Had been—but the reduced population and the absolute dearth of children meant that this year's crop of nestlings would probably go unbonded, and fly off to some other Clan to seek mates. Unless one of the scouts chose to bond to a second bird, or lost his bird before the eyases fledged and became passagers. Darkwind had briefly toyed with the notion of bonding to an owlet, but Vree had displayed a great deal of jealousy at the idea, and he had discarded it, albeit regretfully.
Stormcloud might have been a mage, but as a child his Gift was not deemed "enough" by Starblade and the other Adepts, and now he refused to enter training at all. His argument, using their own words against them in a direct quote, was "It's better to have a first-quality scout than a second-class mage."
And I don't blame you, old friend. No matter what Father says about "ingratitude and insolence." I'd have said and done the same as you.
He was Darkwind's oldest and best friend, their friendship dating back to when they were both barely able to walk. His features differed from the aquiline Tayledras norm considerably, with a round chin and a snubbed nose. He alone among k'Sheyna cut his hair short, with a stiff, jaylike crest. He flew a white raven, Krawn, that was as loquacious as Starblade's crow was silent. Krawn was easily the brightest of all the corbies flown in k'Sheyna, and very fond of practical jokes, as was Stormcloud. It was a measure of how serious the situation among the scouts was that neither Krawn nor his bondmate had played any of their famous jokes for months.
Dawnfire flew a red-shouldered hawk, Kyrr, a bird as graceful—and as sought-after for mating—as her bond-mate. Dawnfire cast Darkwind a look full of promise as he entered the room, and he marveled that he, of all the scouts, had captured her fancy. She typified the opposite end of the extreme from Stormcloud; in her the aquiline Tayledras features had been refined to the point that she resembled the elfin tervardi, the lovely flightless bird-people she often worked with. That was her strongest Gift; she Mindspoke the nonhuman races with an ease the others could only envy, and communicated equally well with animals of all sorts. Her hair, now bound tightly into three braids, was as long as Winterlight's when she let it down. An errant beam of light reflected from the snow-goose lanterns touched her head, giving her an air of the unearthly as Darkwind watched her.
That light was provided during the day by four windows, all of which could be opened, that were glazed with a flexible substance as clear as the finest glass, but nearly impossible to break. Tayledras artisans created it; how, Darkwind had no idea, but it was as impervious to wind and weather as it was to breakage. By night, the light came from Darkwind's single concession to magic; mage-lights captured in the lanterns, that began glowing as dusk fell, and increased their pure light as the external sunlight faded.
Darkwind dug into his game-pouch as soon as his feet touched the floor of the room; Vree had waited long enough. He came up with a half rabbit; a light meal by Vree's standards, but enough to hold him until the discussion was over. Vree looked up at him with an expression of inquiry when presented with the rabbit. :?: the bird said, reminding Darkwind of his hunger.
:More, later,: he promised the bird. :I have a duck waiting for you.:
Vree chirped a happy acknowledgment, and began tearing the meat from the bones, gulping it down as fast as he could. One thing the bondbirds were not, and that was dainty eaters.
"So," he said, leaving Vree to his snack, and sitting cross-legged on one of the couches. "What's the problem?"
"The barrier-zone," said Winterlight succinctly, his hands resting palm-down on his knees, a deceptively tranquil pose. "We've got some real problems on the south. Things moving in, things and people, and we don't like the look of either. They're coming in from that bad patch of Outland, and it looks like they're settling. They're making dens, lairs, and fortified homes. I don't like it, Darkwind; it's got a bad feel to it, these creatures aren't overtly evil, but they make the back of my neck crawl. They're inside the old k'Sheyna boundaries now, and not just in the old 'barren' zone. You know how one bird will 'crowd' another, getting closer and closer until the other one either has to peck back or be forced off a perch? That's what it feels like they're doing to us."
"I've got the same," Stormcloud told him, wearing a slight frown. "And I've got enough Mage-Gift to read some other things as well. There's a new node that's being established just off my area, and a lot of ley-lines have been diverted to feed it. There's a new line going off that node, too—and it's feeding straight into Outland territory, into one of the places we know that Adept has made his own. It's bad, Darkwind, it's feeding him a lot of power, and anyone that can divert lines is damned good. He's pulled some of the lines away from us completely. And I've caught him trying to read the Vale for power, too. I think he might be planning to use one of the lines to tap into the Vale itself."
Darkwind frowned. "This is a new tactic for him, isn't it? He's never stolen power before that I can recall."
"Exactly," Stormcloud said, and bit his lip. "I don't like it, Darkwind. And I like it even less that our own mages haven't sensed him doing anything. Unless that was what this meeting you had to attend was all about—?"
Darkwind shook his head. "No. At least, that wasn't on the agenda. So unless they're keeping it from me—and they could be, I'll admit—they haven't noticed either the new node or the diversion of the ley-lines."
Winterlight snorted his contempt. "You could probably start a mage-war out here and they'd never notice inside the Vale. They're lost in their own little dream of what-was-once. Even if they were alert, the Heartstone just blanks out everything that's not in there with them."
Darkwind's frown deepened a trifle; that was not the way it was supposed to be. The Heartstone was supposed to sensitize the mages to what was going on with energies outside the Vale, not destroy or bury their sensitivity. But he realized that Winterlight was right; that was another of the side effects he disliked about being inside the Vale. When he was within the shield-area, it was as if he had been cut off from the energy-flows outside.
No one had said anything about that, not even right after the Heartstone shattered—which meant either that the effect was new, another developing side effect of living next to the broken stone—
—or it's been that way since the disaster, and nobody noticed. Which is just as bad.
Dawnfire had been silent up until now; he turned toward her and raised an eyebrow.
"Well," she said, with a frown that matched his own, "Stormcloud is the one who knows energies, and Winterlight's Huur is absolutely the best at spying. So I'll just say that I think the same things have been happening in my area, but I'd like someone to check to be sure. What I have that they don't is a network of allied species acting as my informants—hertasi, dyheli, tervardi, and a few humans who aren't fond of civilization. Most of the humans are a little crazy, but they're sharp enough when it comes to noticing what's going on around them."
Darkwind nodded; Dawnfire was the one who had suggested taking volunteers among the nonhumans in the first place, and she had proved the idea was viable by establishing a network outside the k'Sheyna boundaries.
"Well, some of my informants are missing," she said, some of her distress coming through despite her best efforts to control it. "And when I sent someone to try and find them, there was nothing. They haven't just disappeared, they've gone without a trace. That wouldn't be too hard to do with dyheli, but hertasi have real homes—they actually build furnishings for their caves and hollow trees—and tervardi build ekele, and even those are gone. It's as if they never existed at all."
"Gone?" Darkwind repeated. "How could anyone make a tree vanish?"
Dawnfire shook her head. "I don't know—though the trees themselves don't vanish, just the hollows and ekele. But the caves do vanish; there's solid earth and rock where the cave used to be. At least, that's what my bird tells me."
Winterlight frowned. "Could that be illusion?"
"It could," she acknowledged with a nod. "Kyrr can't t
ell illusion from the real thing, and she's not particularly sensitive to magic. I wasn't about to ask her to test it. But my tervardi and hertasi aren't mages, either, so they wouldn't have used illusion to conceal their homes. Something took them, then covered its tracks by making it look as if there had never been anything living there."
"Who, why, and how?" Stormcloud asked succinctly. "There is an Adept out there—"
"But again, this isn't like anything he's ever done before," said Winterlight.
"That we know of," Darkwind added. "He might have decided to change his tactics. And it might not be rumor her—at all. It might be another Adept entirely. 'Why' is another good question; why take them at all, and why try to make it look as if they never existed?"
"To confuse us?" Stormcloud asked facetiously. "And make us think we're crazy?"
"Why not?" was Dawnfire's unexpected reply as she sat straight up, with a look of keen speculation on her face. "He has to know how badly the Heartstone has been affecting us. If we were only in sporadic contact with those particular creatures, erasing their very existence might make us uneasy about our own sanity."
Winterlight nodded, slowly, as if what she had said had struck a note with him, too. "A good point. But the question is, what are we going to do about it?"
"About losing neutral territory—there's not much we can do," Darkwind sighed. "We could make things uncomfortable for the things moving in, I suppose; uncomfortable enough that they might move back without our having to force a confrontation we haven't the manpower to meet."
"Like some really nasty practical jokes?" For the first time in the meeting, Stormcloud's eyes lit up. "Krawn and I could take care of that. Now that it's summer, there are a lot of things we can do to make them miserable, as long as we have your permission." He grinned evilly. "I know where there are some lovely fire-wasp nests. And Krawn can bring in absolute swarms of other corbies. They aren't going to be able to leave anything outside without having it stolen or fouled."
"Do it," Darkwind told him. "And don't stretch yourself too thin, but if you can extend your reach into Dawnfire's and Winterlight's areas, do so."
"I can," Stormcloud replied, with barely concealed glee. "The thing about tricks is that they're more effective if they're sporadic and unpredictable. Krawn is going to love this."
"What about the power-theft?" asked Winterlight anxiously. "We can't do anything about that—as well try to bail water with a basket—but surely someone should."
"I'll tell the mages," Darkwind said, "But I can't promise anything. They might seal off the leaks, they might not. There's no predicting them these days."
"And my missing creatures?" Dawnfire was giving him that look of pleading he found so hard to resist, but there wasn't anything he could do that would satisfy her.
"They'll have to stay missing," he said, and held up his hand to forestall a protest. "I know, I know, it's not right, but we haven't enough guardians to spare to send even one into the neutral territory to find out what happened to them and protect the rest."
"If your gryphon friends were the ones missing," she said, her eyes sparking with momentary anger, "would you still be saying that?"
"Yes, I would," he replied, "If they had nested outside our boundaries. And even then, well, anything Treyvan and Hydona couldn't take care of themselves, I rather doubt we could handle. But I promise this much; if you and Kyrr can catch our predator in the act, we'll see what can be done to save whoever he's after. And if we can catch him in the act, we may have a chance at figuring out a defense for the rest of your friends."
Dawnfire obviously didn't like the answer, but she knew as well as he did that it was the only one he could give her.
"Anything else?" he asked, stifling a yawn, and casting a look at the windows. The sky beyond the branches was a glorious scarlet; they had spoken until sunset, and if the others were to get back to their ekele before dark, they'd have to leave soon. "I'm going to have to get out on patrol before dawn to make up for stealing a couple of hours of Amberwing's time so I could go to the blamed meeting. So I've got a short night ahead of me."
"I think we've covered everything," Winterlight said, after a moment of silence. "I'll catch up with the others, and let them know what we've decided."
He got up from the couch, and started down the stairs. Stormcloud followed him, then paused at the top of the stairs just long enough for a slow wink.
Dawnfire glanced at the windows, at the heavy branches standing out blackly against the fire of the sunset. "Are you really that tired?" she asked. She didn't get up from the couch.
"Not if you're going to stay a while," he replied, with a slow smile.
"You haven't taken back your feather," she said, somehow gliding into his arms before he was aware she had moved. "And I certainly don't want mine back. Of course I'll stay a while."
The scent of her, overlaid with the musky trace of her bird, was as intoxicating as tran-dust, and the soft lips she offered to him made his blood heat to near-boiling. He lost himself in her, their two minds meeting and melding, adding to the sensuality of the embrace. Her hands caressed the small of his back and slid down over his hips; his right was buried in her hair at the nape of her neck, his left crushed her to him.
He had just enough wit to remember he still had to pull up his ladder.
So did she, fortunately. "Go secure the door. The sunset, if I recall correctly, is incredible from upstairs."
She pushed him away; he moved down the stairs in a dream. The trapdoor was still unlatched; he brought the ladder up, rung by rung, and rehung it, latched down the trapdoor, and keyed the mage-light to a dim blue.
Then he ran up the two flights of stairs to the sleeping room.
She was waiting, clothed only in her loosened hair, curled like a white vixen on the dark furs of his bedspread, her hair flowing free and trailing behind her like a frozen waterfall.
She turned a little at his footfall, and smiled at him, holding out her hand—and they didn't see a great deal of the sunset.
* * *
:Brother comes, fast,: said Vree. Then, with an overtone of surprise, :Very fast.:
Vree's alert interrupted what had been an otherwise completely dull and uneventful patrol along the dry streambed that formed part of the k'Sheyna border. It hadn't always been dry—in fact, a week ago, there had been a stream here. Evidently not only ley-lines were being diverted.
Darkwind had not been overly worried when he discovered the condition of the stream; the diversion could easily have had perfectly natural causes. It could have gone dry for a dozen reasons, including the "helpful" work of beavers. But it was one more thing to investigate....
That was when Vree's call alerted him. Before Darkwind had a chance to wonder just what that "fast" meant, he heard the pounding of hooves from up-trail. A moment later, a dyheli stag plunged over the embankment above him, coming to a halt in a clatter of cleft hooves, and a shower of sand and gravel. The graceful, antelope-like creature was panting, his flanks covered with sweat, his mane sodden with it. As Dawnfire slid from his back, he tossed his golden head with its three spiraling horns and Mindspoke Darkwind directly.
:Cannot run more—help my brothers—:
Then he plunged back into the brush, staggering a little from exhaustion, as Darkwind turned toward his rider.
"What—"
"There's a dyheli bachelor herd just outside the boundaries," she said, her words tumbling over each other with her urgency. "They're trapped in a pocket valley, one they can't climb out of. I don't know what chased them in there, or even if they just went in there last night figuring it was a good place to defend in the dark—but they've been trapped, and they're going mad with fear—"
"Whoa." He stopped the torrent of speech by placing his hand over her lips for a moment. "Take it slowly. What's holding them there?"
"It's—it's like a fog bank, and it fills the outer end of the valley," she replied, her voice strained, "Only it's bluish, and anyth
ing that goes into it doesn't come out alive. Darkwind, we have to get them out of there!"
"You say they're outside the borders?" he persisted.
She nodded, her enormous, pale-silver eyes fixed on his.
"I—" he hesitated, presented with the pleading in her expression. I shouldn't. It's outside, it could be a diversion to get several of us out there—it could be an attempt to ambush us—
But her eyes persuaded him against his better judgment. "I—all right, ashke. I'll come look at the situation. But I can't promise anything."
It took them a while to reach the spot, even with the assistance of two more dyheli from a breeding herd inside k'Sheyna borders. By the time they reached the valley, the situation had worsened. The fog had crowded all the young dyheli bucks into the back of the valley, and they milled around the tiny space in a state of complete, unthinking panic. Trampling everything beneath their churning hooves, with horns tossing, their squeals of desperation reached, to Darkwind's perch on the hill above them.
He studied the situation, his heart sinking. The sides of the valley—it was really a steep cup among the hills, with a spring at the bottom—were rocky, and far too steep to bring the dyheli up, even if they'd been calm. In their current state of panic, it was impossible.
The fog was mage-born, that much he could tell, easily. But the mage himself was not here. There was no one to attack, and no way to counter such a nebulous menace. Even calling up a wind—if he could have done so—would not have dispersed the evil cloud.
It roiled beneath him, a leprous blue-white, thick and oily, too murky to see into. Twice now, he'd seen young bucks overcome with fear and madness, try to break through into the clear air beyond. They had never come out on the other side.
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