Finally she released her daughter, and held her away at arm's length, searching her face for something although Elspeth could not tell what it was. Her eyes were narrowed with concentration, and Elspeth saw many fine worry lines around her eyes and creasing her forehead that had not been there when she left.
"Good," she said finally. "This isn't something someone talked you into. You know exactly what you're doing. You thought of this yourself?"
Elspeth nodded. Her mother had pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense braid like Kero's, and like Talia, she was wearing breeches and tunic, her only concession to rank being a bit of gold trim on the tunic hem and her coronet about her brow. Her sword and sword-belt were hanging from the chair beside her desk, and knives lay on top of a pile of papers. Although she had seen her mother in armor and on a battlefield, this was not a Selenay that Elspeth had ever seen before, but she rather expected that anyone who had fought with her mother and grandfather in the Tedrel Wars would find this Queen very familiar. Selenay had pared everything from her life that was not relevant to the defense of her land. Valdemar was in peril, and the Queen was ready for personal action.
"I thought about trying to be a commander, but I'm not a tactician, and not even a particularly good fighter. No one knows me to follow me as a charismatic leader," Elspeth said slowly. "In the lines, I would be just one more warrior. Yes, I could help with magic defenses - I could even coordinate the mages - but I would be your daughter, and the ones from outKingdom would always expect me to favor Herald-Mages and their safety over those from outside. Such suspicion could be fatal. Kero always taught us that you don't stand off and fling sand at a fire from a safe distance; you go in and cut a firebreak right in its path."
"Kero taught you well." Selenay rubbed her eyes with her index finger, and blinked hard against tears. "The Queen agrees with you; the mother - what can I tell you? I hate the idea of sending my child off into this kind of danger, my heart wants to hold you back and keep you safe. But you are a woman grown, Elspeth. You are responsible for your own safety and I can't protect you anymore. Besides, there is no safety anywhere in Valdemar, not now. Elspeth, I am so proud of you!"
Elspeth had never expected to hear that last; it caught her by surprise, and her heart swelled and overflowed. She flung herself into her mother's arms again, and this time they both gave way to weeping. Talia, and then Daren, joined them in a fourfold embrace, offering comfort and support. This was sorrow both bitter and sweet, sweet for the accomplishment - bitter for all that accomplishment meant to all of them. Nothing would ever be the same again, even if they all survived this.
When both of them got control over themselves again, they separated, slowly and reluctantly, with tremulous smiles.
"Thank you, Mama," Elspeth managed. "That is the most wonderful thing you have ever said to me. I've always been proud of you, too, but never more than today...."
"When you were such trouble - before Talia came - there were times that I despaired of ever seeing you act like a responsible adult, much less make me so very proud that you are my daughter," Selenay said at last, with a grateful glance at Talia who only blushed. "No one could ever ask of you what you have just given to Valdemar."
Now it was Elspeth's turn to blush. "I don't know if Papa told you about my rather florid speech in there about saving the people rather than the land," she said. "But being with k'Sheyna and the Hawkbrothers is what showed me that. The way they simply give up their homes and move on when it's time - but mourn the loss of every hawk and owl, hertasi and human - that showed me where we should be putting our effort. Let Ancar grab land; the people of Valdemar ran and survived before, and they can now. And if we five can pull this off, they'll have something to return to."
Selenay shook her head in wonder. "You've grown up. And you're wiser than I ever will be - "
Elspeth laughed shakily. "No, just knowledgeable in different things, that's all. Mama, I have to get back to Kero; the sooner we get out of here, the better for all of us."
"If you can spare me for a moment, I'll go with her," Talia added. "I think I have a contact that will give them a way to move across Hardorn quickly."
Selenay nodded. "I will need you in about a candlemark, to help me calm some hysterical highborns when I tell them they are in the path of an invasion we can't stop, but not until then."
Selenay took Elspeth into a quick embrace. "If I don't see you before you leave - remember you take my love with you," she whispered into Elspeth's ear. "And you take my respect and hope as well. I love you, kitten. Come home safe to me. Come home, so I can celebrate your handfasting to that handsome young man who loves you so."
Elspeth returned the embrace fiercely, then fled to resume her duty before Selenay could see that tears threatened to return.
"So. Name everything in this room that can be used as a weapon," Kerowyn grinned at Elspeth.
"Your breath, Firesong's clothes, and that awful tea," Elspeth replied to the old joke. Darkwind and Firesong cracked smiles.
Once again, they all had gathered in Kero's office. Talia was explaining to Kero her link with the secretive and close-knit "clan" of itinerant traveling peddlers. Elspeth had heard it all before, but it was still fascinating, for Talia seemed the last person in the world to keep up an association with the "wagon-families," as they were known. Very often they were regarded as tricksters and only a short step above common thieves. It had been one of the wagon-men who had taken word of her imprisonment out of Hardorn when she had been captured and thrown in a shielded cell by Ancar.
" - so I've kept in constant contact with him, and I've tried to help him get his people out of trouble, when I could," she concluded. "Quite frankly, they can go places we can't, and it occurred to me that it would be very useful to have their cooperation if we needed to get someone into Hardorn, so I've been building up a lot of favors that they owe me."
Kero nodded thoughtfully, tracing little patterns on the table top with her finger. "The gods know I've tried and failed to get an agent in among them. They're very closemouthed and insular."
Tiredly, Talia ran her fingers through her hair. Elspeth wondered if she would get any sleep at all, or if she'd go on until she collapsed. "Ancar hasn't got any friends among them, I can tell you that. He's taken whole families; I don't care to think what he does with them, but once his men take a wagonload, the people are gone without a trace. Since that started happening, only single men and a few women, all without families, have dared to operate over there - and only in groups, so a single wagon can't just vanish. They've taken to putting together wagon-groups of entertainers and peddlers, and putting on movable fairs. But here's what I think my contact will offer, if I ask him, as the payback for all my favors. I think he'll set our group up with a bigger carnival, give them genuine wagons and things to sell, and basically see that his people protect ours from discovery by outsiders."
Kero made a skeptical face. "Entertainers? Carnival showmen? Gods, I don't know...I'd thought of something a lot more, well, secretive."
Elspeth snorted. "And how do you propose to hide Nyara or the bondbirds?" she demanded. "The minute anyone gets sight of her or the birds, we'd be in trouble, if we were trying to pass ourselves off as simple farmers or something! How many farmers own large exotic birds, or even a hawk? And we'd never pass ourselves off as Hardornen nobles."
"My point exactly," Talia said. "You can't hide them, so make them just one more very visible set of entertainers in a sea of flamboyance. After all, where do you hide a red fish?"
"In a pond full of other red fish," Kero supplied the tagline of another Shin'a'in proverb. "All right; contact the man. Don't tell him anything until you get his consent to the general idea, and Darkwind can slap one of those coercion things on him."
Talia nodded, and rose from her seat. "I'll have him here by dawn," she said firmly, and left.
Firesong looked highly amused. "Carnival entertainers?" he repeated, "Entertainers, I understand, but what is a
carnival?"
After Elspeth explained it to him, he looked even more amused. "You mean - we shall cloak the fact that we are working genuine magic, that we have mage-born creatures, by performing entertainer tricks?"
"And selling snake-oil," Kero added, and had to explain the concept of that to him as well. By the time she had finished, he was laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation.
"But this is too perfect!" he chuckled. "Oh, please, you must let me play a role. The Great Mage Pandemonium! I shall never have another opportunity like this one!"
"I don't know how we could stop you," Skif said dryly. "And your bird is the harder to hide of the two."
Vree cocked his head to one side :Tricks, I,: he offered. Then, to everyone's astonishment, he jumped down onto the table, waddled over to Firesong, and rolled over like a dog, his eyes fixed on the Healing Adept :Tricks, I, with Aya. Together.:
"I think he wants you to have a trick bird act with himself and your firebird," Darkwind said, his eyes still wide with surprise. "I keep thinking he has a limited grasp of abstract concepts, but every once in a while he astonishes me. It would be a very good way of explaining the presence of both birds."
"I could assist you, Firesong," Nyara added shyly. "And dance. Falconsbane made me learn to dance, seduction dances, which would be popular, I think. You could say I was your captive."
"And everyone who saw you would be certain her looks were due to costume and makeup, and the birds to dye or bleach." Kero nodded. "I like it. You know, I can even show you some things that will make it look as if Nyara's - ah - attributes are all makeup and costume. We could shave thin lines of her body-fur to look like seams."
"And I shall dress as flamboyantly and tastelessly as Skyseeker k'Treva!" Firesong crowed. "We call him 'Eye-burner' to tease him, for he has no taste! A pity I cannot dye Aya a brilliant pink as well - "
The look the firebird gave him, of purest disgust, only sent him into another fit of laughter.
Darkwind shrugged. "For that matter, there's not a reason in the world why we can't bring the dyheli along as another one of your 'captives.' There isn't anyone in all of Hardorn except Falconsbane who'd recognize a bondbird, a dyheli, or Nyara, and Falconsbane isn't likely to be patronizing a carnival."
"Also an excellent point." Kero pondered a bit more. "But there is the problem that you are all going to have magic associated with you...hmm. Can any of you lot do what Quenten could - layer illusions?"
Elspeth nodded quickly. "All of us can, it's really very simple."
Kero smiled slowly. "Good. Then here's what we'll have. You - " she pointed at Firesong, " - are a very minor mage, too minor for Ancar to recruit, but able to cast illusions. You put them on the Companions, the dyheli, and possibly yourself. Only you layer the Companions; top is a pair of glossy matched bays, under that is what any other mage will think is the reality, an illusion of a pair of nasty, old, spavined geldings. You layer the dyheli the same way; top is the way it really looks, under that is a donkey. You leave Nyara alone - "
:I can make certain anyone who casts a true-sight on her will see a misshapen girl in cat makeup,: Need supplied :And the assumed presence of an illusion will account for the presence of magic around us.:
"Right, that was exactly what I was going to suggest." Kero was grinning. "Gods, we are a deceitful bunch! It's a damn good thing we're honest, or no one would be safe!"
Firesong looked supremely content. Elspeth reached for Darkwind's hand under the table, only to find his seeking hers. They exchanged a quick squeeze as Vree, with a very self-satisfied gurgle, returned across the table and leapt back up to Darkwind's shoulder.
"Once you get into Hardorn, you'll have to make it up as you go along," Kero said. "But the way I'll get you across I think can be pretty simple. The bastard can't watch the whole border, but drop a lot of what he thinks are Heralds in one place, and you bet he'll watch that spot pretty closely! So I'll turn out a bunch of the Skybolts in fake Whites - send them someplace that looks as if it might be strategic, and you cross wherever else you want. Put what looks like a million Heralds anywhere, and Ancar will be certain something is up. Hell, I might just give him something - "
Now she began to laugh, wearily, but after a moment, Elspeth realized it was not out of hysteria.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Oh, just something that occurred to me. I'll get one of the Blues to build me some kind of complicated war engine out of broken bits, something that can't possibly work but looks impressive enough to take out a city wall with one blow. I'll have my pseudo-Heralds escort that to his fortification, and let him take it. He'll spend forever trying to figure the thing out!" She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, as the others began to chuckle. "Oh, gods, it is such a good thing for the world that we're honest!"
"Speak for yourself!" Firesong replied, with mock-indignation. "I intend to persuade as much coin from the pockets of the unsuspecting as possible!"
The firebird only snorted and resumed its preening.
Falconsbane sipped at a goblet of fine spiced wine and sat back in his chair with a wonderful feeling of pure content. Or, at least, as content as he could be while he was still someone else's captive. Everything was proceeding as it should, and completely in accordance with his plans.
His strategies on the border had succeeded so well that Ancar had sent him several more prisoners to dispose of, by way of reward. He had managed to determine that it was not the coercive spells that were keeping him from access to the local nodes and ley-lines, but a set of complicated keying spells that led back to - surprise! - Hulda. And those spells were keeping Ancar away, too, without a doubt. The only real power that Ancar would be able to touch, other than that derived from the death of underlings, would be through Hulda now. The keying spells would even make it difficult for Falconsbane to access those nodes were he not under coercions.
That made him all the more determined to rid himself of the bitch. He certainly didn't need her, and her overblown and overripe charms had long since lost any attraction for him; her promiscuity was appalling. She could have offered him the key; she had not. Therefore, she had no plans to share her power with anyone.
This put Ancar's inability to access power outside himself in another light altogether. If Hulda had locked that power away from him, he might not be altogether incompetent after all.
She was playing some kind of deep game, that one.
Falconsbane was not going to play it, either by her rules or anyone else's.
A slight tap on the door signaled another small triumph. That was Ancar, and Falconsbane had finally convinced him to announce himself before he came barging into Mornelithe's suite. Respect; the boy needed to learn respect, and he might even be worth saving and making into an underling when all this was over.
Meanwhile, the bitch needed to learn a little lesson, too.
"Enter," he said aloud, and Ancar's ever-present escort opened the door silently. Two of the guards entered first, followed by the King, who joined Falconsbane beside his fire. The guards took their positions, one on either side of the door; Falconsbane found their presence rather amusing. Evidently the boy took no chances; he protected himself physically even in the presence of someone he - relatively - trusted. What did he do when he took a wench to his bed? Drug her so that he knew she was harmless? Feh, he was so unappealing, that was probably the only way he would get a bedmate.
Ancar poured himself a cup of wine from the pitcher on the hearth. For all that he took no chances, he was prone to acting very foolishly. Falconsbane was a mage; he could have changed the content of that wine without having any access to poisons. Or didn't Ancar know that was possible?
Falconsbane waited for him to speak first, since it was obvious from the King's manner that nothing urgent had brought him here. But from Ancar's faint frown, something displeased him enough to make him seek Mornelithe's counsel.
Finally, the young King spoke. "I have tried to take power fr
om those lines of energy you spoke about, which seem to be the same thing that Hulda called ley-lines. Something has blocked me from them." His frown deepened. "Although I could never use the nodes you spoke of because they were too powerful for me, I have been able to touch those lines in the past. But now I cannot, and I do not know why."
So, access to the ley-lines had been keyed very recently. Perhaps when Hulda realized that Ancar had attempted a Gate. She knew he was experimenting and had chosen this way to place a limit on what he could do.
"It is none of my doing," he pointed out. "But I had noted this myself; I, too, have been blocked. It is one of the reasons why I can do so little to help you, other than offer advice. I think, however," he added slyly, "that if you would trace the spells that keep you at a distance to their origin, you would find it to be Hulda."
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