Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Conssstructing ward-off ssspellsss," Hydona said mildly, as if she hadn't snapped her beak shut in mid-syllable the moment he came into view. "Elssspeth had one of the hertasssi look in on you, but you were sssleeping ssso deeply we decsssided you mussst need the ressst."

  His irritation faded a little. At least they had checked on him before doing anything on their own. This particular task was not something he would have expected for the four of them. Ward-offs were simple things, but they had to be constructed and set carefully, another task of patience. Intended to discourage rather than hurt, ward-offs were the first line of defense on the border; the more intelligent the creature that encountered one, the more likely it was to be affected by it. A basilisk, for instance, would not be deterred by one, but a Changewolf probably would, unless it happened to be very hungry. Humans certainly would be; especially wanderers, peddlers, and the like—people who had crossed into Tayledras lands by accident.

  Treyvan roused his golden-edged crest and refolded his wings with the characteristic rasp of feathers sliding across feathers. "You and I arrre not to make ward-offsss. Ssstarblade hasss a tasssk forrr usss; to move ley-linessss," he said. "We work while Elsspeth watchesss. We are to diverrrt them to the node beneath the lairrr, sssevering them from the Heartssstone."

  Darkwind frowned. That came under the heading of "tedious and necessary," as well. But anything to do with the Heartstone had its own share of danger involved. Certainly this was not beneath his abilities. It was along the lines of doing his share to work with the imbalanced Stone.

  "Do you have any idea why we're doing this?" he asked.

  "Thessse are minorrr linesss," Treyvan told him. "Ssstarrblade wantsss all the minorrr linesss rrremoved, to sssee if they can be, and to sssee if thisss weakensss the Ssstone."

  "Hmm. It could well be that once the minors are removed, the majors could be split into minors, and diverted in the same manner to other nodes, perhaps other Heartstones if there were any near."

  Treyvan gave him one of those enigmatic, purely-gryphonish expressions of his, the one that always looked to Darkwind like "I know something you would dearly like to know." He spoke slowly. "It isss not imposssible."

  Darkwind nodded, watching Elspeth with his Othersight; taking note of how she built the ward-off layer by layer, with the deft and delicate touch of a jeweler.

  Showing no signs of impatience. And no signs of Attitude, either.

  And that irritated him all over again. Why couldn't she just have been reasonable in the first place?

  Because no one put things to her in a way she understood, he reminded himself. She's as much an alien here as the gryphons, no matter how comfortable she looks or how well she seems to fit in.

  And she did look as if she fit in, wearing the clothing he'd had made for her instead of those glaring white uniforms or the barbarian getup she'd had in her packs. She didn't quite look Tayledras, not with that hair—but until she spoke, no one would know she was not one of the Tayledras allies.

  Get your mind on the task, Darkwind, and off the female.

  "Hasn't anyone tried this line-diverting with the Stone before?" He couldn't believe that they hadn't. It seemed like the logical sort of thing to do.

  "Yesss," the gryphon said, switching his tail restlessly. "But it did not worrk. And not asss we will be worrrking. Parrrtially the Sstone ressissted having the linesss taken; and parrrtially it rrreclaimed them within a day. We will give the linesss a new anchorrr, fixing them in place, rrrather than letting them find theirrr own anchorrr. Beforrre, they werrre allowed to drrrift, and the Sstone rrreclaimed them."

  Elspeth put the final lock on the ward-off, and sent it away to settle into its place on the border. In his mind's eye it drifted away like a gossamer scarf blown by a purposeful wind—or a drift of fog with a mind of its own.

  "I'm done," she announced, dusting off her hands. "Your turn." She took a seat nearby, her face alight with interest. "I thought these lines were like rivers or something. I didn't know you could change where they went."

  "Generally only the little ones," Darkwind told her as he stretched. "At least, the major lines take all the mages of a Clan to reroute. That's something we do when we start a Vale; we find a node or make one, then relocate all the nearest big lines to it, so that we can drain the wild magic of an area into the Heartstone."

  "It isss much like crrreating a riverrrrbed before therrre isss a rrriver," Hydona said. "When the waterrr comess, it will follow the courssse laid forr it. Ssso isss the wild magic to the grreaterrr linesss. The grrreaterrr linesss have theirrr bankssss widened. The unsssettled magicsss join theirrr flow."

  "I can see how that would make sense. And when you leave, you drain the magic from the Stone—along a new-made set of 'riverbeds,' I assume," Elspeth said, with a measure of surety in her voice.

  "That, or a series of reservoirs are made temporarily."

  "Then what?" she asked Darkwind.

  "Then we sever the lines and let them drift back into natural patterns, and physically remove the Stone," he told her as he concentrated more of his attention on the complex of shields and probes he would need to handle his task. Shields against the Heartstone, some set to deflect energy away, some to resist, sensory probes to know what it was doing. Heartstones were not precisely aware, they certainly weren't thinking creatures, yet they were alive in a sense and normally tractable. But this one was no longer normal.

  "But didn't you redirect the greater ley-lines in the first place to get rid of wild magic?" she asked, puzzled. "Or am I missing something?"

  At least this time she didn't phrase it in a way that made me sound like I didn't know what I was talking about.

  "We did—" This juggling of preparations and explanations was going to get him into trouble if he wasn't very careful, which, again, was probably Treyvan's intention. In a job like this, "trouble" had the potential of being very serious indeed. The gryphons were merciless in their testing. "We do. And by the time we leave, it's gone, changed into a stable form. The magic we're draining... isn't in its natural state." Set the shield just—so—got to be able to sense through it without getting blinded if the Stone surges— "It doesn't belong here, and certainly not in a random state. Once we finish, the only thing left is the natural magic flow."

  "Ah, so you take down the Stone and leave, and everything goes back to the way it was before the Mage Wars." Both he and Hydona had already explained the natural flow of magic energy to her; how it was created by living things, how it collected in ley-lines and reservoirs in the same way that water collected in streams and lakes.

  "Probably not exactly, but at least a human can live here without fear that his children will have claws or two heads. And there won't be any other Changecreatures there either, unless they manage to get past our lands somehow." I'll need a secondary shield to slap between the end of the severed line and the Stone.... "And when we leave, we take the innocent or harmless mage-created creatures with us, so they don't have to fear the full-humans who inevitably arrive."

  Her face changed subtly at that, as if it was something that hadn't occurred to her until that moment. He would have liked to know what she was thinking.

  Well, time enough for that later.

  "I would like you behind as many shields as you can put up," he told her. "I do not know what is likely to happen; there has been so much work with the Stone that it may have changed the way it is likely to react. Can you watch through my 'eyes,' or Treyvan's?"

  She nodded and extended a tentative "hand" to him, waiting for him to take it.

  Well, that's promising. She didn't just fling a link at me without asking. He took her up; making certain that everything including surface thoughts was well-shielded against casual probes. He didn't think she would intrude, but there were always accidents. Some of his personal thoughts were less than flattering to her; most he would rather not share with anyone.

  Treyvan indicated his readiness to act with a nod and a "hand" o
f his own. He settled into partnership with the gryphon with the same ease that one half of an acrobatic team has with the other.

  But Treyvan waited for him to initiate the action. The gryphon's intention was clear; he meant to observe the act as a backup in case of trouble but to otherwise let Darkwind take the lead. The Heartstone glowered before them, sullen red, pulsing irregularly, with odd cracklings of random energy discharge flowing over and through it. The lines were anchored firmly in its base, concentrated amidst the major lines like roots from a crystalline tree of lightning, their rainbow-patterned raw power transformed by the stone itself.

  Was he ready?

  He would have to find out sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.

  :All right, old friend,: he Mindsent. :Let's make this one clean and quick.:

  Clean it was; quick, it was not.

  The Stone resisted their attempts to sever the lines, as Treyvan predicted; he was not prepared for the uncanny way in which it reacted when he severed the first of them, though.

  He formed his own power into a thin, sharp-edged "blade," sliding it into the join of Stone and line, intending to excise the line as if cleaning a rabbit hide. To his surprise, though, it Felt precisely like trying to cut the leg from an old, tough, and overcooked gamebird; he encountered a flexible resistance that was at once yielding and entangling.

  He changed his tactic; changed from trying to cut his way through the join, to burning his way through. It resisted that as well, so he changed to a mental image of wielding bitter cold at the join, to make it brittle, then breaking it away. That worked, but it was a good thing he had secondary shields ready to protect the raw "ends," because the moment he got the line loose and held in one of his "hands," he Sensed movement from the Stone.

  He passed the line to Treyvan, protected the end with an expanding shield. Just in time. The Stone itself created tiny tentacles of seeking power, probing after the line it had lost. Thin, waving strands of sullen red energy groped toward him, lengthening as they searched. The hair on the back of his neck rose as they came to him, then ignored him, and sought after the line. For one frightening moment, he thought they were coming after him, that the Stone knew he had taken the line and wanted retribution. They reminded him of the filaments of energy cast out in the creation of a Gate, the filaments that sought for and found the terminus at the other end and drew the two "together." They found the line—and slid along the surface of the shield protecting the severed end. Before they could seek further, perhaps touch past the sides of the shield, Treyvan hauled the line out of reach.

  He shivered, watching the red fingers weaving and groping after the line. There was something very wrong about this. In all of his training, in all of the tales he had ever heard, there had been nothing like this behavior noted in a Heartstone.

  Fortunately, these tentacles were neither as powerful nor as persistent as the Gate-energies; they receded into the seething chaos of the Stone moments after they pulled the line out of reach. But he certainly remained aware of them—and aware that the Stone might have more surprises.

  He did not like the feeling that it knew exactly what he had done, and was angry with him.

  With one "eye" on the Stone, he and Treyvan put their strength into relocating the line and, to some extent, the pathway it would take in the future. Moving the line was a great deal like pulling one end of a very heavy, very long rope—a rope that was, perhaps, as thick as his waist. The line resisted being moved from its accustomed course, just by pure inertia. By the time he got the severed end within easy distance of the new node, he felt as if he had run a long uphill race.

  Treyvan's mind was focused on his and Hydona's home. He manipulated the node beneath the lair; that was appropriate, since he was the most familiar with it. He created a kind of "sticky," or "rough-surfaced" place on it, at least that was the analogy Darkwind used for himself. Whatever he did, it made the raw end of the line seek it as soon as Darkwind removed the shield; they joined, jumping together as a thread will jump to a silk-rubbed amber bead, or a bit of iron to a magnet. Then he ran magical pressure along the line, to straighten and broaden it slightly, so it would seat in place easier.

  Darkwind studied the join for a moment, and mentally shook his head. :I don't want to take any chances, this time,: he said to Treyvan, feeling Elspeth in the back of his mind, watching with interest. :I didn't like what the Stone did back there, and I don't want it to recapture these lines. Let's armor and shield the joining.:

  :A good plan,: Treyvan agreed.

  It was probably not necessary. They were probably doing far more work than they needed to. But Darkwind could not get those seeking tentacles of power out of his mind—

  —and the more I weaken the Stone, the less chance it has of turning the tables on us when we finally drain it. Or whatever we do when we finally take it down.

  He was aware that he was thinking of the Stone as if it a living, sentient creature. A discomforting fact of magic, also, was that often thinking about something made it happen, especially with skilled Adepts. Magery was not a matter of spell components and rituals at Adept level, it involved a high measure of subconscious skill and influencing of the physical world.

  He had no doubt that there were others among the Hawkbrothers who thought of the Stone as having a mind—a half-mad, malicious one, to be sure. Personifying a problem was also not unheard of among people of all ages and races, much less mages. It might, by now, have a kind of mind. That might even be the root cause of its behavior back there. If it did, the last thing he wanted to do was underestimate it.

  So he and Treyvan spent some time in ensuring that the Stone would not be able to get that particular ley-line back. And the next. And the next.

  Four lines later, and he was quite ready to call an end to the exercise. So, he surmised, was Treyvan. When he disengaged his attention from Othersight and glanced over at the gryphon, poor Treyvan's crest drooped, and his neck-ruff had a decidedly wilted look about it.

  :That's enough,: he said. :We know this will hold. And even weakened, my father could do this alone. In fact, if I can do this, any pair of the Adepts should be able to. I think I'll advise that they work in pairs, though. I don't think anyone should ever turn an unguarded back on that Stone from now on.:

  Treyvan acknowledged his decision with a weary nod, and broke the link. As Darkwind brought all of his attention and concentration back to his physical body, the gryphon slumped over his foreclaws and sighed.

  "That Sstone isss mossst ssstubborn, Darrkwind," the gryphon complained, his crest-feathers slowly rising. "I have neverrr ssseen anything like it."

  "Let's get out of here," Darkwind urged. "I'm too tired to really trust my shields."

  "I agrreee," Hydona rumbled, and turned to lead the way across the pass-through. On the other side of the barrier, Treyvan resumed his interrupted observation.

  "I have neverrr ssseen anything like the way the Ssstone behaved," he repeated, his voice troubled, and his crest rising and falling a little with his agitation.

  "You mean the way it tried to reach after the line once we severed it?" Darkwind asked. "By the way," he added in an aside to Elspeth, "Treyvan is right in that what you Saw wasn't normal behavior for a Heartstone. It's not supposed to reach out after things like that on its own."

  The gryphon shuddered. "It acted asss if it werre alive and thinking. It issss jussst a node. Nodesss arrre not sssupposssed to be alive!"

  "Yes and no," Darkwind replied, "Although this is sheer speculation on my part, I must remind you. But I have seen another kind of magic-imbued object act like that; when you build a Gate, the energy integrated into the portal does the same thing."

  "Yesss, but not on itsss own," Treyvan corrected. "You make it do sssso!"

  "Initially, perhaps," Darkwind argued, "but eventually, a mage can work parts of the spell without consciously thinking on it. After a while the process proceeds without direction—"

  A flash of white i
n the branches up above should have warned him, but he was too tired to think of more than one thing at a time, and his mind was already occupied with the problem of the Heartstone. So it wasn't until Vree had made three-fourths of his dive at Treyvan's crest that he realized what was about to happen. And by then it was too late.

  "NO!"

  This time, Treyvan was tired, irritable—

  Vree reached out claws to snatch and encountered something he had not expected.

  Treyvan had suffered the bondbird's behavior enough.

  Vree found himself flying straight for Treyvan's enormous beak; easily large enough to engulf the bird.

  Darkwind reached out his hand in a useless gesture. He didn't even have time to think. It was all happening too fast. Vree frantically tried to pull up out of the dive.

  Too late.

  Crack.

  The sound of Treyvan's beak snapping shut echoed across the Vale like nothing that had ever been heard there before. Like the sound of an enormous branch snapping in two, perhaps, or the jaws of a huge steel trap closing.

  Or the hands of a giant slapping together. Clouds of songbirds took wing in alarm.

  Vree screamed in pain and dove for the safety of Darkwind's wrist. Treyvan spat out the single tail-feather he'd bitten off with an air of aggrieved triumph.

  Darkwind heaved a sigh of relief. Treyvan was a carnivore, as much a raptor as Vree was; something he never forgot. Vree was lucky; incredibly lucky—

  Because Treyvan hadn't missed. He'd snapped off exactly what he intended to. The gryphons' reflexes were as swift and sure as the fastest goshawk, and if Treyvan had chosen, it would have been Vree's neck that was broken, not a tail-feather.

  :I warned you,: Darkwind said, as Elspeth hovered between sympathy for the badly frightened bird and the laughter she was obviously trying to repress. :I warned you, and you wouldn't listen!:

  Treyvan fixed the trembling, terrified bondbird with a single glaring eye. "You arrre jussst forrrtunate that I wasss not hungerrred," he hissed, and Darkwind "heard" him echoing his words in simple thought-images the bondbird would have no difficulty understanding. "You may not farrrre so well a sssecond time."