"And I am." Elspeth made that a statement.
"I'd bet on it." Kero nodded, soberly. "I'll tell you this much; while she's given me trouble in the past, she's always been worth the having. I may not have depended on her, but she's bailed me out of things I could never have gotten myself out of alone. I feel a lot better knowing you have her."
"I—" Elspeth stopped, at a loss for words. "Kero, 'thanks' just doesn't seem adequate...."
"Oh, don't thank me, thank her," Kero grinned. "She picked you, after all."
"I'm thanking you anyway." Elspeth hugged her, sword and all, then bade her a reluctant farewell. It was hard saying good-bye; a lot harder than she thought it would be. She stood with the sheathed sword in her hands for a long time after Kero was gone.
Finally Elspeth buckled the swordbelt over her tunic, and wriggled a little to settle Need's weight. Once in place, the sword felt right; most swords took some getting used to, they all weighed differently, their balance on the hip or in the hand was different.
But most swords aren't magic.
The thought was unsettling; this was the stuff of which ballads and stories were made, and although Elspeth had daydreamed herself into a heroine when she was a child, she'd given up those daydreams once she achieved her Whites.
I thought I had, anyway.
That made for another unsettling thought, though; stories all had endings—and she was beginning to feel as if the ending to this one was already written.
As if she had no choice in where she was going, or how she was going to get there; as if everyone knew what her goal was except her.
"Destiny" was one word she had always hated—and now it looked as if it was the one word that applied to her.
And she didn't like the feeling one bit.
Chapter Eight
DARKWIND
:Stupid,: said Vree, with profound disapproval.
Darkwind's stomach lurched as Vree made another swooping dive—not quite a stoop—skimming through the pocket valley that held the trapped dyheli bucks.
There were times when the gyre's viewpoint was a little—unsettling.
The gyre wheeled above the dyheli herd, just above the highest level of the mist, giving Darkwind the loan of his keener eyes and the advantage of wings and height. :Stupid, stupid. We should go.:
Not that Darkwind needed a bird, even a bondbird, to tell him that. The gentle dyheli huddled together in an exhausted, witless knot, too spent by panic to do anything sensible.
Through the gyre's eyes he looked for anything that might pass as a track out of the valley—and found nothing. The spring dropped from a height five times that of the dyheli to the valley floor, down a sheer rock face. The other two sides of the valley were just as sheer, and sandstone to boot.
Nothing short of a miracle was going to get them out of there.
Vree's right. We should go. I can't risk all of k'Sheyna for the sake of a dozen dyheli. I made pledges, I have greater responsibilities.
So why was he here, lying under the cover of a bush, just above the mist-choked passage out of the dead-end valley, searching through his bondbird's eyes for a way out for the tiny herd? Why was he wasting his time, leaving his section of the border unpatrolled, tearing up his insides with his own helplessness?
Because I'm stupid.
One of the bucks raised a sweat-streaked head to utter a heartbreaking cry of despair. His gut twisted a little more.
And because I can't stand to see them suffering like that. They're fellow creatures, as intelligent as we are. They looked to Dawnfire for protection and help, even if they did range outside our boundaries. They acted as her eyes and ears out here. I can't just abandon them now.
Which was, no doubt, exactly the way Dawnfire felt. There was no difference in what he was doing now, and what she wanted to do.
Except that I'm a little older, a little more experienced. But just as headstrong and stupid.
The mist—whatever it was—rose and fell with an uneasy, wavelike motion, and wherever it lapped up on the rock wall, it left brown and withered vegetation when it receded. And it took quite a bit to kill those tough little rock-plants. So the mist was deadly to the touch as well as deadly to breathe. There was no point in trying to calm the dyheli enough to get them to hold their breath and make a dash for freedom... they'd never survive being in the mist for as long as it would take them to blunder through.
As if to underscore that observation, the mist lapped a little higher just below his hiding place. A wisp of it eddied up, and he got a faint whiff of something that burned his mouth and throat and made his eyes water. He coughed it out as the mist ebbed again.
Poisonous and caustic. First, burns to madden them further, then the poison. They're horribly susceptible to poisons; they'd probably get fatal doses just through skin contact, through the area of the burn.
No, no hope there.
He rubbed his eyes to clear them, and sent Vree to perch in the tree over his head. Another of the dyheli called mournfully, and the cry cut into his heart. He knuckled his eyes again, blinking through burning eyes, but still could see no way out of the trap.
Even the spring-fed waterfall was not big enough to do more than provide a little water spray and a musical trickle down the rocks. There was no shelter for even one of the dyheli behind it.
I can't bear this, he decided, finally. All I could do is shoot them and give them a painless death, or leave them, and hope that whatever this poison is, it disperses on its own—or maybe won't be able to get past the mist that the waterfall is throwing.
Two choices, both bad, the second promising a worse death than the first. His heart smoldered with frustration and anger, and he swore and pounded his fist white on the rock-hard dirt, then wiped the blood off his skinned knuckles. No! Dammit, it's not fair, they depended on Tayledras to protect them! There has to be someth—
He looked back into the valley, at the tugging of an invisible current, a stirring in the fabrics of power, the rest of his thought forgotten.
A sudden shrilling along his nerves, an etching of ice down his backbone, that was what warned him of magic—magic that he knew, intimately, though he no longer danced to its piping—the movements of energies nearby, and working swiftly.
His fingers moved, silently, in unconscious response. He swung his head a little, trying to pinpoint the source.
There—
The mist below him stirred.
The hair on the back of his neck and arms stood on end, and he found himself on his feet on the floor of the valley before the wall of mist, with no memory of standing, much less climbing down. It didn't matter; magic coiled and sprang from a point somewhere before him, purposeful, and guided.
Striking against the mage-born wall of poison.
The mist writhed as it was attacked, stubbornly resisting. Magic, a single spell, fought the mist, trying to force it to disperse. The mist fought back with magic and protections of its own. It curdled, thickened, compacted against the sides and floor of the valley, flowing a little farther toward the dyheli.
The spell changed; power speared through the mist, cutting it, lancelike. A clear spot appeared, a kind of tunnel in the cloud. The mist fought again, but not as successfully this time.
Darkwind felt the conflicting energies in his nerves and bones. He didn't have to watch the silent battle, he followed it accurately within himself—the spell-wielder forcing the mist away, the mist curling back into the emptying corridor, being forced away, and oozing back in again. He reached out a hand, involuntarily, to wield power that he had forsaken—
Then pulled his hand back, the conflict within him as silent and devastating as the conflict below him.
But before he could resolve his own battle, the balance of power below him shifted. The magic-wielder won; the mist parted, held firmly away from a clear tunnel down the middle of the valley, with only the thinnest of wisps seeping in.
But he could feel the strain, the pressure of the mist o
n the walls of that tunnel, threatening to collapse it at any moment.
It can't hold for long!
But again, before he could move, the balance shifted. The ground trembled under his feet, and for a moment he thought it was another effect of the battle of mist and magic being fought in front of his very eyes. But no—something dark loomed through the enshrouding mist, something that tossed and made the ground shake.
The dyheli!
Now he dared a thought, a Mindspoken call.
It didn't matter that someone or something might overhear; they had been started, or spooked, but without direction, they might hesitate, fatally. :Brothers—hooved brothers! Come, quickly, before the escape-way closes!:
There was no answer except the shaking of the ground. But the darkness within the mist began to resolve into tossing heads and churning legs—and a moment later, the dyheli bucks pounded into sight, a foam of sweat dripping from their flanks, coughing as the fumes hit their lungs. And behind them—something else.
Something that ran on two legs, not four.
It collapsed, just barely within the reach of the mist. And as it collapsed, so did the tunnel of clear air.
He did not even stop to think; he simply acted.
He took a lungful of clean air and plunged into the edge of the roiling, angry mist. His eyes burned and watered, his skin was afire. He could hardly see through the tears, only enough to reach that prone figure, seize one arm, and help it to its feet.
He half-dragged, half-carried it out, aware of it only as lighter than he, and shorter, and still alive, for it tried feebly to help him. There was no telling if it was human or not; here in the borderland between k'Sheyna and the Pelagirs, that was not something to take for granted. But it had saved the dyheli, and that was enough to earn it, in turn, aid.
The mist reached greedily for them; he reached clear air at the edge of it; sucked in a lungful, felt his burden do the same. Both of them shuddered with racking coughs as a wisp of mist reached their throats.
He stumbled into safety at the same moment that the other collapsed completely, nearly carrying Darkwind to the ground with him.
Him?
At that moment, Darkwind realized that this was no male. And as he half-suspected, not human either.
:Run!: Vree screamed from overhead, with mind and voice, and Darkwind glanced behind to see the mist licking forward again, reaching for them, turning darker as if with anger.
From somewhere he found the strength to pick her up, heave her over his shoulder, and stumble away at a clumsy run.
He ran until exhaustion forced him to stop before he dropped the girl, fell on his face, or both. Vree scouted for him, as he slowed to a weary walk, muscles burning, side aching. He figured he must have run, all out, for furlongs at least; he was well out of sensing range of the evil mist, if that still existed and had not been dissipated. That was all that mattered. By the time he came to a halt, in the lee of a fallen tree, he was sweating as heavily as the dyheli bucks.
He knelt and eased his burden down into the grass beside the bark-stripped trunk of the tree, and didn't bother to get up. He sat right down beside her, his legs without any strength at all, propping himself against the tree with his back against the trunk.
For a long time he just sat there, his forehead against his bent knees, wrists crossed over his ankles, every muscle weak from the long run, relying on Vree to alert him if anything dangerous came along. Sweat cooled and dried, his back and scalp itched, but he was too tired to scratch them. He was only aware of his burning muscles, his aching lungs, the pain in his side.
After a while, other things began to penetrate to his consciousness as his legs stopped trembling and the pain in his side and lungs ebbed. Birds called and chattered all around, a good sign, since they would have been silent if there had been anything about to disturb them.
He began to think again, slowly. His mind, dull with fatigue, was nevertheless alert enough to encompass this much; as a nonhuman and an Outlander, she was not going to be welcome in k'Sheyna. She was not, as he recalled from the brief glimpse he'd had before he had to pick up and run with her, a member of any of the non-human races k'Sheyna had contact with. And unknown meant "suspect" in the danger-ridden lands beyond the borders of the Vale.
Now what am I going to do with her? he wondered, exhaustion warring with the need to make a quick decision. I'd better take a closer look at her. We aren't inside the Vale yet. If she isn't badly hurt, maybe I can just leave her here, keep an eye on her until she comes around, then make sure she takes herself off, away from the Vale.
He raised his head and turned his attention to his silent companion—still unconscious, he saw. As he turned her over to examine her, everything about her set off ripples of aversion.
Not only was she nonhuman, she was only-too-obviously one of the so-called "Changechildren" from the Pelagirs, creatures modified from either human or animal bases—at their own whims, frequently, if the base was human; or that of their creators if they were modified from animals. It was what the Tayledras had done with the bondbirds, and what they had done to horses on behalf of the Shin'a'in, taken to an extreme. An extreme that many Tayledras found bordering on the obscene—perhaps because of the kinds of modifications that had been done at the time of the Mage Wars. It was one thing to modify; it was quite another to force extreme changes for no good reason, be the base human or animal.
His experienced eye told him which it was; there was only so much that could be done with an animal base. You couldn't grant equal intelligence with humans to an animal, except over the course of many generations. It had taken the hertasi many generations to attain enough intelligence for a rare mage to appear among their ranks, and that event itself had been centuries ago. Human base, modified to cat....
Even unconscious, she oozed sexual attraction, which made him both doubly uneasy and pitying. That attraction—it was a common modification, based on smell and the stimulation of deep, instinctual drives in the onlooker. Whether he decided ultimately on pity or revulsion would depend on whether she'd had it done to her, or done it herself. If herself—
Already he felt a deep, smoldering anger at the idea. I may pitch her back into the damned mist.
Those who modified themselves for sexual attractiveness were generally doing so with intent to use themselves and their bodies as a weapon. And not an honest one, either.
On the other hand, if she'd had it done to her—it was likely with the intent of her master to use her as a kind of sexual pet. That was as revolting to Darkwind as the first, but it was not a revulsion centered on the girl.
For the rest, the overall impression was of a cat, or something catlike. Her hair was a dark, deep sable, and rather short, with a subtle dappled effect in the direct sunlight, like his own dyed hair-camouflage. Her face was triangular, with very little chin; her ears, pointed, with furlike tufts on the ends. Her eyebrows swept upward, her eyes were slanted upward, and when he pulled an eyelid open to see if she really was conscious, he was unsurprised to see that her golden-yellow eyes had slit pupils. Which were dilated in shock; her stunned condition was real.
She wore the absolute minimum for modesty; a scanty tunic of cream-colored leather, and skin-tight breeches that laced up the side, showing a long line of dark golden-brown flesh beneath. Not practical garb for woods running.
Even unconscious, she lay with a boneless grace that echoed the cat theme, and her retractile fingernails were filed to sharp points, like a cat's claws.
Whatever she had been, she was not even as human now as the Tayledras. The changes had been made to her from birth; possibly even before. In fact, in view of the extensiveness of the changes, it was increasingly unlikely that she'd done them to herself. Unless she was born in one of the contaminated areas, the poison twisted her in this direction, and she decided to continue the shift.
She was barefoot, but the tough soles of her feet convinced him that she had spent most of her life without wearing f
oot coverings. Again, not practical for woods running, which argued that she had run away from something or someone.
Then he saw the patterns of old and new bruises over much of her body, as if someone had been beating her on a regular basis. Nothing to mar the perfection of her face—but everywhere else, she was marked with the signs of frequent blows. The darkness of her skin had hidden it from him at first, but she was covered with the greenish-yellow of old, healing bruises, and the purple-black of fresh ones. Some of them, on her arms, were as big as the palm of his hand. He could only wonder, sickened, about the parts of her hidden under her clothing. The evidence was mounting in her favor.
She was thin—too thin, with bones showing starkly, as if she never had quite enough to eat.
Darkwind sat back on his heels, no longer certain what to think. The Changechild was a bundle of contradictions. If she was, as she seemed, the escaped chattel of an Adept-level mage, how was it she had commanded the power to free the dyheli herd? No mage would have permitted a "pet" to carry the Mage-Gift, much less learn how to use it.
But if she was an enemy, why did she bear the marks of beatings and semistarvation? And why had she freed the herd in the first place?
She represented a puzzle he did not have enough information to solve.
I have to give her the benefit of the doubt, he decided, after pondering the question for a moment. She did save the dyheli. Whatever else she is, or is not, will have to wait. But I can't make a decision until I know what she is. He thought a moment more. I have to see that she stays safe until she wakes. I do owe her that much, at the very least—and I owe her the protection of a place to recover afterward.
At a guess, she hadn't breathed enough of the poison to have put a healthy creature into the unconscious stupor she lingered in. But she had not been healthy, and she had depleted her resources considerably in fighting that evil mist. She was not Adept-level; that much was obvious. She was not even a Master; no Master would have exhausted herself in fighting the mist directly. A Master would have transmuted the mist into something else; an Adept would have broken the spell creating it and holding it there. Both would have involved very powerful and difficult spells and would have alerted every mage within two days' ride that there was another mage plying his powers. That was what Darkwind would have done—before he swore that nothing would ever induce him to wield magic energies again. Before it became too dangerous for him to draw the attentions of other Adepts to the depleted and disrupted Clan of k'Sheyna.
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