Winds of Fury

by Mercedes Lackey

  He opened the door. The two guards still stood there, at rigid attention. Perhaps—a trifle too rigid?

  Mornelithe chuckled and waved his hand in front of their glazed eyes. “Hello?” he said, softly, knowing there would be no response.

  Nor was there. Ancar had not thought to armor the guards he had on Falconsbane against spell-casting, trusting in the coercions to keep Falconsbane from doing anything to them. But Mornelithe was not doing anything against Ancar’s interests, no indeed. . . .

  “Just going for a little walk, men,” Mornelithe whispered to the unresponsive guards in a moment of perverse whimsy. “I’ll be back before you miss me, I promise!”

  He closed the door carefully and set off down the hallway in a swirl of dark fabric. He was not worried about the servants seeing him; if they caught sight of him, they would never imagine the stranger was Falconsbane, and Mornelithe’s authoritative stride was enough to make most of them think twice about challenging his presence in these halls. Ancar had a great many visitors who did not wish to be seen or challenged, and people who were foolhardy enough to do so often disappeared. In a few moments, the two men he had bespelled would wake from their daze, quite unaware that anything had happened to them. He would bespell them again on his return.

  It was Ancar’s other guards and soldiers Momelithe wished to avoid. He hoped there would be none of them to challenge him, but the best chance of avoiding them lay in getting outside quickly.

  He could bespell more guards if he had to, but then he would have to find a way to dispose of them. They might be missed. That would be awkward, and not as much fun as he’d prefer.

  He continued down the hall without meeting any more men in Ancar’s uniform, but as he rounded a corner and drew within a few feet of his goal he heard the distinctive slap of military boots on the wooden floor. Four sets, at least.

  He gambled; made a dash for the door leading to the staircase and wrenched it open. He slipped inside just before the guards came into view, and ran right into a young servingman, just as he closed the door and turned on the landing.

  The boy opened his mouth. Falconsbane seized him by the throat before he even managed to squeak. There was no time for finesse; he simply choked the boy so that he could not make a sound. He then wrapped them both in silence, drained the servingboy of life-force, and left him on the landing.

  Let whoever found him figure out how he had died.

  The staircase led directly to the public corridors of the palace. Here he was even less likely to be challenged, and he opened the door at the bottom with confidence, striding out into the corridor and taking a certain enjoyment in the way people avoided looking at him directly. Anyone who walked in such a confident, unhurried manner in Ancar’s palace must be powerful and dangerous . . . both attributes belonged to people that the folk here would rather avoid. Especially if the strangers took pains to hide their faces.

  Unhindered, he passed out into the chill and darkness and paused for a moment on the landing above the courtyard. The guards at the doors did not even look at him; after all, they were there to keep people out, not in. He trotted quickly down the steps to the courtyard, casting a covert glance as he did so to the room behind the balcony immediately above the main doors. Lights were still burning brightly, and shadows were moving about inside. The war-council was still going strong.

  Good. Let the children play.

  There were more guards at the various gates he had to pass to get to the city itself, but once again, they were there to keep people out, not in, and they ignored him. On his return journey, he would come in through another way, via the gardens, and an ingenious series of gates with locks that could be picked with a pin or latches that could be lifted with a twig, holes under walls, and trees with overhanging limbs. This was the route that the servants used to slip in after a clandestine night in the town. Pity it only worked to get in by, but overhanging limbs that permitted a drop down were not very useful when the reverse was needed. He was a mage, not an acrobat.

  He passed the last gate and a squad of very bored, very hardened soldiers who looked as if they would have welcomed an intruder just so that they could alleviate their boredom by killing him. Then he was out in streets of the city, and free.

  For one, brief moment, he was tempted to just keep walking. Forget a cat-woman who might or might not be Nyara; forget that he might be hundreds of leagues from his own territory. He was free—he could take that freedom and just walk away from here.

  But as he thought that, he suddenly felt the jerk of the coercions on him, a chain jerking a dog back to its kennel. The force was sufficient to make him stagger. And he snarled inside the shadow of his hood.

  No, this breath of freedom was an illusion after all. And he could not simply walk away. Ancar’s coercive spells were set too well, and the King had evidently planned against this very possibility. He had the freedom of the city—but that was all.

  At least, until Ancar was dead.

  Very well. Let him see if this Lady Cat was indeed Nyara. And if she was, he would use her death to fuel his own powers, taking back into himself all that he had used to make her.

  Then he would return to Ancar’s palace . . . and lay some new plans.

  An’desha was very glad that his link with his physical body was so tenuous that as long as Falconsbane was awake it might just as well have not existed. If he—or rather, his body—had broken into a sweat of nervous fear, Falconsbane would certainly have noticed something was going on!

  That moment when Falconsbane had thought to simply walk off—An’desha had taken a gamble and given the Adept a jolt he hoped Falconsbane would interpret as Ancar’s coercions. The gamble had worked, but the old woman had been only too correct when she had warned that this was going to take every bit of cleverness and concentration he had. The Adept had come within a heartbeat of bringing down all their plans.

  The die was cast. Whatever happened Would follow from this, win or lose.

  Falconsbane moved swiftly through the darkened, noisome streets to the city gate. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the odor of offal in the gutters, an odor even the bitter cold could not suppress. And this was supposed to be one of the better parts of this city! An’desha could not for a moment fathom why anyone would want to live in one of these hives. He felt a pang of longing as sharp as any blade for his long-lost Plains, or even the Pelagir territory Falconsbane had taken for his own. Wilderness, he thought achingly, as a vision of the endless sea of grass that was the Plains in late spring danced before his mind’s eye. Shall I ever see it again?

  On the other side of the gate in the city wall, the Faire spread out on the long slope of a meadow, inclining away from the city. Lighted stalls, wagons, and tents showed that the carnival was in full swing, and streams of people going to and from the faire proved that folk still craved entertainment. Perhaps they craved it even more, under Ancar’s repressions.

  Falconsbane made his way through the crowds; most folk ignored him or avoided him, but he hardly noticed. His eyes searched out and dismissed every occupant of every stage. He passed a wealth of jugglers, musicians, conjurers, salesmen of every sort of strange brew and device—

  And finally, where the crowd was thickest, he found what he sought.

  He could not get too near the wagon-stage in question, for the people were piled ten and twenty deep around it. The performance he had heard so much about was just ending, but Falconsbane saw more than enough to make his heart race.

  Dancing provocatively to the throbbing of a drum, posing and twisting in positions that rivaled the contortionists on the next stage, was Nyara.

  Even with the foolish and patently false ears and tail she wore, and the peculiar makeup that added stripes to her face, it was clearly Nyara, dressed in a few veils and a singlet—

  And a collar and chain-leash.

  She posed once more, dropped a veil, and whisked around the corner of the wagon, to what was obviously a performance tent—wher
e, presumably, she would remove more than a single veil.

  A fellow in an impossibly gaudy costume began chanting something to that effect, inviting the crowd to see “more of her,” in just a half candlemark. Then he followed after Nyara, presumably to ready the stage inside the tent.

  And after the initial shock and elation, Falconsbane could only think of one thing.

  This is a trap.

  An’desha panicked. To have come so far, and to have Falconsbane flee on the threshold—no, it could not happen ! There had to be something that would push him past this, to the place where caution didn’t exist! To the point of madness, of obsession—

  Yes! There was!

  Quickly, even as Falconsbane completed that thought, An’desha added another, praying to the Star-Eyed that he would not notice An’desha’s “voice” in his head.

  She was with the gryphons; they must have the gryphons with them!

  Falconsbane’s field of vision narrowed and tinged red with a rush of rage that sent a flood of blood to his head, and burned along his veins.

  : Good boy! I’ll warn the girl,: came a harsh whisper to An’desha, as the mere mention of gryphons triggered Falconsbane’s powerful, ancient obsession. Now it did not matter to Falconsbane that this might be a trap. Nothing mattered—except that there might—no, must—be gryphons, the two gryphons who had twice escaped his wrath. Maybe the little ones, too!

  An’desha felt a new fear now as he realized that his thoughts and Mornelithe’s were intertwining the more he manipulated the Adept’s thoughts. He was inserting thoughts and ideas so much quicker than before—what if Mornelithe left this body and took An’desha’s consciousness with him, instead of abandoning the body to its rightful owner?

  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 thro
ugh 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 that 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—