"Exactly what I said." Tairyn's eyes glittered. "You are a hero. You rescued a child and freed a haunted spirit. Name your reward."
"I didn't do this for reward!"
"I am not accusing you. Name your reward."
"Ailanna—"
"Is not here. She chose to remain in your mortal realm and wait for your return." Tairyn didn't even try to hide his disapproval. "Name your reward."
"All right, then, lift that damniol secrecy spell from me so I can tell my brother about her."
"No. My people and I are not for humans to discuss. Come, I am lord of my lands, and my lands are hardly poor. Name what of my riches you would have."
I grinned in sudden fierce suspicion. "And have you bind me to you forever as your slave through whatever I took from you? No, my lord, I think not."
He gave not the slightest sign, but I knew I'd guessed aright: it really had been a trap. "So be it," Tairyn said shortly. "The griffin waits without. Mount and return to your realm."
"To my proper place in it? And my proper time?"
That stung him. "So I have already promised. I am not human, to renege my sworn word. Go."
Fuming at his arrogance, I went, knowing even as I did that anger was useless: he was as he was, truly of Faerie as I was not.
Ailanna, Ailanna, thankful I am of your human blood!
My one regret as I flung myself astride the griffin was that I wasn't going to get a clear look at that mysterious, exquisite palace or see the boy's parents' joy when he was returned to them. But then, as the griffin launched himself back through the glittering, magical Gateway, I had to laugh at my foolishness. To enter Tairyn's palace—after he'd already tried to snare me—would be walking all wide-eyed and innocent into bondage. Did I really want to risk the very freedom I'd just saved?
"No, indeed no!" I told the griffin, who cocked a furry ear back to catch my voice. "Being free, my friend, is worth more than all the palaces that were ever built! Now come, let us fly!"
CHAPTER XVII
STORM WINDS
We emerged from the Gateway into a blaze of early morning sunshine. It had been night, of course, when we'd left, and for one terrified moment, surrounded by this unexpected light, I thought sure we were lost in time and space.
But no. My magician's senses told me without a doubt this was indeed my own true realm. Regardless of what the Faerie lord had so haughtily assured me, some time had passed in mortal lands—but those senses also told me it had been less than a half day, hardly worth worrying over. Besides, it was wonderfully satisfying to realize Tairyn wasn't perfect, after all!
My mind was still half-stunned by the change from realm to realm, half tangled in thoughts of Faerie, and of what I had done. In a sudden surge of disgust, I pulled the deadly knife from my belt and let it fall down and down to land harmlessly in forest. There let it stay, and there let it rust!
Where now? My brother's palace? After all that wild, eerie, wonderful magic, I couldn't bear returning to the world of walls and politics, not yet! Besides, the day looked to be so fine and clear, a perfect day for flight. Ha, yes, this time I could actually see the rich green tapestry of forest and fields so far below us!
I could, indeed. For a sickening moment my head swam at being up so high and my stomach lurched at the thought that nothing stood between me and down there but the whim of a hardly predictable animal.
But the griffin seemed to be bearing my weight with ease and enjoying himself as he did. In the next moment I caught my bearings and balance, and began enjoying myself as well, laughing with delight at the sight of farmhouses and villages reduced to the size of perfect toys. Crouching low over the griffin's tawny neck, I felt the wind whip coldly at hair and clothes, heard it whistle in my ears, nearly drowning out the sound of steadily beating wings. Then once again the griffin found a wind he liked and soared smoothly, gloriously down the sky, faster and faster yet. Och, wonderful! Wind-drunk, flight-drunk, freedom-drunk, I know I laughed, and I think I sang.
"Ah, Ailanna! If only you were here to share this with me! If only I was with you!"
Why not? Why not fly straight and straight for the West Country?
Alas, no. If I disappeared from Estmere's court, he would certainly worry (even if his wife exulted) and waste precious hours hunting me. Besides, the griffin might be as incredibly strong as all his breed, but he was still only mortal flesh and blood. He would need to rest, to feed. He would never be able to fly so far and back in only a single day.
But this was too glorious a morning for regret. "Where shall we go, my friend?" I asked, and saw the tufted ears tilt back again to catch my voice. "East? I've never seen the Eastern Sea, and we're not all that far from it now. Come, friend griffin, eastward, and let nothing stop us!"
I really must have been flight-drunk to tempt Fate like that. We hadn't flown very far before dark clouds came boiling up on the southern horizon. A fierce, cold wind came with them, making the griffin struggle in the air.
"But there wasn't the slightest hint of a storm brewing!" I protested to him. "It's as though it were . . ." My voice trailed into silence. There was a feel to that growing wind, a certain familiar sharpness— "Aie, yes! As though it were conjured!"
Conjured, indeed. That wild plunge through the Gateway into Faerie would have been a blaze of magic to anyone with sight—and sight a certain foe most certainly possessed: the sorcerer of the anfoniad wasn't dead after all. He obviously hadn't forgotten me, and the hours from my disappearance to my return would have given him time enough to prepare.
And here we were, offering him a perfect target!
"Down, friend griffin, down! Hurry, down!"
I said that in Cymraeth, Anglic, Faerie. I said it with increasing frenzy, but the griffin didn't heed me. Ears flat with terror, he seemed determined to outrace the storm.
Impossible. A great wall of cloud boiled up with horrifying speed. As it loomed over us like some demonic thing savoring its prey, I frantically searched my brain for a spell, any spell, to dissolve it. But it was all happening too swiftly, I was still too dizzy from the effects of Faerie!
And then it was too late. We were engulfed in chill, eerie darkness and wind struck us such a blow the griffin was thrown sideways in the air, wings beating frantically. I clung to him with all my might, blinded by the darkness, buffeted again and again by wind that hit with force enough to tear the very air from my lungs. Helpless, gasping, shivering convulsively beneath the waves of cold and wet, I could do nothing but cling to the griffin and pray he could keep himself aloft.
We were driven far that day, though, trapped as we were in that savage, roiling gray-blackness, with never a glimpse of land, I had no way of knowing just how far. I was rapidly passing the point of caring. Dimly I wondered how I could be growing numb and yet ache in every muscle at the same time. It would be so wonderful just to let go. . . .
No! That would mean my death!
In the next moment it didn't matter. The poor, weary griffin gave one fierce, despairing cry, twisting wildly in the air. I felt myself slipping from the rain-slick back, numbed fingers grabbing frantically at a non-existent mane—
And then I was falling.
As I plummeted down through fierce, swirling layers of storm, wind roaring in my ears, sheer panic blazed through me, the mindless panic that is a primal shout: I will not die! Without time to think, This won't work, I cast that one spell I'd never been able to master—
And I shape-changed.
It wasn't easy. Och fi, it hurt almost worse than the death I was trying to escape! But, transformed to a great winged bird-thing, I managed to slow the swiftness of my fall, and struggled safely down to earth, landing with a thump.
There I let the bird form fade, convulsing in anguish as I regained my rightful shape. The pain fled as swiftly as it had come, and I collapsed on the nice, wet, solid earth. All about me the storm raged on for a time, until the magic binding it dispelled and let it fade.
I faded f
or a time, too.
Silence roused me. Silence, and cold. Shivering, I got to my unsteady feet, aching in every joint and brushing off mud as best I could, to find that the fickle lady Estmere calls Dame Fortune had dropped my clothing and sword, discarded in the frantic shape-change, almost at my feet. Gratefully I dressed, wondering where in the name of all the Powers I had been dropped. There was little enough light to see by: though the storm clouds had all but completely dispersed with the swiftness of completed sorcery, it was late twilight by this point, with a rather unpleasant blue-grey glow to everything.
Not that there was much to see: a straggly forest, some fiercely thorned bushes of a kind unknown to me, and a good deal of bare, reddish earth. These were never Estmere's lands. During all the excitement, I had thought I'd felt the storm winds slue about from south to north. Could they have brought me all the way into one of the harsh southern kingdoms?
That wasn't a comforting thought. I could remember with painful clarity my brother saying:
". . . the ancient kingdoms of Brecara, Astarrica and Telesse, which are not our allies."
Wonderful. While at Estmere's court, I had amused myself with learning the language held in common by those three lands, finding it a relatively simple thing after the convoluted Faerie tongue, but I wasn't exactly eager to test that learning. And wouldn't one of the lands' rulers love to get his hands on King Estmere's brother? What a wonderful bargaining tool I would make—assuming he even let me live.
And what of the sorcerer? Apparently I'd eluded him by escaping his storm in bird form, but I didn't doubt he would be searching for me.
Ah, and where was the griffin? I hoped the poor beast had survived the storm, but he was nowhere to be seen, and I dared not reveal my presence by attempting to call him.
There was still another problem: no one at Estmere's court knew where I'd gone. That meant, of course, no one would know where to search for me.
So be it, I thought wryly. It's up to me to rescue myself. Just a few small problems, nothing to worry me. Ha.
Damp clothes clinging to me, I climbed the tallest of the crooked trees, overtaxed muscles complaining all the way up, to see what I could find. There on the horizon was a city. I could just make out its high surrounding wall and some red-tiled rooftops from here, and glowering over the whole thing a castle grim as any war fortress. It all looked picturesque in the fading light, peaceful as a city in a tapestry, and perfectly normal
And, with some unnamed psychic sense, I feared it.
If that isn't the sorcerer's home, I'll be very surprised.
But there was something else about the castle . . . For a time I let my mind search after that disturbing trace of . . . of what? I was still weary and sore, and at last I had to give up, unsure of what was bothering me, knowing only that I should get as far away from that castle as possible.
So I scrambled down from my prickly perch and set out into the forest. That wasn't such a pleasant choice, either. The air was warm enough; there was no danger of catching a chill from my rapidly drying clothes and hair. But . . .
It was a forest hushed as though turned to stone, with never the twittering of a bird or the rustling of a leaf to give relief from the ear-hurting silence. The trees were still alive, yes, but all the energies of life seemed to have been sapped from them. There was none of the familiar crackling of last year's leaves beneath my boots, only a soft, soft whisper, as though I walked on the powder of long dead vegetation. It all smelled not of normal decay, but like the heavy air of a room kept shut up too long.
And when I came to a pool, I shuddered because it, too, lay motionless, silent as water in a painting. Dead water.
Only one thing could have so destroyed the soul of a forest, and that was sorcery, and the worship of . . . that which I really wouldn't want to meet. A shiver raced through me as I remembered poor, demon-haunted Lalathanai. That had been such a small Evil, but it had still been strong enough to nearly slay me with that cursed knife. Despite my magic, I was still only human. Were I to run afoul of anything stronger—
No. I wasn't about to let myself think such self-destructive thoughts, not in this place. But there didn't seem to be much doubt that my sorcerer foe had been here, and that he came from that strangely sinister castle.
The last of the twilight had faded so gradually I hadn't been aware of it till all at once I realized I couldn't see where I was going, save by the use of Power. But using Power would be like lighting yet another magical beacon, letting all trained eyes know exactly where I was. Better to meekly and unmagically wait out the night right here. A little silence wasn't going to hurt me.
Bravado. As I sat on a half-rotted log, wondering if it would hold my weight, I could feel myself starting to shiver, and recognized that with a healer's knowledge as the edge of shock: too much had happened too swiftly. I opened my carrying bag and forced down a sliver or two of dried meat, though I wasn't really hungry (even though only y Duwies knew when I'd eaten last), savoring the salty taste of it, then drank a bit from my water flask. Och, but I was glad I'd had the foresight to take food and water with me! Particularly the water. Nothing on Earth was going to make me drink from that dead pool!
Time passed. The night deepened. I had begun to make myself as comfortable as possible amid all that unfriendly silence, my ears aching from the pressure of heavy stillness, when without warning the silence was broken.
Sobbing? I wondered uneasily. Was someone else in trouble in this desolate place? Or . . . was that the sound of a trap?
That last seemed all too likely. So I waited, trying to ignore the soft, unhappy sound, hoping it would stop. But it didn't stop, and of course it couldn't really be ignored. At last I got to my feet, knowing I had to find out who or what was weeping—or at least seeming to weep.
What I found, to my astonishment, was the last person anyone would sensibly expect in such a place: a boy out of Faerie. He was very young, even by human standards (though not as near to babe as the child Tairyn and I had saved), but there was no mistaking the grace of that small, slender form, or the long, silky flow of silvery hair.
"Boy," I said gently in the Faerie tongue, "what troubles you?"
He looked up with a startled gasp, brushing the tears from clear green eyes with a long-fingered hand, meeting my gaze with a glance all at once as cool and controlled as that of any adult of that self-possessed race. "It was only a moment's despair." His dialect was musical but odd to my ear; it hadn't occurred to me till that moment that there might be different Faerie dialects. "But why is a human who somewhat speaks our language wandering in these lands?"
The contempt behind that "somewhat" amused me. "You wouldn't happen to know someone named Tairyn, would you?" I asked drily. That earned me only a blank stare, so I continued, "I'm here through misfortune. And why were you in despair?"
For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own affairs. But then the cold green gaze wavered. Suddenly he was no more than a small, frightened boy. "This used to be a fair and pleasant place," he began, voice not quite steady. "So my mother and kinfolk told me. But . . ." He made a helpless little gesture. "Mortal time means nothing to us. We had no way of knowing what had happened here." The boy swallowed drily. "Human sorcery, human i-iron has taken the soul from these lands."
"I know."
"We cannot stand such places. We fled, back to Faerie. Or—or at least most of us did. My mother and I were confused by the Darkness here, and the echoes of iron. We lingered a bit too long. S-she was overcome by the deadness here. I was seeking water for her, because the Power in good, fresh water will revive her. But all the water here is dead, too!"
That last was a purely childish wail.
"Not all," I said, and showed him my flask. "Admittedly the water in here is warm by now, and tastes somewhat like leather, but it was gathered in cleaner places." I hesitated. "You're sure that all your mother needs to help her is water?"
The boy nodded, wide-eyed.
"Then give this to her with my goodwill."
He took the flask with almost reverent care, thanking me with radiant eyes. Then, before I could say aught else, he was gone more swiftly and silently than a fawn into the forest.
For some time I stood staring after the boy, feeling now painfully alone, wishing he had given me the chance to follow him. But of course the Faerie Folk don't think like humans; it hadn't even occurred to the boy that I might be in trouble, too.
So much, I thought cynically, for Tairyn's promise that as I rescued a child, a child would rescue me! Ah well, at least someone was going to benefit from all this.
Nothing to do now but wait till morning. Lapped round once more by silence like a thick, suffocating blanket, I summoned up calming Disciplines for mind and body. And I managed so nicely that I was soon asleep.
I awoke in wild panic, the stench of sorcery heavy in the air—and found myself ringed in by a circle of spears held by grim-faced warriors.
"Lay down your sword," one said in the language of the southern kingdoms, and only then did I realize I had drawn the blade, its runes blazing. "Lay down your sword," he repeated carefully, as though speaking to an idiot, "and come with us."
What good is a sword against spears? "Of course," I replied meekly, but my mind was racing, finding and rejecting spell after spell. Surely there must be something I could use to defend myself—ah.
As I bent as though to obey, I caught up a handful of earth, then hurled it aloft with a shouted Word: a simple charm, a child's toy. The earth whirled out and out in a net of air, and the warriors cried out as the dark, dusty cloud enveloped them. They struck about in their vain attempts to find me, and I dodged their wild flailings, snatched up my sword, and ran. That little trick, one of the first I had learned, had a duration of only a few moments, and even a Faerie sword wouldn't be of much use against thrown spears.
Suddenly the blade's runes blazed up with new brilliance. I skidded to a halt before a hooded figure. Too breathless for magic, I lunged, but the figure faded like smoke—my own invisibility illusion used against me—then reappeared at my side and struck me lightly on the head with a dark staff. A wild, wild dizziness surged through me. I know I cried out, furious at myself for having been snared so easily. . . .
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