryd had seen, and had tried to tell her, she needed to forgive herself. And recognizing this, she laughed, inwardly, at her own sense of self-importance. Sartol had not simply betrayed her, or even the Order. He had betrayed the entire land—from what Theron had revealed to them, his actions had aided an enemy who threatened to destroy all of Tobyn-Ser. The enormity of what he had done, of what he was trying to do, staggered her. And it made her recent inner turmoil seem selfish and vain. She could not say that the recognition of this lightened her mood, or even that it lessened the hurt she still felt from Sartol’s deception. But it did strengthen her resolve, and it made the rest of their ride along Theron’s Path somewhat easier for her.
The sun had disappeared below the western horizon, and the sky had begun to darken when finally the mages reached the end of the path and steered their weary horses onto the dry sand that bordered Tobyn’s Plain. Trahn had spotted the prairie grass nearly an hour before, praising Arick and Tobyn for their kindness and allowing himself his first smile since the sun had emerged earlier in the day. Jaryd, too, had emerged from his dolor, and had started to calculate out loud how much distance they had covered, and how much time they might have gained on the Owl-Masters. For her part, Alayna remained silent. But she allowed herself a grin and, glancing back at Jaryd, was pleased to see him gazing at her, a gentle smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
They camped on the beach again that night, leaving the horses to rest in a large patch of grass. And, while the animals drank long and deep from another of the small streams that flowed into the sea, they showed no other ill-effects from their harrowing day. The mages lingered by the stream as well, fully slaking their day-long thirst and refilling their water skins before making preparations for dinner. Their supplies of dried foods nearly depleted, the three mages sent their familiars to hunt for them. Still, while Alayna savored the meal that Fylimar brought to her, she knew that they would soon have little choice but to visit a town or village to replenish their store of fruits, cheeses, and dry breads. It made her nervous; she did not relish the idea of facing another angry mob.
Once again, Trahn retired early, leaving Jaryd and Alayna to enjoy in private the fire and the cadence of the waves. For some time, they did not speak. Alayna watched the stars brightening in the night sky, and Jaryd played with the fire. At length, however, the young mages found themselves gazing at each other across the dancing flames.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Alayna finally told him in a hushed voice. “You were right to say
what you did. I thought about it today while we were riding, and I started to understand what you were telling me. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jaryd replied.
“Yes, I do,” Alayna insisted. “But I still think I should have known about Sartol.”
“Alayna—”
“No,” she said, stopping him with a shake of her head. “Listen to what I have to say.” She paused, gathering herself. “I should have known because in one of the visions I had of you, you were fighting Sartol.”
“What!” Jaryd breathed.
She nodded.
For several moments, Jaryd said nothing. Alayna felt herself growing frightened. Perhaps now he would think she was to blame.
But as he had so many times before, Jaryd surprised her. “A vision like that could have meant a number of things,” he told her at last. “There was no reason for you to take it literally. In fact, for all you knew at the time, I might have been the traitor. I still don’t think you should be blaming yourself. As I said before: Sartol fooled all of us.”
“But nobody else knows him as well as I do.”
“I don’t think anybody really knows him, Alayna. Besides, he did more for you than he did for anyone else in Tobyn-Ser: he taught you the ways of the Order, he helped you master the Mage-Craft, he gave you your cloak and your ceryll. Of all of us, you had the least reason to suspect him.”
“Do you really mean that?” she asked, wanting desperately to believe him.
He nodded. “Yes, I do.”
She stared at the fire, considering what Jaryd had said. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That helps.”
By way of reply, Jaryd placed another piece of driftwood on the fire and moved over next to where Alayna sat. He took her hand and gazed into her eyes. “I also meant what I said last night,” he told her quietly, “about falling in love with you.”
She smiled; she couldn’t help but smile. “Good,” she whispered. “I’d hate to be doing this alone.”
He started to say something else, but she placed a finger over his lips, and kissed him.
She had, of course, kissed other men in her life. One of them, briefly, before she left Brisalli, had been her lover. But only now, feeling Jaryd’s lips on hers, feeling his warm hands on her neck and cheek, did she understand that she had never loved before. It differed from what she had expected. It was not that there was no passion. Quite the contrary: she had no illusions as to where this kiss would have led them had Trahn not been sleeping only a few yards away. But there was so much more. She felt that there was a tide within her, moving with the power of the moon and the ocean and the Goddess, who had bound them together, rising, cresting within her heart until she thought that she must weep, or laugh, or both. She felt her world shifting, remaking itself; holding on to all she was and all she had known, but creating a space within these things for this man she was holding in her arms, so that he might share it with her, bringing to it all that he was and all that he had known. And in that instant, in the eternity of that kiss, Alayna knew, with a joy that she found frightening even as it encompassed her, that her life would never again be as it had been.
Wrapped in Jaryd’s embrace, her head resting on his chest, Alayna fell asleep listening to the sound of his heartbeat through his cloak. She slept better than she had in weeks, waking only once, when he stirred, to turn her head, as in a dream, and find his lips waiting for hers. She remembered the kiss, but nothing else, and she knew that, somehow, it had carried them both back across the threshold between awareness and slumber. When next she opened her eyes, the sun was emerging from Duclea’s Ocean, casting a rich, golden light over the sand and the prairie grasses that swayed delicately beyond the beach. They rose quickly, ate a light breakfast, and were soon riding again. The horses seemed well rested and fully recovered from their day on Theron’s Path. And Alayna realized, almost as soon as they started riding on Tobyn’s Plain, how much even the firmest sand of the beach had slowed their progress and increased the burden on their mounts. Drumming across the prairie, the wind whistling in her ears and the tall grasses whipping at her feet and legs, she could sense the animal beneath her moving with a joy and abandon that it had lacked the past two days, as though it had been newly released from some form of captivity.
All through the day they rode, speeding across the level terrain as the sun turned its slow arc over the vast ocean of swaying grass that ran away from them in all directions. By mid-afternoon they had come within sight of the Moriandral, which cut a wide, meandering path through the landscape, and they began to angle slightly to the west, so that they might follow its path and camp that night along its banks. They paused to rest and switch horses periodically, but never for very long. Having reached the plain, and having allowed themselves to believe that they now had a chance to intercept the Owl-Masters before they reached Amarid, the three mages found themselves unwilling to tarry. More than that, all of them suddenly seemed to have more endurance, as if they had willed themselves to grow stronger. They ate a substantial meal late in the day, finishing off the last of their food. Tomorrow, they promised each other, they would find a village in which to trade for additional supplies. Until then, the river and their familiars would provide for them.
Night fell, and still they rode, lighting the prairie with their cerylls: russet, purple, and sapphire. Though she had ridden since she was but a girl, and felt comfortable with horses, Alayna had not yet grown accustomed to riding after dark, by mage-light. Hence, she had her eyes fixed on the ground just in front of her when Trahn abruptly raised his ceryll and tugged his mount to a halt.
“Did you see that!” he asked excitedly, as he scanned the night sky.
“I saw nothing,” Jaryd admitted. “I’m just trying not to kill myself with a fall.”
Trahn turned and looked at Alayna, a question in his clear, green eyes.
She shook her head with regret. “I was watching the ground as well. I’m sorry. What was it that you saw?”
“A flicker of light,” the Hawk-Mage said, facing forward again. “In truth, it could easily have been lightning from a storm or—”
This time Alayna did see it, as did Jaryd, judging from his sharply taken breath.
“There!” Trahn exclaimed, stabbing a rigid finger northward. “Surely, you saw it that time!”
Alayna nodded.
“Yes,” Jaryd confirmed, as he stared at the sky, “but I didn’t see any storm clouds today.”
“Nor did I,” Trahn agreed. He paused, turning once again to look at Jaryd. “That could be mage-fire.”
Jaryd met the dark mage’s gaze. “Baden?”
Alayna had not taken her eyes off the northern sky, and now, as she continued to observe the strange flashes of light, she also noticed that the horizon was brightening with an ominous orange glow. “Look!” she commanded, her voice tinged with alarm.
“Trahn, is there a town or village in that direction?” Jaryd asked with intensity, as he looked at the fiery light.
“Several,” the mage replied soberly, “on both sides of the river. The largest of them is Watersbend. You believe that’s where they are?”
“If you mean Baden and Sartol, I’m not certain. But somebody’s there—and I think the town might be under attack.”
Trahn shot Jaryd a look, and then all three mages spurred their mounts forward.
They had rested not too long before, and, in the crisp night air, they were able to maintain a swift pace. Still, the mages had been more than ten leagues to the south of the flames when they first saw them, and, as the flashes of light continued, Alayna cursed the distance with a vehemence that would have shocked her mother. Perhaps a half-hour after they beheld the first volleys of light, Alayna saw the sky before them illuminated again, with flashes that seemed brighter than the others, although that could have been a product of the distance they had already covered, rather than a quality of the light.
“That was mage-f
ire!” Trahn shouted over the thundering of the horses, and the rush of the wind. “It had to be!”
The horizon seemed to flicker a few more times, and then the bursts of light ceased entirely, leaving only the consistent, sinister gleam of what Alayna knew now had to be fires—a great many of them, she thought despairingly. They galloped on without pause, driving their horses mercilessly for nearly two hours more before spotting the smoldering buildings and battered homes. As they drew closer to the besieged town, Alayna could make out the contours of the huge, dark cloud of smoke gathering in the sky above it. And even as the glow of the flames gradually diminished, the billowing shadow continued to expand.
By the time the three mages reached Watersbend, most of the fires had burned themselves out, leaving large mounds of embers that glimmered angrily in the darkness. The streets were empty and silent, and the windows of those houses that remained standing showed no light. The mages dismounted and walked slowly up the central street of the village, inspecting the damage and looking for some clues that might tell them who had been responsible for the destruction, and who had prevented the attackers from razing the rest of the town. The first thing they found froze Alayna’s blood, and left all of them shaken and speechless. In the middle of the roadway, its chest and shoulders blackened and bloody, lay Baden’s horse. Its saddle and saddlebag had been removed; none of Baden’s belongings could be seen on or near the animal. But with its chestnut body and black mane, and the crescent-shaped patch of white on its nose, there was no mistaking it. It was the Owl-Master’s mount.
“What do you think it means?” Jaryd asked at length, his voice thick.
Trahn shook his head, unable to look the young mage in the face. “Truly, Jaryd, I don’t know.”
“It means nothing,” Alayna declared with conviction. “At least for now, it means absolutely nothing.” She looked at Jaryd intently, holding his gaze until, at last, he nodded weakly in agreement.
They moved on, coming a few moments later to two bodies, charred beyond recognition, that had been left untended in the street. Squatting down to view them with more care, Trahn exhaled through his teeth.