Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Hah! Me?" With a wave, she was gone.

  The first snow of the season was going to be a substantial one. "Does winter always start so—enthusiastically?" Skif asked his guide, as they arranged things in the shelter they had rigged beneath the overhanging limbs of a huge pine. It was a very small shelter, compared to the waystations the Heralds used, but it was big enough for two if no one moved much. Skif couldn't begin to guess what it was made of; some kind of waterproof silk, perhaps. Wintermoon had taken it from a pouch scarcely bigger than a rolled-up shirt. Light for now came from a tiny lantern holding a single candle suspended from the roof; not much, and not very bright.

  Wintermoon shrugged. "Sometimes yes, sometimes no," he replied. "Often it depends upon what the mages have done. Great fluxes in the energy-flow of magic can change the weather significantly, usually to make it worse."

  "Now he tells me," Skif said to the roof of the tent. "Havens, if I'd known that, I'd have kept everyone out of that to-do with Falconsbane!"

  "Oh, that was not significant," the Hawkbrother replied carelessly. "Not enough to make any real difference. Building a Gate, now—one has to make certain that the weather is going to hold clear for several days, if one has a choice, or any storm will worsen. If they manage to drain the Heartstone—that would be significant, very much so. That is why we try always to work the greater magics in stable times of the year."

  "For a nonmage you certainly know a lot," Skif observed. Wintermoon only laughed.

  "One must, if one is Tayledras. As one must know horses, even if one is a musician or weaver, if one is also Shin'a'in. Magic is so much a part of what we do that we all of us are affected by it, if only in the bleaching of hair and eyes." He completed rigging his own sleeping place, and eyed Skif's pad of pine boughs dubiously. "Are you certain that you wish to sleep upon that? It looks very cold and stiff, and I brought a second hammock."

  "I'm used to it," Skif replied. "I'm not used to being suspended like a bat."

  "Well, it is warmer so." Wintermoon looked out of the flap of the tent, and resecured it. "This will be a heavy storm. I think we will be here until well past midmorning at the least. Nothing is like to be moving this night, not even a colddrake."

  "Comforting. At least nothing can wrap us up in our tent and carry us away." The two owls, Corwith and K'Tathi, had perches in one corner of the shelter; packs took up the remaining space, including beneath Wintermoon's hammock, making the area very crowded. Cymry and the dyheli had a lean-to rigged against the side of the shelter, and were huddled together under blankets.

  :Are you all right?: he asked his Companion. :If you're too cold, we'll find some other way—:

  :No worse than if I'd been up north,: she told him. :better, in fact. The snow may be heavy, but it isn't that cold, really. And the dyheli are warm, and good company.:

  Well, if she wasn't going to complain, he wasn't going to worry.

  Hawkbrother winter gear was a lot better than his own; lighter, for one thing. Instead of relying on layers of wool, fur and leather for their bedrolls and heavy-weather coats, they had something light and fluffy sandwiched between layers of what he knew to be waterproof spider silk, because the hertasi had told him so. No cloaks for them, either. Cloaks were all very well if you were spending most of your time on horseback, but not if you were trying to make your way through a pathless forest. Cloaks caught on every outstretched twig; the slick-finished coats did not.

  "Would we were mages," Wintermoon observed wistfully. "We could make lights, heat—I have a brazier, but it needs a smoke hole, and that lets in as much cold as the brazier supplies heat in any kind of wind."

  "According to Elspeth, an Adept doesn't need to make heat; he can ignore the cold." Skif shook his head. "I don't know about that."

  "Oh, that is possible, but there is a price in weariness," Wintermoon told him. "Keeping warm requires some kind of power, whether it be the power of the fire, or the power of magic. If she has not learned that yet, she will."

  "Ah." He felt a bit better. "I thought that sounded a bit too much like—well—magic."

  "Tayledras magic is no more than work with tools other than hands," Wintermoon laughed. "Or so I keep telling my mage-friends. My brother said that. I think of all the mages I know, he is the most sensible, for he never relies on his power when his hands will do."

  It occurred to Skif that, given that philosophy, Darkwind was probably the best teacher Elspeth could have. She tended to fall prey to enthusiasm about anything new, and look to it as the solution for every problem. Darkwind should keep her from falling prey to that fault. "Are you changing our tactics now that we've had heavy snow?" he asked.

  "Actually, it will be easier." Wintermoon slid into his hammock with a sigh; bundled up to the neck as he was, he looked like a human-headed cocoon. "The trees are leafless, snow covers the ground. Nyara will be hard put to hide the signs of her passing, of her living. The owls will most probably find her. We, though—we will be facing more of the hunters, and performing our secondary task for the Clan. The season of stupid young is over, the season of dying old not yet on us. This is the season of hunger for the hunters. This is when we truly prove our worth to k'Sheyna."

  Skif climbed into his own bedroll, and shivered as he waited for it to warm around his body. The hot springs and summerlike atmosphere of the Vale seemed a world away. "The Clan means a lot to you, doesn't it? Even though—"

  "Though my father rejected me, the Clan saw to it I was not left parentless," Wintermoon said firmly. "It is more than simple loyalty. K'Sheyna is my family in every way that matters. Can you understand that, who had no real family? I sometimes wonder."

  "Maybe if I hadn't been Chosen...." Skif listened to the soft ticking of snow falling on the fabric of the shelter, listened to the creaking of boughs in the forest beyond. "I do have a family, you know. More fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters than I can count. The Heralds gave me that, and they are my family in every way that counts."

  "So—the Heralds are a kind of Clan?" Wintermoon asked curiously. "A Clan that is not related by blood, but by—purpose."

  "I guess we are." It was an intriguing thought, one that had its own logic. Interesting. "I want my own family, though. Eventually. Well, I told you all about that."

  "Where?" Wintermoon wanted to know. "Have you a place that has won your heart?"

  His first thought was that farmhouse, so long ago. That was something he had to think about. "Back at Haven, I suppose, though it could be anywhere. Come to that, there's a lot of peace here. More than there is at home." Now that he thought about it, if there was any one place he'd seen in all of "his travels that he felt called to him, it was here. "The Vale seems serene, tranquil. I don't really understand why you don't spend more time there."

  "Appearances can be deceiving," Wintermoon replied dryly. "If you were at all sensitive to the currents of magic, you would find it less than peaceful, even if the Stone were intact. And every Vale is under a constant state of siege. When it isn't, it is time to move on to a new one. But you—how could you bear to leave the city? I should think you would miss the people and all the doings. There must be much to keep you busy there."

  "Not that much." He considered the question. "It's just as easy to be lonely in a city as out in the wilderness. Easier, really. It's harder to get to know someone when you meet in a crowded place. People can freely ignore you in the city; they can assume they don't have any responsibility for you. When there are fewer people, I think they begin assuming some kind of responsibility, simply because you naturally do the same."

  "Perhaps. But let me show you how a Vale appears to me, before you assume that it is a kind of wonderland." There was silence for a moment. "Take the Vale itself; there is the constant undercurrent of magic, even in a Vale with an intact Heartstone, because magic is how the place is maintained. It is as if there were always bees droning somewhere nearby, or something humming in a note so low it is felt more than heard. Then there are e
ver the hertasi underfoot." Wintermoon sighed. "They mean well, but they are so social they are nearly hive-minded. They cannot understand that one might wish to be without company."

  "I'd noticed that," Skif chuckled. "If I'm not asleep, there always seemed to be a hertasi around wanting to know if I needed anything."

  "And if you are asleep, they are there still. It can get tiresome," Wintermoon said with resignation. "They also do not see that some of us can live without certain luxuries. For instance—did they steal your clothing?"

  Skif blinked with surprise. "Why—yes—"

  "They do not approve of it," Wintermoon told him. "I am certain of that. It is too plain, too severe. You will not see it again until you are ready to leave. And even then, I fear they will have made alterations to it."

  Skif choked on a laugh.

  "Oh, no doubt this is amusing, but what if one prefers simpler clothing? What if one prefers to make one's own food? What if one would rather his quarters were left undisturbed? Then there is the matter of my Clansfolk."

  "What about them?" Skif asked.

  "Several matters. The one which concerns both of us is the attitude that those with little magic are less important." Wintermoon's voice conveyed faint bitterness. "It matters not that someone must do the hunting, must keep the borders secure, must meet with the Shin'a'in and arrange for those few things we cannot make. There are a hundred things each day that must be done that need no magic. Yet those of us whose magic is only in the realm of thought and not of power are, at least in this Clan, often discounted."

  "That might only be because of Starblade," Skif pointed out. "It could change."

  "Indeed. It may, and I hope it will. But if it does not—you, Wingsib, will, soon or late, find yourself accounted of less worth than your friend Elspeth."

  The bedroll warmed, and Skif relaxed into it. "That wouldn't be anything new," he replied drowsily. "Back home, after all, she's the Queen's daughter, and I'm nobody important."

  "Ah." The tiny candle dimmed and died, leaving them in the darkness. On the other side of the tent wall, one of the dyheli snored gently, a purring sound like a sleepy cat. "They also do not much care for Changecreatures."

  "You mean Nyara." Skif forced himself to think of her dispassionately. "Well, we'll worry about that when we find her. No point in getting worked up over something that hasn't happened yet."

  "They have other prejudices," Wintermoon warned. "Outsiders in general tend to be met with arrows and killing-bolts. And that is not the k'Sheyna way only; that holds for all Clans. Only your acceptance by the Shin'a'in and the presence of your Companions kept you from gaining a similar welcome."

  Skif yawned. "I'm sorry, Wintermoon, but I'm drifting off. I wish I could concentrate on what you're saying, but I can't."

  The Tayledras sighed. "I suppose it is just as well," he admitted. "I am losing track of my thoughts."

  Skif gave up trying to fight off sleep. "We can take this up in the morning, maybe," he muttered after a while. And he never heard Wintermoon's answer.

  There was too much light coming in the tower window.

  Nyara unwrapped herself from her furs and winced as cold air struck her. She wrapped a single wolfskin about her shoulders, and moved cautiously to the narrow slit in the eastern wall. She looked out of her tower window on a world transformed, and panicked.

  Snow. The forest is covered in snow!

  It was at least knee-deep; deeper in some places. The wall below her glittered with patches of ice—predictably, wherever there were hand- and foot-holds.

  What am I going to do?

  She wasn't ready for this. She still hadn't worked out a way of getting up and down her wall in snow and ice, she wasn't nearly good enough a hunter yet.

  All the game must have gone into hiding, or worse, into hibernation; it will see me coming long before I'm in range, and I can't run or leap as fast, it'll be like trying to run in soft sand, but so cold.

  Her mind ran around in little circles, like a frightened mouse—and it was that image that enabled her to get hold of herself.

  Stop that, she told herself sternly. She forced herself to sit and think, as Need had taught her; to use all that energy that was going into panic for coming up with answers.

  The first, and most immediate problem, was how she was going to get down out of the tower to hunt in the first place.

  And she had already come up with one possibility; she just hadn't done anything about it yet. Well, now she was going to have to.

  We have plenty of rope, and no one is going to cross all that snow without leaving tracks a baby rabbit could see, so there's no harm in using a rope to get up and down with. No one will get in here to use it without my knowing. I can just secure one end of the rope up here and climb down that way. That isn't perfect, but then, what is?

  And as for game, well, whatever hampered her would also hamper the game. In fact, as cold as it was, she could even think about creating a hoard for emergencies; if she hung the carcasses just inside the tower, they'd stay frozen. If she put them high enough, they'd be out of reach of what scavengers were brave enough to venture inside with her scent all over everything. She could even take deer, now, and not worry about spoilage.

  And since she hadn't bothered the deer yet, they did not yet regard her as a predator. Snow would be at least as hard on them as it was on her.

  I can pull the carcasses easier through the snow, too; I won't have to try to cut them up to carry them back....

  With a plan in mind, at least for getting into and out of her shelter, and the possibility of new game to augment the old, she looked down on the forest with curiosity rather than fear.

  She had never seen snow before, not like this. Falconsbane had copied the Tayledras, whether he admitted it or not, keeping the grounds of his stronghold free of ice and snow, and warmed to summer heat. He had hated winter; hated snow and ice, and spent most of the wintry days locked up inside his domain, whiling away the hours in magery or pleasure. The only time she had ever seen snow was when she had ventured to the gates, and had looked out on a thin slice of winter woods and trampled roadway from the tiny and heavily-barred windows. She was not permitted on the tower tops, lest she attempt to climb down and escape, and the windows in wintertime were kept shuttered and locked against the season.

  She had always dreaded the coming of winter, for during the winter months her father often became bored. It was difficult for his creatures to move through the snow; even more difficult for them to slip into the Hawkbrothers' lands unseen. And of course, Falconsbane would not venture outside unless it was an absolute emergency, so his own activities were greatly curtailed. Humans tended to keep to their dwellings in winter, and the intelligent creatures to band together, so the opportunities for acquiring victims were also reduced. He dared not be too spendthrift with the lives of his servants, for there were only so many of them, and fewer opportunities to get more. They were trapped within the walls, too, and if he pushed them too far, they might become desperate enough to revolt. Even he knew that. So Falconsbane's entertainments had to be of his own devising.

  When he grew bored, he often designed changes he wished to make in his own appearance, and worked them out on her, an activity that, often as not, ranged from mildly to horribly painful. And when that palled, there were other amusements in which she became his plaything, the old games she now hated, but had then both loathed and desired.

  No, until now, winter had not been her favorite season. Spring and fall had been best—spring, because her father was out of the stronghold as often as possible, eager to escape the too-familiar walls, and fall, because he was seizing his last opportunities to get away before winter fell.

  But this year, the coming of winter had not induced the fear that it had in the past.

  Odd. I wonder why?

  Then she realized that all the signs of winter that she had learned to fear were things Falconsbane had created; the increasing number of mage-lights to compens
ate for the shortening days, the rising temperature in the stronghold, and the shuttering of the windows against the gray sky.

  Any mage might do those things—there were other signs in Falconsbane's stronghold that marked the season of fear.

  Forced-growth of strange plants brought in to flower in odd corners, creating tiny, often dangerous, mage-lit gardens. Many of those plants were poisonous, some had envenomed thorns, or deadly perfumes. It was one of her father's pleasures to see who would be foolish enough to be entrapped by them.

  More slaves in the quarters reserved for those Falconsbane intended to use up, slaves usually young and attractive, but not terribly bright. Her father tended to save the intelligent, warping their minds to suit his purposes, keeping them for two or even three years before pique or a fit of temper brought their twisted lives to a close.

  Strained expressions on the faces of those who hoped to survive the winter and feared they might not. Sometimes, usually in the darkest hours of the winter, her father's temper exceeded even his formidable control—though most of the victims were those former "favorite" slaves....

  There had been none of that this year. The shortening of the days had not signaled anything to her, and she had simply reacted to the long nights by sleeping more. There had been no blazing of lights in every corner to wake old memories, merely the flickering of her own friendly fire. There was no tropic heat to awaken painful unease, only the need to move everything closer to the firepit, and to build up a good supply of wood.

  This place that she lived in could be called squalid, compared to the lush extravagancies of an Adept's lair, but it was hers. She had made it so with pride, the first place she could truly call her own, unfettered by her father's will. The wood and rope and furs were placed by her desires alone, with the advice and help of Need, who had become a trusted friend. Taken as a sum of goods, it was insignificant; taken in its context, it was delightful.

  The view from her window surprised her with unexpected beauty; the ugliest tangles of brush and tumbled rock had been softened by the thick blanket of snow.