Then that is the price I must pay, An'desha thought, with smothered despair, and spurred Mornelithe forward. Either way, may the Goddess ensure Mornelithe is done for.
Quickly, Falconsbane shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring protests and return shoves, working his way to the end of the row where he could get to the back of the tents. There, if anywhere, would be the gryphons. They were too big to hide anywhere else.
He shoved his way into clear space and darkness, out of the reach of the torches illuminating the public areas of the carnival. He had squeezed his way between two of the wagons, and was now in an area of the carnival meant only for the Faire-folk. There were at least a dozen large tents here, all in a neat row, most glowing softly from within. Beside one, a horse was grazing quietly. It screamed to his mage-senses of illusion; he looked below the illusion—to see a poor old, broken-down nag where the glossy bay was standing.
Amusing. Typical trickster's chicanery.
And even as he got his bearings, he saw the shadow of a gryphon, briefly, against, the side of one of the tents.
Falconsbane took in that shadow, those waving wings, and went quite mad—a madness like a deadly storm, built over the course of centuries.
Falconsbane's hands blazed with power, ready to strike. He rushed at the tent, screaming at the top of his lungs in anger, burning the canvas away as he neared, and came to a halt—
And saw Nyara; she held a sword as if she actually knew how to use it! Behind her, a young, curly-haired man was using a lantern to make clever shadow-shapes with his fingers against the canvas.
It was a trap! But he would trap them! This had become absurdly funny. He—
Something dark loomed up behind him and struck like a lightning bolt before he could twist to evade it. He fell forward with a shock onto—
The point of the sword.
Held by Nyara.
But—there were no gryphons—
Falconsbane felt his rage ebbing, along with his power, and a great surge of bitter disappointment, just as the first wave of pain hit him.
No—
Firesong waited in the shadows of the back of the tent.
—when suddenly Nyara cried out desperately. "A gryphon! Somebody make a gryphon, one he can see! He's about to get away!"
Taken by surprise, with no illusion ready, he could only fumble after a bit of power to obey her.
Oh, please, don't let everything fall apart now—
Skif thrust his hands up in front of the lantern, as if he were doing a shadow-puppet play, and writhed his clever fingers into something that cast an amazingly lifelike shadow of a nodding gryphon on the back wall of the tent. The lower mandible opened and closed in a remarkable imitation of a gryphon talking, and his fingers made wingtips.
But would it be enough to fool Falconsbane?
He got his answer a breath later, as something—someone—shrieked with towering rage, then terrible power burned through the canvas and Falconsbane stood there—hands blazing, eyes afire with madness, teeth bared in an animalistic growl as if he would rend them apart like a beast of the forest or one of his own monsters.
He faced Nyara, his hands aglow with raw power; she brought Need up into a guard position. From the way her stance changed, Skif knew she had given control of her body over to the old woman.
But magic does not need a blade to strike, and can kill from afar. Only Need had the ability to destroy the Adept. But if Falconsbane did not find a target other than his daughter, she might not survive to close with him.
Fear acted on him like a drug, sharpening his own reflexes, and making it seem as if everyone else moved at a crawl while he ran. Firesong was only now bringing up his hands to strike at the Adept, and he would be too late to stop the first attack on Nyara unless Skif redirected it.
He reached for his own blade, knowing he stood no chance against Falconsbane—but at least he could defend Nyara. Even if he died doing so—
:No, Chosen!: There was an equine scream and a flurry of hoofbeats. Cymry loomed up out of the darkness and rushed into Falconsbane. Mornelithe stumbled forward, face gone blank with surprise.
To meet Nyara, standing with Need braced, ready for him.
They had expected a combat, with Firesong taking on Falconsbane's magic, and Nyara striking at a moment of distraction.
Cymry evidently had other ideas.
She continued her rush right into the tent, and shoved the Adept right up onto the blade, impaling him on its full length.
Somehow, Nyara held steady, under the double impact of his body and the surprise that their clever foe had been so incredibly stupid.
Mornelithe gathered his power, instinctively grasping after the one thing he still controlled.
The witch-horse danced backward, neighing with triumph.
Nyara braced herself against him, but even so, she staggered back. He was half again her weight, after all. The force of the shove had carried him halfway up the blade; he stared stupidly at her, face-to-face. Pain took him as a triumphant conqueror, and death beckoned. His eyes flitted to the blade as his power ran away along with his own life-force and his red, red blood, flowing into the ground before him.
His magics failed, aborted by the trauma to his body.
His power was draining away, and so was his life. This body was dying, very quickly.
He could use what was left to have revenge on them—or he could escape and get his revenge another time.
He chose as he had always chosen, laughing in spite of the terrible pain that wracked this latest body he had stolen.
* * *
An'desha felt Falconsbane gather the last of his energies, and leap—
—and now, completely in control, he stared down with his own eyes. Pain seized him as a dog would seize a rag doll, and shook him, and he screamed as his vision failed and darkness came down around him—darkness, and despair—
But as the darkness descended, he saw light—
The Moonpaths! It was the old woman, standing on the Moonpaths, with a black abyss between him and her. She held out a hand to him.
"Here!" she said. "To me!"
He hesitated.
"Do you trust your Goddess?" she said. "Jump to me!"
A thousand thoughts flitted through his mind, but uppermost was that this must also be an Avatar of the Goddess, one that had cloaked Herself in the seeming of an old woman—yes, that made sense, for how else could he have spoken with Her? No human woman could have touched his mind on the Moonpaths!
—yes, and wasn't the last face of the Goddess that of the Crone? She who gave life and death?
Wasn't She the Goddess?
He must trust Her!
He leapt; She caught and held him—And She clung to him, and held him out of the abyss even as it opened up under his feet.
Skif caught the crumpling body, lowering it to the ground far more gently than he would have if he hadn't seen mat ghost of a frightened child looking out of the eyes just before the body fell. Nyara's eyes were closed, her face a wooden mask of concentration.
:Hold onto him, son. I'll be leeching a lot of your energy for this. Keep him steady. Nyara is going to have to pull me out a hair at a time.:
He stared at the wound; at the ashen face of what had been Falconsbane. Surely, Need could not save anything this time!
:Hush, fool. I have to Heal it all in my wake, but I can do it. I've Healed worse, once, and I wasn't even awake at the time. 'Course, I did have help.
He had to close his eyes; a wave of dizziness came over him and did not pass, but only got worse. It felt like that moment, years ago, when he and Cymry had gotten washed over that cliff, and fell, and fell—
He was going to die like this, falling forever!
Panic—
:Chosen—touch me—:
It was Cymry; he caught her presence and held her, even as he was holding Falconsbane—
:An'desha, Chosen. Never Falconsbane again. Don't worry, I can hold you forever, i
f I must. My strength is yours. Take whatever is there for your own. With you always.:
The dizziness steadied, ebbed, faded. He opened his eyes.
Nyara stood beside him, leaning on the blade, panting as if she had just run for miles. There was no sign of the wound except the dark slit in An'desha's shirt, and the blood soaking into the ground. The chest rose and fell with full, even breaths, and under his hand the pulse was strong and steady. And even as he stared down at the miracle in his arms, the eyes opened, and looked up into his.
Innocent. Vulnerable. Terrified.
And no more Falconsbane's eyes than Nyara's were.
An'desha looked up into the face of the stranger, the one who had been making shadow-gryphons with his fingers, and who now held him carefully, with no sign of the hatred he must feel toward Falconsbane. He looked over at Nyara, who leaned heavily and wearily on a sword but took a moment to smile encouragingly.
They did know who and what he was!
And he looked at the sword. Which, he now realized, was the old woman.
:You lied to me!: he wailed, as he started to shake, still held in the terror of near-death.
:I never told you I was your Goddess,: came the tart reply. :I only asked if you trusted Her.:
Firesong was hot on Falconsbane's trail, flying through the spirit-realms, a silver falcon. The traces faded with preternatural speed, and Firesong poured even more of his own life into tracing Falconsbane back to the little pocket of the Nether Planes where he had made his hiding place, his place of refuge, where death and time could not touch him. Through the swirling colors and chaos of the paths of power, he followed the spark that was Falconsbane, until he watched it dive into a pocket of blackness, an opening into a greater darkness. Small wonder he had not gone mad when trapped in the Gate's greater Void! He had practice, after all, in coping with such things.
Falconsbane reached the shelter of his refuge, fled inside, and sealed it up from within. If you had not seen the rabbit dive into its warren, you would never have noticed it. Clever, clever Falconsbane, to have seen that the Void held all in stasis, and to realize that in the shifting swirls of the paths of power, no one would ever notice a little flaw, a seam, where none should be.
But Firesong did know. And what was more, he knew how to get into it.
Death was about to keep a long-overdue appointment with Mornelithe Falconsbane.
He paused for a moment, then allowed himself a grim smile. He had told Elspeth and Darkwind that there would be a sign when it was time to attack Ancar. And here was all that energy, so much, in such a tiny and compressed package. Granted, it was blood and death energy, and too tainted for a Healing Adept to actually use. But it would be a shame to get rid of Falconsbane and allow it all to go to waste, drifting back into the currents of energy and fading away....
And fire purified. Wasn't that why his use-name was "Firesong?"
So it was, and it was time to sing. He seized the shelter in fiery hands—talons—of energy.
As he tore open the walls Falconsbane had built, he sensed an instant of surprise, followed by pure panic.
But that was all he allowed time for.
In passion, he took on the aspect of his firebird, and used every last bit of his powers to sink talonlike fingers and sharp, silvery-white beak into Falconsbane, shelter and all, tearing them into motes and ribbons and sparks, flinging them across the sky of Hardorn in a burst of fireworks that would be seen for leagues—
Every mote, every ribbon, every spark, he personally and completely purified with his own soul's fire while he sang in triumphant ecstasy. He wiped it all clean of every sickening memory, every jot of personality, and scattered it far and wide into the bitter night air.
If he ever comes back again, it will be as a cloud of gnats!
Firesong burned away the last little bit of the shelter within the Void, released the magical "ash" of it into the flow of the Void, and then sank back into his own body.
He opened his eyes to find himself on the ground, with Nyara propping him up, and Skif and Fal—no, An'desha—staring at him intently. It was An'desha; Falconsbane would never, ever have had traces of tears on his cheeks. Falconsbane would never have Nyara's hand resting on his shoulder in a gesture of protective comfort.
It was An'desha who broke the waiting silence, as outside, people still exclaimed over the fading fireworks.
"Is he gone?" An'desha asked tremulously.
Firesong nodded wearily but with immense satisfaction.
An'desha stared at him for a moment, and then, unexpectedly, began weeping again; hoarse, racking sobs of long-pent and terrible grief.
Sobs that sounded uncannily like the ones Liam had made..
Firesong hesitated for a moment. Was there anything he could offer this poor boy? Would he believe comfort coming from another Adept such as his tormenter had been? Yet—oh, how he wanted to offer comfort and have it taken!
:You're a Healing Adept, boy,: Need reminded him, gruffly. :But you don't need magic to Heal. Just words. And kindness, and care.:
Firesong shakily levered himself up off the ground, knelt beside An'desha, and offered his arms tentatively.
An'desha folded into them as into a haven of safety. Firesong cradled the boy carefully, murmuring into his ear.
"It's all right, An'desha. It's all right now. He can never hurt anyone again. You beat him. You are safe now, and we will always be here to help you. I will always be here to help you...."
Chapter Seventeen
The sky overhead erupted into a garden of fiery flowers. Darkwind jerked up his head like a startled horse, and he stared at the odd-colored flashes, showers of sparks, and soundless lightning playing across the sky and lighting up the clouds.
"Damned showman," he muttered under his breath. "That 'Pandemonium' persona is rubbing off on him!"
:Time to move, ashke,: he sent to Elspeth, who nodded.
Darkwind was on a horse he'd stolen from the stable of an inn; the horse, if not the current rider, belonged to Ancar's Elite. Elspeth was on Gwena, still cloaked in her illusion. Both of them were in stolen uniforms, with Elspeth's hair tucked up under her uniform hat, and her breasts bound flat, so that she looked like a very slender man. The uniforms hadn't been very difficult to get; there were plenty of troopers getting drunk in the city taverns, and if two of them woke up in the morning to find themselves stark naked, bound and gagged—well, it probably wasn't the first time something like that had happened. And by then, he and Elspeth would either be long gone, or no longer in a position to worry about the consequences of being identified.
He had cobbled together something that looked enough like a messenger pouch to pass at a distance, supposedly containing dispatches from the front lines. That had gotten them as far as the courtyard; they were about to dismount, when the fires in the sky began, and the currents of power around them bucked and heaved like a herd of startled dyheli.
To anyone with a scrap of mage-sense, it was distressing. He had never felt quite so violent a disturbance in the energy-currents before.
:Ancar can't possibly miss this!: Elspeth "cried," as they both tried to look as if everything was normal—except for the fireworks, of course—she shouted and pointed upward as all the ordinary people on the walls and in the courtyard were doing. :And I can feel a mage-storm building very fast. People are probably getting nosebleeds all over the city—: Even now, a huge anvil-shaped cloud was boiling up over the city seemingly from nowhere.
And now every man guarding the walls and the gates, every servant that heard the cries of surprise, and every stableboy came running out to gape at the skies like a parcel of fools. Their cries brought others.
And, unbelievably, Ancar!
He could hardly have missed the upheavals in the magic-currents, and given how many spells he had tied into Falconsbane, he must have been knocked metaphorically head-over-arse when they snapped back on him at the Beast's death. But they had never, in all their wildest hopes
, imagined he would come running out onto the landing in front of the main doors of his palace like any other fool, just to look up at the sky!
And no one, no one, was paying any attention to Elspeth and Darkwind in the middle of the courtyard.
They didn't even pause to think; as one, they drew strung bows and a pair of arrows from the cases on their saddles. As one, they nocked and fired and followed the first arrows with a second, then snatched for a third while the first two were still in the air.
Ancar was a mage; he was likely to be shielded against a magical attack, but not necessarily a physical one....
So they hoped, anyway. It was the best chance for a physical attack that they were likely to get. Darkwind watched the arrows arc toward the oblivious King and held his breath, not even daring to mutter a prayer for success, his whole being straining after the streaking shafts.
All four arrows hit the edge of a mage-shield set against physical attacks, and disintegrated in a shower of sparks.
Well, that certainly got his attention, he thought fleetingly as Ancar spotted them.
Ancar's eyes slid right over Darkwind and fixed on Elspeth. And even from halfway across the courtyard, there was no doubt in Darkwind's mind that he recognized Elspeth. There was an instant of frozen shock, and his lips moved as his eyes widened. He knew. Somehow, through disguise and illusion, he knew who it was who came to kill him wearing the cold mask of diamond-pure Vengeance. Elspeth was an arrow of justice sped from the hand of the Queen and the bow of Valdemar.
Ancar seemed to go mad then, his eyes blazing with anger. His hands flared up in an instant with blood-red mage-energy. Rather than stunning him, the shock of recognition seemed to galvanize him into sudden action. Darkwind and Elspeth both dropped their useless bows; Darkwind ducked over his horse's neck and kicked free of his stirrups, just as Ancar let fly a mage-bolt that passed through the space where he had been and shattered the pavestones, making Darkwind's stolen horse buck and jump sideways. The Hawkbrother rolled out of the way, shoulder against the hard stone.
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