Heart of the Exiled

by Pati Nagle

  The governor gazed distantly at the mosaic floor within the circle described by the council table, his face strained. At last he looked up.

  “Lord Ehranan, how many new guardians have been recruited?”

  The councillors relaxed as the discussion turned to the training and equipment of the new recruits who were flooding into Glenhallow. Turisan leaned back in his seat and reached for the silver-chased goblet before him. He wished he dared to speak to Eliani, but he would not risk endangering her again.

  Thinking of his partner made him catch his breath. His fingers brushed the handfasting ribbons bound on his left forearm and tingled with the khi with which they were woven. He loved Eliani beyond all reason, though in some ways they were still strangers. He yearned to see her, though she had departed only that morning.

  No doubt that was the cause of the restlessness that haunted him. It was hard to be obliged to wait here in the safety of Hallowhall while his lady hastened north toward unknown dangers.

  Eliani dismounted, saddle-weary after a long day’s riding. Her escort was settling into the camp at Willow Bend, guardians clearing ground, obeying soft instructions from Vanorin.

  Luruthin knelt to build a fire circle with rocks that had been scattered against the cliff. Eliani watched him, marveling at his cheerful energy despite their hard pace and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. She had not seen him look so happy in many a day, though that morning she had noticed him smiling as he bade farewell to Lady Jhinani in Glenhallow’s public circle. They had stood quite close, as she recalled—surprisingly close.

  Eliani’s mount butted its head against her shoulder. She led the horse to join the other animals at the stream below the camp—an icy rill that trickled down from the mountains and through the clearing on its way to join the Silverwash—and stood watching while it drank.

  The sun was sliding behind the peaks of the Ebons, and with its disappearance the air quickly chilled. Sighing wearily, she stretched her aching muscles.

  Turisan?

  I am here.

  Her heart swelled with pride. This was the farthest distance from which she had spoken to him, yet he answered with no more difficulty than if they had been in the same room. She began to believe that their gift truly was limitless, a thought that left her a little in awe.

  We have stopped for the night.

  Good. Where are you?

  Willow Bend.

  You have made good speed, then. That is often a second-day camp.

  The horse lifted its head, and Eliani led it away from the stream, not wanting it to chill itself with too much of the cold water. She found some dry grass for it to nibble in the shelter of the trees and began to untack it.

  Is the Council still in session?

  No, we have recessed for now. I have some matters to discuss with you.

  She paused, her heart twinging with alarm. She felt just as she had in her youth when caught in some mischief by her father.

  Matters?

  We have questioned the traitor sent by the alben and learned somewhat from him.

  Kelevon. He meant Kelevon. Why did he not just say the name? Did he fear that she still cared for that betrayer?

  She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by weariness and a wish to avoid talking of Kelevon. It seemed she would never escape her wretched past. She pulled up a handful of grass and brushed at the matted hair on her horse’s back.

  May we talk of it when I am rested?

  A sharp pang of disappointment, and something else, too quickly hidden for her to identify. She swallowed, regretting her request.

  Of course. Speak to me when you are ready.

  Thank you. Turisan?

  Yes?

  How to say all she was feeling. Apologize? That seemed too strong, and she was terrible at apologies.

  I miss you.

  The wave of warmth that washed through her in response took her breath away. Wordless love, a hint of the passion they had shared only last night, enough to leave her aching with a strange emptiness as Turisan released her.

  “My lady?”

  She started, blinking, and realized that her horse had moved away to find sweeter fodder, leaving her standing numbly with her mouth agape, a swatch of grass in her hand. Vanorin stood before her, his expression doubtful. She dropped the grass and brushed her hands, shooting a sharp glance at him.

  “What is it?”

  “I thought you might care to choose where you will rest.”

  Surprised, Eliani blinked. Her first instinct was to be offended, but she realized he meant to honor her and so shaped a civil answer.

  “I care not, so long as it is out of the wind.”

  “Perhaps you wish for privacy—”

  Eliani barked a laugh. “I have been a guardian too long to care for that. Please, Vanorin, do not think I require special treatment.”

  The captain bowed, looking slightly awkward, and moved to withdraw. Eliani was surprised to realize that he must indeed see her as an oddity now, something other than a fellow guardian. That hurt.

  “Vanorin?”

  “My lady?”

  “Please call me by my name. You were not loath to do so when last we rode together.”

  Eliani summoned a weary smile and offered to clasp arms. Vanorin hesitated, looking at the arm she offered, and Eliani realized he was shy of touching the handfasting ribbon that bound it.

  “Go ahead.” She nodded to encourage him.

  He met her gaze with a rueful smile, then clasped arms lightly, pausing to peer at the ribbon. For a moment he seemed absorbed in the woven images. Then, recalling himself, he let her go and took a step back.

  “I witnessed your handfasting, my l—Eliani. I found the ceremony quite moving.”

  “Thank you. I found it so as well.”

  His deep eyes grew sober. “I have never before seen a sword employed as a craft emblem on such an occasion.”

  Eliani gave a soft, ironic laugh. “These are dark times.”

  She glanced at her horse and, seeing that it was content, looked back at Vanorin. “What may I do to help make camp? Mind, I am a wretched cook, so for all our sakes let it be something else.”

  Vanorin grinned. “Firewood? I have a woodcutter’s blade I can lend you.”

  “Good.”

  Eliani accepted the blade and a sling and started through the willows, following rising ground between the stream and the base of the cliff until she reached a part of the wood that had not been cleared. Briars tangled beneath the trees. She hacked her way through them with the heavy blade, making for a thicket where young trees fought each other for a glimpse of light. A few had lost the battle, standing brittle and forlorn.

  Eliani chose a sapling and reached a hand to it, confirming that no khi remained. She felled it with a few blows, then set to work cutting it into lengths that would fit in her sling.

  What are you doing?

  She jumped and missed the log, the blade thumping into the ground beside it. She muttered an oath and pulled it free.

  Cutting firewood. Why?

  I sensed your exertion.

  Did you? Come and help, idle one.

  His amusement filled her mind. She stopped, sharply lonely for him. To distract herself she took a draught of water from her skin, then capped it.

  Where are you, Turisan?

  In the Star Tower.

  Eliani stood still, her thoughts flying back to the tower and the previous night, when all her trepidation had burned away in the forge of white-hot passion. She closed her eyes, trying to escape the yearning to be back there.

  I have decided to stay here for a few days. I told Pheran to let nothing be touched.

  Eliani opened her eyes, blinking in the soft light beneath the willow branches. Why?

  The pillows smell of you, my love.

  She drew a sharp breath, then laid her blade to the dead tree, chopping the last of it into fire lengths. She stacked them in her sling and judged it would hold more, so she sought a
nother casualty and began to cut it up.

  Are you angry?

  Eliani paused in her work. No. Frustrated.

  She reached her thoughts out to him as for an embrace, which he gave her. For a moment she stood locked in the comfort of his love, their thoughts blending almost as deeply as they had done in the Star Tower, until a movement nearby startled her into abruptly withdrawing.

  Her eyes flew open and her heart gave a sudden lurch of fear, for she had been nearly oblivious to her surroundings. A blur of gray-brown fur bounced away through the underbrush.

  What is it?

  Nothing. A rabbit.

  An echo of wordless concern enfolded her. She swallowed, her heart still pounding.

  Are we going to torment ourselves like this every day?

  He did not answer immediately. When he did, the tone of his thought was quiet, contrite.

  No. I am going to rest a while, love. Speak to me when you are ready to hear our news.

  Turisan—

  A wave of warmth swept through her, then was gone. She stood still, frowning, regretting her impatient words. After a moment she bent to her work, collecting the rest of the firewood and scattering the brush she had cleared so that the only sign of her activity was the absence of two dead willows and a bit of the tangled undergrowth.

  Hefting her sling, she started downhill toward the camp. Dusk was falling, dimming the light within the wood. She was angry with herself, and troubled that the gift she and Turisan shared enabled her to hurt him even though they were leagues apart.

  Rephanin gazed at his circle of adepts, seated in the magehall’s largest chamber, where they met each evening shortly after sunset. The room was round and windowless, its walls of golden stone minimally adorned. Chairs and small tables comprised its furnishings, and a large open hearth at the north side was the main source of light.

  Golden fireglow washed the fair Greenglen faces of the adepts. Rephanin felt a deep pride in them. They were skilled mages, most having studied with him for several decades.

  “I am afraid our studies will be interrupted for a time. Instead, you will have intensive practice at focus-building.”

  Jholóran, a rather serious male who was among the longest-standing members of the circle, looked at him. “What sort of focuses, my lord?”

  “Those that will benefit the army being raised. Weapons blessed for accuracy, cloaks for protection. We will review the technique—”

  The door opened, and Rephanin was surprised to see Lady Heléri enter softly. She had come to Glenhallow to attend the Council, having once governed Alpinon. She was dressed in violet with her long black hair loose over her shoulders, still every bit as lovely as when he had first seen her many centuries ago in Hollirued, the first city of Eastfæld.

  They had met there shortly after the Bitter Wars, both having come thither to study magecraft. Soft-spoken and filled with wonder at the grandeur of Hollirued, Heléri had made little impression at first, though she had caught Rephanin’s eye. He had flirted with her and even considered paying serious court to her, but he had found her reserve tiresome and at last dismissed her as pretty but simple, one whose admiration he would accept but who merited little more of his attention.

  How bitterly he had come to regret that choice. He had wasted decades indulging himself with more openly appreciative companions until the Council of Governors had convened again in Hollirued. At that Council, Alpinon was represented by a new governor, Davharin. Not long after his arrival, Heléri had come to Rephanin asking advice on how to understand and manage mindspeech, and he had begun to realize what had slipped through his grasp.

  Her smile was every bit as entrancing now as it had been then. “One of the magehall attendants told me you would begin work tonight. I wish to contribute, if I may.”

  “Of course.” Rephanin swallowed and turned to address the circle. “Some of you may have met Lady Heléri. Please make her welcome.”

  A murmur, a shifting as Heléri joined the adepts. Stepping forward, Rephanin gestured for the mages to rise and set the circle. They moved closer until all were in arm’s reach of their neighbors.

  Rephanin held out his hands toward the mages on either side, right palm up, left down. His neighbors placed their own hands a handspan apart from his, close enough to feel the khi between them.

  When the whole circle stood thus, he sent khi flowing from his left hand. In a moment he felt the pulse return through his right hand, augmented by the khi of the others. Silently asking for guidance from whatever spirits might be watching over the circle, he let it continue a little longer, then inhaled and released the contact.

  “Good. Resume your seats, please.”

  He picked up a quiver of arrows and withdrew one, holding it before him. “These arrows represent an exercise in focus-building. You have all done this sort of work before; the difference is that now we must do it quickly. There will be hundreds of guardians to equip. Help has been requested, but for now it falls to us to bless as many items as we can in as short a time as possible.

  “I caution you that though the work must be done swiftly it must yet be done thoroughly. This hall has never produced inferior work, and we shall not begin now.”

  The mages nodded agreement. Rephanin distributed the arrows, one to each. Greenglen colors marked the shafts, the fletchings were white, and the points new-made bronze.

  As he handed one to Heléri he felt a whisper of her khi along the shaft until it left his fingers. She glanced up at him, smiling softly in a way that woke several distracting memories. He returned to his worktable, setting the quiver down as he kept one arrow in hand.

  “The qualities to be focused are trueness, accuracy in flight, and penetration of the point. The denser the material, the more attention is required, so the metal point will require the greatest effort. Lay the khi into the arrow’s fibre. A laying on of khi is not sufficient.

  “Remember always to draw on prime khi. Do not use your own khi. And do not let the point of a weapon aim at anyone else in the chamber. Questions?”

  Several of the mages were already preparing to work, aiming their arrows toward the fire, a good source of prime khi, especially for work with fire-forged weaponry. Rephanin moved away from the hearth to a table on which stood a timekeeper—a basin of water and several metal bowls. Selecting the smallest, he held it above the water in which it would float, slowly filling through a tiny hole in its base until it sank.

  “You will have one cycle to complete the focus. Begin.”

  Releasing the bowl, Rephanin seated himself and turned his attention away from the surprised shifting of some in the circle. One cycle was little enough time; a quiver of arrows could take as much as half a day, though they were all blessed at once, not individually.

  The arrow lay across his palms. Gazing at it with half-lidded eyes, he was briefly aware of small sounds in the chamber, then slipped past them to the place of calm from which he performed focus work. The sounds were still there—if he gave them his attention he would perceive them—but he kept his concentration on the arrow.

  First he explored the faint echoes of khi within it: the life of the wood, that of the bird whose feathers had become the fletching, the fiery shaping of the bronze tip and the honing of its point. Rephanin decided to lay in this section of the focus first.

  Closing his eyes, he shifted his awareness to the khi within the chamber—a sparkling vivid cloud of energy swirling about the working mages—then beyond to prime khi, which pervaded all things. Khi moved fastest through air, so it was from air that he drew it and focused it within himself before directing it through his hands into the arrow.

  Sharpness, strength, penetration. These qualities he held in his mind and laid into the dense fibre of the point. His perception narrowed to the tiny inner structure of the bronze—orderly for the most part, with some imperfections—and he set khi flowing through the pathways of this structure. Occasionally he would correct a flaw in the crystalline form of the m
etal, but he passed by all but the worst defects.

  He moved on to the arrow’s shaft, laying in trueness, strength, flexibility to withstand the shock of impact. Working through the lighter fibre of the wood was easier, though the material was also less well organized. Again he left most flaws alone.

  Lastly, he shifted his attention to the fletching. Balance and steadiness in flight, suppleness, and durability; he layered them each in turn and had just finished when he heard the small sound of the timekeeper bowl contacting the bottom of the basin.

  Rephanin withdrew his focus from the arrow and opened his eyes. “Cease working.”

  The mages stirred, some blinking as they returned their awareness to the chamber. Rephanin gathered the arrows, shifted them around in his hands to disturb their order, then laid them out across the table and ran his hand through the air just above them.

  He chose one that felt dark, as if little khi had gone into it. His hand paused above another that emitted such brightness as to seem almost hot, but he thought he sensed Heléri’s khi upon it, so he passed it by and selected an arrow that was nearly as vivid.

  “These two arrows are quite different. Pass them around the circle and observe their state.”

  He handed them to Valani—a female of arresting beauty with large, dark eyes that missed little—who was seated at one end of the circle. She held them briefly, a slight frown of concentration on her face, then her brows rose. She handed the arrows to her neighbor and glanced at Rephanin.

  He watched as each mage compared the arrows, and paid close attention when they were handed to Sulithan, the newest member of the circle, who he suspected had built the weak focus in the dark arrow. If the mage recognized his own work, he did not show it or give any sign of embarrassment. If this was modesty, Rephanin approved; if not, it boded ill for Sulithan’s ability to understand the work.

  When the arrows had passed around the circle, he took them back. “What differences did you perceive?”

  Jholóran answered at once. “One arrow lacked khi.”