by JANRAE FRANK
"This is the first I've heard of a child ... and my sources are very clear. Channadar died of a sword thrust to his chest, one to his side and several to his ribs, some of them from the back," Galee repeated. "I say, that he died without issue, as did his brother Juna. He was dead before you carried his body from their star room and hid it within the Wing. You are trying to cheat the crown of its due. The lands, holdings, and titles of Hellsguard."
"Why should I do that, Galee?" Sha responded.
"More control of the realm for Mohanja?" Galee looked sharply at the big mon. "Do you believe the council has no eyes to see with? You sleep in his bed. You hide the Grand Master from us, so that Mohanja can control him."
Mohanja said nothing, refusing to be baited. They were standing on dangerous ground. No doubt Galee would have her small army of palace healers contest the findings of the temple and the Guild, which would throw it to the council to decide if the child Leeza carried was indeed Channadar's. They needed the branch clan's influence, which would be immediately felt. But where were they?
"It has already been decided, unanimously," Lord Naren interjected. "If you cannot give us irrefutable proof by morning, the lands will be forfeit to the crown."
Mohanja turned without speaking and walked out. Sha overtook him heading for the Guild Wing. "It's impossible, Sha. But we must try. Are you certain Channadar is failing that fast?"
"Yes."
* * * *
The door opened abruptly and the room went silent, everyone staring at those who had broken upon them as Queiggy and Aramyn entered. Queiggy's eyes nearly popped out, first because the mirror now appeared to take up half of the long wall of the chamber, revealing the entirety of the Faery court and then because of the woman he stared at.
"Meileilyki!"
"Queig, close the door, your mouth." She rose angrily, flicking the sheet over Juna's face. "Sit down and be silent. They have returned to me my son Juna's body and my eldest lies dying. Don't rustle your leaves at me, son of Teakamon."
Queiggy sighed, nudging Aramyn who went and closed the door before returning to the Wing Master's side. Queiggy sighed again. Well, if he had not let it out widely enough before, it was completely out now. The yuwenghau dropped cross-legged to the floor, blowing another still deeper sigh with wide puffed cheeks.
"The Faery queen?" Aramyn asked.
Queiggy nodded. "Meileilyki, I beg pardon, but we have serious problems. The council has convened an emergency meeting. The one we suspect to be behind the attack upon your sons claims that both of them are slain, that Channadar perished without issue and invalidates both the marriage and the lineage of the child. She demands we produce Channadar and Dragonfly to be examined by the Council of Lords. I do not want to admit these people to the Wings lest one of them create an exception within my wards. Neither do I wish to allow Dragonfly and Channadar out of here. For one thing, I fear another attack upon them and for another Sha fears to move Channadar as weak as he is."
"And who are these enemies and what do they hope to gain?" Meileilyki asked, her expression hardening.
"Gylorean Galee, first lieutenant to the Grand Master and Lord Wrathscar whose son will soon wed Talons Gee, called Trollbane. We believe they seek to take Hellsguard."
"Galee, that is an ill-omened name." With a sweep of her hand, the Faery queen extended the mirror to span the entire wall, revealing the room to her court. "Is my son resting behind those screens?"
Aramyn bowed acknowledgment. "Shall I remove them?"
"Yes."
The screens were folded back. Hara, who sat with Channadar, moved his chair aside so that Meileilyki and her court could have as clear a view of his dying lord as was possible. The anger and grief of the Faery queen, unable to go to her eldest child because her power held the unstable magics of her realm together, was terrible to behold. She studied the beloved features, the pale golden skin against his black hair, which flared around his face upon the pillows. "You do not hunt the Fae, for then the Fae will hunt you." She gestured to the Chosen who began coming through the mirror, the first were only twelve, led by a tiny snowdrop of a woman, hair, eyebrows and eyes like ice. She stepped high like a dancer, smiling catlike at Tiderider.
"Allow me to present to you, Wing Master, StealsThunder, my second in my band of Chosen among the truebloods."
"Son of Teakamon?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him and then turned serious, moving to take a stance with wrists crossed before her as if to draw her fans and fight. The others came through, taking their places behind her.
* * * *
Dynarien's eyes saucered as he came to his feet at the table in the Patriarch's study. What had he sensed? Great power had suddenly opened into the compound. He caught the edge of the table. Every movement hurt him. Had they not stopped at beating him unconscious they would eventually have killed him. Combined with his actions on the Night of God Rage and then his efforts with Leeza, he was worn. Stubbornness held him together. In that he was a match for his sister. He had been pushing himself to his limits and he felt them.
"You should be resting, Dynarien," Eshraf told him, turning from the fireplace with two glasses of wine and more of the Night-Elf brews Dynanna had sent from Imralon.
"Something more is about to happen. I feel it. There is movement in the earth. I am not always this sensitive. But I feel it."
Eshraf handed him a glass and then the brew. "That one first." He patted the glass of dark tonic.
"I must go." Dynarien drank the dreadful tasting stuff and then rinsed his mouth out with the wine and swallowed that also. "I must find this disturbance."
"You should sit. Queiggy will have sensed it."
Dynarien had met Queiggy briefly at Eshraf's first council and then the mon had never come to another. "Why? Why would he feel this?"
Eshraf sat across from him, sipping at his wine. "Because he is our other yuwenghau. Not as powerful as you, but powerful still."
"Of what lineage?"
"Teakamon. He is using his tree gift to shield the entire Guild wing and the annex they have taken as a second wing."
Dynarien nodded then. Yes, a tree-gifted son of Teakamon would know how to deal with this. His eldest brother's get were strong in the earth. "Channadar. How does he fare?"
"The Guild surgeons did all they could, yet... Channadar is dying. He will not see the morning."
Dynarien prepared to Jump.
Eshraf dropped his hand upon Dynarien's shoulder to stay him. "You cannot save him, Dynarien. You dare not repeat what you did with Yukiah. It could destroy you. As for the Abelardian spells, Shared Life was not designed for this. Channadar was too torn up inside. Too much blood was lost. It would be impossible. It would take a lifemage."
"It's battle medicine," Dynarien said. "There's a random factor I saw when Josiah helped Aejys. I must try to access it. I must try. I cannot let Channadar die. I've let too many people down."
Dynarien Jumped into the middle of the Great Central Hall, striding through the late night crowds to the Guild Wing just as the great steel doors had begun to close. Someone, somewhere within that wing had opened a door to Faewin. That was what he had sensed. And there would be major trouble if he did not help Channadar. Meileilyki would rip through here like a hurricane if Channadar died. Creeya did not need a war with Faewin on top of everything else. He had finally figured out who Channadar was. Dynarien cursed himself in a dozen languages for spending his last four thousand years being an irresponsible rakehell. Channadar and Juna were Channi and Ju-ji. He had spent time chasing their mother in a pleasantly casual dalliance that resulted in three children before drifting away to join his sister in playing dangerous games against the dark ones. "Let me in!"
"If you're not Guild, go away. Doors closing."
Dynarien caught the doors, forcing them apart. The wenches controlling the doors groaned, yielding to him with great reluctance, and he stepped through. He heard the shouts of armed myn charging toward him. "I said, let me in."
Dynarien released the doors, which clanged shut behind him with a grinding sigh of machinery.
Porthy rose slowly smiling broadly. "Lord Dynarien! You are most welcome, of course."
The Guildsmyn lowered their weapons.
"What is it you need?" Porthy asked.
"To see Channadar. I must try and help him."
Porthy liked the sound of that. He had been enraged to hear that Galee and Wrathscar were trying to discredit the marriage and Channadar's child's parentage. "Hurum, get Lord Dynarien there immediately."
* * * *
Meileilyki turned an angry eye toward the door at being interrupted once again and then smiled through her sudden tears at seeing Dynarien. "It has been too long, Twice-Born."
"Meileilyki," Dynarien said, bowing slightly. "Where is your son?" He turned about and saw the bed. Leeza had returned to Channadar, holding his hand again, his fingers folded in hers.
"He's nearly gone," Leeza said, looking up at them with tears running down her face.
"They will pay for what they have done!" Dynarien growled and moved her aside to take Channadar's wrist and Read him. He could feel the fading energies
< Dynarien, you must not do this, you could permanently harm yourself. Your sister would never forgive me. > Kalirion's voice spoke in his mind.
Dynarien ignored the Sun-Lord and cast Shared Life with himself as the first donor, knowing his divine blood would work quickest.
< Kalirion, Shared Life only. Grant me that much at least. >
Kalirion resisted and then gave in. < Call the staff from her hoard, but do not ask again. And no, we cannot heal your beloved, she is godmarked and would shatter like glass. Yukiah was stronger material to begin with. >
The spell had severe limitations, since it could mimic only a single aspect of the decimated lifemages; it had been designed to replace blood loss and damage to the life force itself. But if he cast anything stronger he stood a powerful chance of burning himself out. Dynarien summoned the staff of Dawnhand and, with it in hand, he was able to find the random factor in the spell and gave a second time from himself, passing some of his innate ability to heal to Channadar.
"What did you do?" Meileilyki demanded, certain she saw the color improve in her son's face.
"Shared Life. I need donors. Many donors. Strongest first."
Tiderider pushed through the others and placed his arm against his lord's. A queue formed, which included Queiggy immediately behind Tiderider, and Dynarien gave as much from them as he dared and felt Channadar's body could handle. It would not do to kill the patient by trying to save him. Soon they could all see the difference.
Dynarien understood what Kalirion had meant when the Sun-Lord said he might burn himself out. He felt brittle inside and nauseated. It took everything he had to remain standing. He sent the staff back to his sister's hoard.
Leeza lifted grateful eyes to Dynarien's face. "I am in your debt, Rose Warrior."
"We all are," Tiderider told him.
Channadar's eyes fluttered open, glancing at all those clustered around him, then closed and fluttered open again with the effort to remain aware. "Leeza?"
Leeza pushed through, took his face in her hands, half-laughing and half-crying and began to kiss him. "You'll live, Channadar. You'll see your son grow up. The Rose Warrior has saved you."
"Has he?" The question was rhetorical. He was still very weak. "I love you, My Dragonfly."
"He will live, Meileilyki," Dynarien said, and approached the mirror, his steps unsteady. He scarcely noticed that someone brought him a chair as he sat down in it. "So long as he does not over tire himself before he has time to heal."
"I am in your debt again, silly runagate. You must visit me. Come to Faewin?"
Dynarien shook his head. "It would not be the same. I am in love with a woman I cannot have. Two of them. Sharani triad."
"Ahhhh. I hear such sorrow there. Come visit, and we'll just talk."
"When this dance ends, perhaps." Dynarien had sired three children on Meileilyki, during a long visit decades ago. Each time he had watched her swell with another of his children, he had contemplated settling down with her, but in the end he had not.
* * * *
"This will stand the Council, Galee, and Wrathscar on their heads," Shaheeramaat said, her lips tightening into an expression of sheerest disdain as she watched guardsmyn under the close supervision of a handful of Guildsmyn move chairs, sofas and tables about the Great Central Hall in the course of establishing a perimeter for the meeting that afternoon.
"Bang their heads, Sha!" Mohanja replied, leaning against the wall near the Guild Wing. "It will bang their heads to see him alive and healing. Let alone married with child and heir coming." Mohanja had insisted that if there were to be a meeting, it would not involve carrying Channadar any great distance and thus put him in danger. This close to the Guild Wing's doors, Channadar could be easily withdrawn into its safety should an assault come.
Sha moved closer, snuggling against Mohanja. She saw so many changes in him, and liked most of them. She had been astonished at the difference in the Lord of Hellsguard's condition when they summoned her that morning. "Dynarien gave us a victory, saving Channadar."
* * * *
Paranoia showed in the cautious ways the councilors took their places. Eshraf arrived with a letter from the Grand Master, authorizing him to speak on his behalf, and the Patriarch took the throne chair at the meeting's head.
Galee's eyes widened as she observed the clearly veteran unit of Chosen march in beside Channadar's litter and another Fae she had never seen before yet was oddly familiar, who held the wounded lord's hand.
Mohanja moved to the middle of the circle while Tiderider and two others shifted Channadar from the litter to the couch, putting pillows to the Lord of Hellsguard's back so that he might sit as upright as he could comfortably manage.
"This is not to be a long meeting, My Lords," Mohanja told them, scanning all the faces and finally fixing his eyes on Wrathscar with great intensity. "You demanded proof that Channadar lived, that the marriage had taken place, and that he claims the unborn child as his own. So I have brought you proof."
"As you see, the news of my death was a lie," Channadar said, unfolding a single golden fan. "This is my wife, Dragonfly." He indicated Leeza with the fan. "I felt the need, with our child coming, to legalize our union. I am certain, good lords and ladies, that the laws of inheritance being what they are, you can appreciate the necessity." He gave them as much of one of his usual smiles as he could manage.
"You cannot simply produce a woman out of nowhere and expect us to believe this nonsense?" Wrathscar demanded.
"I have been here for three years, Lord Wrathscar," Leeza said, stepping into the game. "At my beloved's side in plain sight beneath your noses."
The Chosen laughed. Wrathscar's glare slid across them and they laughed again, knowing how it infuriated him.
"I've never seen you before," Wrathscar hissed between his teeth.
"Oh, but you all have. You especially, Lord Wrathscar, but I'll not embarrass you with descriptions of how many times I fended off your advances. Let us say simply that you called me Leeza and believed me human."
Galee stared hard at her.
"Where better to hide her, Galee, from your threats?" Channadar said in the same language in which she had threatened him in years earlier.
Galee's eyes widened, for it was the language in which she kept her journals. If she gave the slightest sign that she understood his words, she would be revealed.
"An old language, but not entirely lost," Channadar told her. "It is justly said, do not hunt the Fae, for then the Fae will hunt you."
"I withdraw my objections," Galee said. She dared not allow this conversation to continue. If she should answer him once, in the old tongue, then whoever had her book in his keeping would have proved her the author before everyone. This had to end quickly lest she fall into his trap. "This is, indeed, Lord Channadar and
Leeza."
Wrathscar turned from glaring at the Fae to glare at Galee. "Leeza belonged to Tiderider! How do we know the child is not his?"
The Chosen laughed again and several council lords joined in.
"I have confirmed the genetics, Lord Wrathscar," Sha put in quickly. "The child she carries belongs to Lord Channadar."
Eshraf,
I'm coming. Hold fast as I know you will.
Alysyn
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE BLACK SWAN
The woman wore black leathers, smooth and soft as butter, and a sword at her hip. A harness of throwing blades crossed her body, white leather against the black. Her coarse black hair lay braided tight to her head in an intricate coronet that carried countless silver pens, all sharp and deadly woven through it. Fifty armed myn rode behind her in a double column, lancers leading, and horse-archers in the rear. She carried herself with shoulders squared, her head high and proud as she led them into the yard of the waystation. They passed through the gate of the split rail fence and halted before the long, chinked-log building. Alysyn of the many names. Alysyn Sinjin, a corruption of St. Jon by dropping the Dulac, heir and avatar of the Black Swan, the first Alysinjin. Alysyn Larkwood to the Guild, who had left them when the vampire war ended nearly thirty years ago. Alysyn Woodbourne, the name she had taken on when she married Yukiah. And others less known. She dropped from her horse, landed lightly, and tossed her reins to the stable child. Then she signed her company to dismount. Her three closest companions followed her inside, Father Wynn, Kerr, and Gerri.
A thin mon emerged from a back room wearing an apron, which he took off and tossed onto one of the tables in the common room they had just entered. The expression in his eyes spoke to her of grief and worry as he grasped her shoulder, guiding her to a bench inside the door.
Her mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed slightly, very, very slightly. "What is it?"
"You must ride out again immediately. I have saddled horses waiting for all of you and another six myn to go with you."
"What is wrong?" She demanded. "Is it Isen?"