Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "And it doesn't look like provisions, I know." Briefly, Darkwind told his brother what he had put together for the little expedition.

  Wintermoon frowned at that. "I don't know. I hesitate to use anything magic made out there."

  "I've shielded it as best I can," Darkwind pointed out, "We have been using magic without attracting trouble for many weeks now. And if I were the one doing the scouting, I would weight the benefits of warmth and light very heavily in any decisions I made. Winter is only just upon us, and already it has the Vale locked around with ice and snow. It will be worse out there."

  "It already is worse." Wintermoon eyed the bundle dubiously, but then heaved it onto his mount's back. "You were the first of us to object to using magic on the border; if you say it is probably worth the risk, I will believe you. I have very little to return you for your gift, I am afraid."

  "No sign of Nyara?" Darkwind asked, expecting a negative.

  "Very little sign, and old," Wintermoon replied, as he helped his brother tie the bundles securely to the dyheli backs. "But there are things that tell me she passed the way we are going. I have some hope that we will find her, though I have not told this to Skif, for I do not wish to raise his hopes with nothing more substantial than old sign. It is a difficult secret to keep, though."

  "That is probably wise," Darkwind said carefully, balancing the first dyheli's load.

  His brother looked up at him from the other side of the stag's back. "He is a man who has had many disappointments," the scout said suddenly. "I would not add to them, if I can avoid it. He is Wingsib; more than that, he does not deserve it."

  "We seldom deserve disappointment," Darkwind observed dryly. "But I do agree with you."

  He fastened the last of the bundles to the second dyheli, and straightened from tightening the cinch. "If you are worried about losing time and need someone to meet you with supplies, send K'Tathi again," he said. "It's no trouble, and perhaps I can find you something else useful, rummaging around in the old stores."

  "You might indeed, and thank you." Wintermoon peered out into the growing darkness beyond the Veil. "I had best get on the trail; it will take some time getting back with all these supplies."

  Darkwind nodded, and Wintermoon mounted the second stag, so that the work of bearing him could be shared between the two. With a wave of farewell, Wintermoon urged his mount and its brother out of the Vale and into the night; vanishing into the darkness beneath the trees, followed by two silver shadows, ghosting out and above.

  Darkwind turned his own face back toward the Vale, figuring to find some dinner, soak himself in hot water, and go to bed. A headache was coming on, and he assumed it was from fatigue. It had been a very long day. Bed, even one with no one in it but himself, had never seemed so welcome.

  So when he passed his father's ekele and saw the Council of Elders, even old Rainlance, huddled in conference with most of the mages of k'Sheyna, including Elspeth, he was tempted to retrace his steps before anyone saw him. Such a gathering could only mean trouble. Surely he had done enough for one day. Surely he deserved a rest.

  But—

  Damn. This looks important. I can do without food and sleep a little longer. I've done it before.

  The mage-lights above them were few and dim, and if he had gone another way, they would never have known he was there, now that the shadows of night had descended. Elspeth was the first to spot him, but as soon as the rest realized she was looking at someone and not staring off into the darkness, they glanced his way. Their glances sharpened as soon as their eyes fell on him, and with a resigned sigh, he joined them.

  I guess I was right. It is important.

  The very first thing he noticed, once he joined their circle, was that they were all, barring the few scouts among them, drained and demoralized. They slumped in postures of exhaustion, faces pale and lined with pain, white hair lying lank against their shoulders.

  All? There was only one thing that would affect them all.

  "The Heartstone," he said flatly. Iceshadow nodded, and licked dry lips.

  "The Heartstone," the Elder replied in agreement. He passed his hand over his eyes for a moment. "Precisely. We have failed in our attempt to stabilize it. And there will be no more such attempts."

  "The spell not only did not drain the Stone," one of the others whispered wearily, "It enabled the Stone to drain us. We will be days, perhaps even a week, in recovering."

  So that's why Iceshadow said there would be no more tries... if it could do that once, it will do so again. Thank the gods that the mages worked within shields, or we would likely all be in the same condition.

  "K'Sheyna will not be defenseless, thanks to good planning," Iceshadow sighed. "The mages that are also scouts were not involved in the spellcasting, nor you and Wingsister Elspeth. But it is only thanks to that caution that we still have magical defenders."

  There was one face missing from the group, one who should have been there. "My father?" he asked sharply.

  Iceshadow winced. "A side effect we had not reckoned on," he replied, averting his eyes from Darkwind's. "Starblade's life is bound to the Stone in some way that we do not understand and did not sense until too late. When our spell backlashed, it struck him as well."

  Darkwind tensed. "What happened to him?"

  Iceshadow said nothing. Rainlance spoke softly. "It nearly killed him, despite the shaman Kethra throwing herself into the link to protect him."

  "He lives, and he will recover," someone else said hastily, as he felt blood drain from his face. "But he and the Healer are weak and in shock. The shaman, Tre'valen, is tending them."

  They are in the best hands in the Vale. If I have regained him only to lose him— "Is this a Council meeting, then?" he asked, keeping back all the bitter things he wanted to say. They were of no use, anyway. How could anyone have known the deep plans that had been laid against them, all the things that had been done to Starblade? They severed his links to Mornelithe Falconsbane, but there had been no reason to look for any others. Even gone, Falconsbane's influence lies heavily upon us. Even gone, he left behind his poison in our veins.

  "A meeting of the Council and of all the mages," Iceshadow replied. "We have determined that we have tried every means to neutralize the Heartstone at our disposal, and all have failed. There is no other way. We must look outside, to other Clans, for help."

  The faces in the dim light showed how they felt about it; that it was an admission of dependence, of guilt, of failure. Darkwind had urged them all for years to seek help from outside, and swallow that pride. Bitter and sweet; victory at last was his, but it had nearly cost the life of his father. Caught between two conflicting sets of emotions, he could only stare at the leader of the Council.

  "You must send the call," Iceshadow said, finally. "You, the Wingsister, and the gryphons. Elspeth has already agreed, as have Treyvan and Hydona. You are the only ones that we can turn to now, you and Elspeth. You remember the way of constructing a seeking-spell strong enough to reach who and what we need."

  He nodded numbly, still caught in a web of surprise and dismay.

  "You look ready to drop," Elspeth said firmly into the silence. "You're tired—I'm tired—we aren't going to get anything done tonight." She stood up and nodded to Iceshadow. "With respect, Elder, we have had a long day, and we need to rest. We'll see what we can do tomorrow."

  "It has waited until now, it can certainly wait another night," Iceshadow agreed wearily. "And there is no sense in exhausting you two as well. Tomorrow, then."

  "Tomorrow," she agreed, and signaled Darkwind to follow her down the path.

  "I had the hertasi bring food and that mineral drink to the pool near your treehouse," she said as soon as they were out of sight and sound of the circle of exhausted mages. "I thought you would probably need both. And a good soak."

  "You were right." He rubbed his temple, as a headache began to throb behind his eyes. "When did all this happen?"

  "Just at sunset,"
she told him. "That was when they had timed the drainage to begin, and that was when the spell backlashed. I didn't feel it, and neither did anyone else outside of the Working area except Starblade; I first knew something was wrong when two of them staggered out the pass-through looking for help, and I happened to be nearby. Some of them had to be carried out. "

  "Gods." He shook his head. "So there are only four of us to work this seeking-spell."

  :Five,: corrected a voice in his head.

  He had not noticed Gwena's presence until that moment; she moved so quietly behind them that she might have been just another shadow. "Five?" he repeated. "But lady, I did not know you were Mage-Gifted."

  Elspeth's glare could have peeled bark from the trees. "Neither did I," she said flatly, her voice so devoid of expression that the lack alone was a sign of her anger. She stopped; so did he and the Companion.

  Before Gwena could jerk her head away, Elspeth had her by the bottom of the hackamore. "Look," she said tightly, "You know how important strategy is. That, and tactics. Especially here and now."

  Gwena tried to look away; Elspeth wouldn't let her. :Yes,: she agreed faintly.

  "You have been withholding information," Elspeth continued, her voice still dangerously flat and calm. "Information that I—we need to have to plan intelligently. What would you do to someone who had deliberately withheld information that vital?"

  Gwena shook her head slightly, as much as Elspeth's hold on her hackamore would permit.

  "I. Have. Had. Enough." Elspeth punctuated each word with a little shake of the halter. "If you haven't worked that into your 'great plan,' you'd better start thinking about it. No more holding back. Do you understand?"

  Gwena rolled her eyes and started to pull away. Elspeth wouldn't let her, and Gwena was obviously not going to exert her considerable strength in something that might harm her Herald. But from the look of shock in her bright blue eyes, she had not expected this reaction from Elspeth.

  "I said, do you understand me?" Elspeth pulled her head down and stared directly into her eyes.

  Darkwind stood with his arms crossed, jaw set in a stern expression. He was trying his best to give the impression he supported Elspeth's actions completely. In fact, he did.

  :Yes,: Gwena managed.

  "Are you going to stop holding back information?"

  Gwena pawed the ground unhappily, but clearly Elspeth was not going to let her go until she got an answer she liked.

  :Yes,: she said, meekly, obviously unable to see any other way out of the confrontation.

  "Good." Elspeth let go of the halter. She straightened, put her hands on her hips, and gave Gwena a look that Darkwind could not read. "Remember. You just gave your word."

  Darkwind did not think that Gwena was going to forget.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A gray sky gave no clue as to the time, but Darkwind thought it was not long after dawn. He had spent a restless night, haunted by the exhausted faces of the k'Sheyna mages. He had not been expecting anyone so early and the first words out of Darkwind's mouth when Elspeth appeared at his ekele were, "We cannot do it here."

  He had been thinking hard about what they were to do; all during his meal, the long soak before bed (in the midst of which he had fallen asleep until a hertasi woke him), and into the night before sleep took him. And he had decided on certain provisions as he dressed. What they were to do was no problem; thanks to Elspeth and Treyvan he was accustomed now to improvising on existing spells. This would be a variation on the seeking-spell. But where—that was different. It could not be done within the confines of the Vale, even outside the shielded Practice ground. He knew that with deep certainty that had only hardened during sleep. Every instinct revolted when he even considered the idea.

  Something was happening to the Heartstone, or possibly within it. He had no notion of what was going on, but now he did not want to do anything that affected it while within its reach. It was not just that the Stone had drained k'Sheyna mages, it was the way it had happened. It had waited, or seemed to, until they were certain of success and off their guard.

  Perhaps that had been accident, but what if it was not. He did not know. It didn't seem likely, but less likely things had been happening with dismaying regularity. These were strange times indeed.

  He realized as soon as he said the words that Elspeth would have no idea what had been going through his mind since the meeting. He felt like a fool as soon as he closed his mouth.

  She's going to think I've gone crazy, that I'm babbling.

  But instead of confusion, Elspeth met the statement with a nod of understanding. "Absolutely," she replied, as if she had been talking to him about the problems all along. "Too much interference from shields and set-spells, plus the Heartstone's proximity itself. I've been thinking about that since last night. That Heartstone of yours is acting altogether too clever for my comfort. I don't want to do something it might not like when I'm anywhere around it. It might decide that since I'm an Outlander, it'll do more than just drain me."

  "It is not a thinking being," he protested, but without conviction.

  "Maybe not, but it acts like it is." She glanced back over her shoulder, in the direction of the Stone. "Maybe it's all coincidence, or maybe it's something that Falconsbane set up a long time ago. But when it acts like it can think, I'm I going to assume that it is thinking and act accordingly." She grinned crookedly. "As my Shin'a'in-trained teacher would say, 'Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong.'"

  Shin'a'in proverbs from an Outlander. God help me. But he couldn't help but smile ruefully in reply. "The trouble with proverbs is that they're truisms," he agreed. "You make me think that you are reading my thoughts, though."

  It was a half-serious accusation, although he made it with a smile. It was no secret that these Heralds had mind-magic—but did they use it without warning?

  She laughed. "Not a chance. I don't eavesdrop, I promise. No Herald would. It was just a case of parallel worries. So, where are we going to go to work?"

  No Herald would. Perhaps the Companion might... but I suspect she knows that. He wasn't worried about her Companion reading his thoughts. It was not likely that there was anything he would think that a Guardian Spirit had not seen before.

  "Have you eaten yet?" he asked instead. When she shook her head, he went back into his ekele and rummaged about in his belongings and what the hertasi had left him. He brought out two coats draped over his arm, and fruit and bread, handing her a share of the food. She took it with a nod of thanks. "I thought," he said after she had settled beside him on the steps, "that we might work from the ruins."

  "The gryphon's lair?" She tipped her head to one side. "There is a node underneath it. And we're likely to need one. But what about—well—attracting things when we do the magic?"

  "We won't have the shields of the Vale, and that's a problem," he admitted, biting into a ripe pomera. "I don't know how to get around that."

  She considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "We'll deal with it, I suppose," she replied. "Gwena can't think of any way around it either, but she's in agreement with both of us on not working near the Heartstone." She finished the last of her bread and stood up, dusting her hands off. "So, what, exactly, are we doing?"

  He licked juice from his fingers and followed her example, handed her a coat, then led the way down the stairs to the path below. "Well, we can't do a wide open Mindcall," he began.

  "Obviously," she said dryly. "Since we don't want every nasty thing in the area to know that k'Sheyna is in trouble. I wouldn't imagine we'd want to do a focused Mindcall either; something still might pick it up, even though we meant it only for Tayledras. There might even be something watching for a Mindcall like that, for all we know."

  "And what's the point in wasting all the energy needed for a focused Mindcall to all the Clans when there may not be more than one or two Adepts that can help us?" he concluded. "No, what I
'd thought that we should do is to send a specific message-spell; that is a complicated message that can be carried by a single bird." He smiled to himself; she wouldn't believe what kind of bird would carry the incorporeal message, but it was the most logical.

  "To whom?" she asked in surprise, as Gwena joined them, following a polite ten paces behind. "I thought—" she stopped in confusion.

  "I don't know who to send it to, but I know what," he explained, brushing aside a branch that overhung the path. "Somewhere in the Clans is a Healing Adept of a high enough level that he either knows or can figure out what we need to do. Now I know that no one here can, so I send out a message to the nearest Clan, aimed at any Adept that's of our ability or higher. In this case, the nearest Clan is k'Treva. And I'm pretty sure they have someone better equipped to deal with this than we are. They offered their help a while back, and Father refused it."

  "And if no one there can help us after all?" she asked, darkly.

  He shrugged. "Then I ask them to pass on the word to the others. They don't have a flawed Heartstone in their midst. They can send out to any Clan Council. To tell you the truth, our biggest problem with getting the Stone taken care of has been isolation. Solve that, and we can solve the rest."

  The Vale was unusually silent, with all the mages abed and recovering. Their steps were the only sounds besides the faint stirring of leaves in the breeze and the bird songs that always circulated through the Vale. She was quiet all the way to the entrance and the Veil that guarded it. Beyond the protections, another winter snowstorm dropped fat flakes through the bare branches of the trees.

  They shared a look of resignation; wrapped themselves in their coats and crossed the invisible barrier between summer and winter. The first sound outside was of their boots splashing into the puddles of water made by snow melted from the ambient heat of the Vale's entrance.