“A voice spoke to me and said he was Claid and we had to leave right away. It did sound like Claid. It grabbed my wrist and pulled me outside, and I saw it against the snow.” She shuddered again, recalling the eyes like twin beacons. “It was a mindstealer! I ran, but it was right behind me and would have caught me if you hadn’t come out.”
With a sad look, Dannel shook his head. “That was Claid.”
“No!” Kyla gripped the arms of her chair and leaned forward. “That horrid thing—Claid? It couldn’t be!”
“It is,” Dannel insisted. “Alair brought him back as you asked. To punish him and to make you see him differently, Alair forced him to take the form of a mindstealer.”
She frowned. “Claid—or whatever was claiming to be Claid—said I brought him back. He said when I pulled the chain it gave him a bit of freedom.”
Dannel’s hand curled into a fist and struck the arm of his chair. “The rascal doesn’t tell the truth. How can you believe him? Of course Alair brought him.” His sudden intensity disturbed her. He sounded too much like Alair.
“I have little reason to believe either him or Alair.”
He leaned forward and gazed into her eyes. “Alair has not answered all your questions, but neither has he deceived you.”
She met his gaze. “Dannel, he doesn’t supply answers, yet he ridicules me for accepting Claid’s answers. That’s not fair, is it?”
“It may not seem fair, but what he wants, I suspect, is to force you to think things out for yourself.”
The way my father always had, came the unbidden thought. “Well, if you’re right, and Alair brought Claid here and gave him the form of a mindstealer, that’s evidence of his heartlessness. How could he treat Claid so badly?”
“He probably thought if you saw Claid in that hated form instead of in the form of a beguiling child, you would no longer be blind to his deviousness.”
“Devious!” Kyla stood and glared at Dannel. “Maybe he is, but so is Alair. How dare he manipulate me so! Poor Claid. I’ve left him outside in the cold.” She hurried to the front door.
Dannel followed her and put his hand over hers as she grasped the door latch. “Wait, Kyla. Listen, please. Claid will not feel the cold.”
She turned and faced him. “You talk just like Alair. ‘He won’t feel the cold.’ ‘He can’t be hurt.’ ‘He can’t be killed.’ But Alair won’t tell me what Claid is. And he treats him cruelly.”
“Treats him cruelly? Whatever makes you say that?” He kept her hand from turning the latch.
“Being transformed into the vilest creature in existence—you think that isn’t cruel? No wonder the poor thing was in such a hurry to get away.” She ducked beneath his arm, went back into the room, and hoisted her pack to the chair. Hunkered down, she slipped her arms through the straps, then straightened and shrugged the straps onto her shoulders.
Dannel confronted her again. “You see only one side of Alair,” he said. “You seem to think all he does here is entertain himself with feats of magic. You ask, ‘What is Claid?’ Has it never occurred to you to ask, ‘What is a mage?’”
“I know what a mage is,” Kyla snapped. “And I want nothing more to do with this one.”
“Kyla, Kyla. You are a lovely woman with many excellent qualities, but your stubborn refusal to see the truth may prove your undoing.”
Kyla ignored him. With the pack settled against her back, she picked up the remaining books. Wanting to leave nothing of hers behind, she considered sending Dannel for the book Alair had carried off to his study. She glanced up at him. He was giving her a pitying gaze that aroused a fresh surge of anger.
Let Alair keep the book. She wanted only to find Claid and leave. “I don’t know what it is you think I’ve refused to see, but as a windspeaker I’m exceptionally skilled at listening, and what I’ve heard in this house has not endeared me to your master.”
“I’ve heard of your skill at windspeaking,” he said. “It’s to be used to protect the villagers who hire you, not for your personal benefit. So it is with Alair’s magic, though you may not believe it. His power is a bulwark against the mindstealers you so despise.”
“That only proves that his power isn’t as great as you claim. The mindstealers would have destroyed him if I hadn’t rescued him. If he ever falls into their claws again, I’ll not lift a finger to save him.”
“You have so much anger, my lady.” He spoke more softly. “It blinds you to the truth.”
She snatched up her cloak and threw it over her shoulders, covering her backpack. When she fumbled with the catch, he said, “Here, let me do that.” Gently he pushed her hands away and fastened the clasp. He placed a palm against her cheek.
She placed her hand over his, let his fingers entwine with hers. “I’m sorry we’ve had this argument,” she said. “You’ve been kind to me, but I can’t stay any longer in this house. I have what I came for, if that creature is truly Claid. Alair bound Claid to me, so I’ve the right to take him with me. In any form he’ll be better off far away from that madman.”
Dannel sighed. “I wish you’d reconsider. Alair can be difficult, but he is neither the madman nor the wicked one you take him for.”
Kyla pulled her hand free. “You’re too close to him. You can’t see him as I do.”
He stepped back with a sad chuckle. “Too close? Yes, I suppose I am.”
He looked so thoroughly woebegone that she felt sorry for him. Impulsively she squeezed his hand. “Come with us. Come away from this awful place.”
“I’ve told you I’m bound to this place; I can’t leave.”
She remembered the wooden statue she’d found. “How does he bind you?” she asked. “Does he use that image of you he keeps in the pantry?”
For a moment he turned as stiff and motionless as the statue. Then he relaxed and laughed. “So your explorations carried you all the way to the pantry? You claim to have no magic, yet you wander around a place of power without its owner sensing it.”
Her temper flared. “Why does everyone insist that I have magic? I have neither talent nor desire for magic.” She walked to the door, and he followed.
“You could learn magic here. This house, which you called awful, is a place of power. It’s one source of Alair’s strength.”
“I want only to get away,” Kyla said as she opened the door. He did not try to stop her. In the darkness she picked her way carefully through snow and ice. “Claid,” she called. “Claid, where are you?”
Something crunched through the snow. With a glad bark, Ruffian jumped up and licked her hands.
“Oh, Ruffian, I’m so glad you found me.” She patted the dog’s head and scratched his ears. “I’d promised to take you away with me, and I’d forgotten you. But you remembered. Good boy! Now if I can find Claid, we’ll be on our way.”
“Claid is here, mistress,” said a voice beside her. A dark column deepened the night. “Here, let me take those books.” A hand took the books from her; they were swallowed up into the blackness. Talons gripped her arm.
Her skin prickled and an involuntary shudder coursed through her. Not wanting to see her guide’s form, she kept her gaze fixed on the snowy ground as he led her forward. Ruffian kept close to her other side, apparently willing now to leave Alair. Maybe the accident in the laboratory had distracted the mage and thus allowed both Ruffian and Claid greater freedom. That would explain Claid’s haste.
Dannel said it had injured Alair. How badly? Was the fault hers? Perhaps she should—No! If it had been anything life threatening, Dannel would have said so. Whatever had happened to the mage was no more than he deserved.
With her two companions she began the slow and dangerous descent.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NIGHT FLIGHT
It was Claid.
It was not Claid.
It surely was.
It could not be.
Kyla’s trust swung back and forth like a pendulum.
“Careful, mistress,
these rocks are slippery. Let me lift you over them.”
The sharp contours of stones stabbed through the soles of her boots, and the icy slickness was all too apparent to her unsteady feet. She had to allow her companion to use both hands to grasp her in those horrid claws and ferry her over the hazards.
At such times Claid set down the books he carried, then went back for them. He’d insisted on lightening her pack, taking three more books from it, leaving her with five while he carried six.
Only Claid would care about the books. For that matter, only Claid would care about her; a mindstealer would relish seeing her slide and fall and break bones. That reassurance was not enough to keep her from closing her eyes when Claid helped her, afraid of being caught by the hypnotic orange eyes of a true mindstealer.
Ruffian wasn’t helping; he snarled and snapped whenever Claid approached her. He’s only acting the way he did the first time he saw Claid. The dog seemed to be making it clear that he accompanied her, not her mysterious companion. His snarls held as much fear as menace. Apologetic whimpers punctuated the growls, as though the animal were saying, “I’m doing all I can. I know it’s not enough, but please don’t ask me to do more.”
When the path leveled and Kyla was able to walk without more assistance than a guiding talon on her elbow, the dog brushed against her other side as though seeking her protection. She reached down and patted him; her hand rubbed across fur that was raised and stiff, and though he crowded close against her and welcomed her touch, he did not relax or cease his gnarling.
Claid didn’t complain about the dog’s hostility. It wasn’t like him to say nothing. It was Claid, she was sure, who had bespelled the dog and forced him to take the long trek to Starwind Peak. He could send Ruffian away again, force him to return to Alair.
Claid ignored the dog’s presence.
An angry and alien wind howled around them and flung flurries of snow at them. Kyla’s teeth chattered, her cheeks stung, her hands were numb. She thought longingly of the hearty fire in Alair’s sitting room and of the warm bed she’d spurned to explore the mage’s house.
She thought of Dannel. Of the way his hand had fit over the curve of her cheek, the warm smoothness of his fingers, the gentle affection in his voice.
It was because of Dannel she was here. Not because they had quarreled. Because she trusted him. Because she believed him when he told her this thing in mindstealer form was Claid. Believed him as she would not have believed Alair.
Was it her reason that made her trust him—or her heart? Dannel had stirred her as had no other man. Perhaps due to the firelight, the lateness of the hour, her need of an ally against Alair.
In the end, though, he’d taken Alair’s side. He’d made her angry, but she could not despise him as she despised Alair. He was, after all, a relative of the mage. No doubt he felt obligated to side with him, but while arguing with her, Dannel had remained a gentleman. She regretted her sharp words. It had been Alair she was angry with, not Dannel. They should have parted friends; it was her fault they hadn’t. There was truth in Alair’s accusation that she was as changeable and quick-tempered as the wind.
To drive away the unwelcome thoughts she said, “I tried to persuade Dannel to come with us.” She almost added, I’d feel much safer if he were here. Instead, she said, “I wonder what hold Alair has over him.”
Laughter burst from the shadow at her side. “Better to have invited Alair. Dannel’s his most successful creation, true enough, but ten paces from the mage’s door he’d revert to the wooden statue he is.”
Kyla halted. Her incredulous gasp brought more chuckles.
“Dannel’s not real?”
“What is real, mistress? Dannel’s real enough when a portion of Alair’s spirit animates him. He’s as real as any other aspect of Alair.” He choked back more laughter to add, “Whatever you said to Dannel, you said to Alair, and it was Alair who spoke to you in Dannel. No doubt it delighted him to be able to deceive you.”
“No!” Even as she shouted the denial, Kyla recognized the truth of Claid’s explanation. What a fool Alair must have taken her for! Her cheeks flamed, and she was glad for the concealing darkness. She had trusted Dannel! On the strength of his word she was prowling the mountainside with what might, after all, be a mindstealer.
Mingled fear, shame, and rage swirled in like a black mist. She struck out blindly at the thing by her side and ran recklessly down the slope, crashing into shrubs and scraping her knees on boulders. Her ankle twisted; she pitched forward and sprawled full length in the slush. Ignoring her bleeding hands and abraded cheek, she picked herself up and dashed on.
A harsh wind swirled about her, keening. Its bitter, mournful howling sang to her soul. She sang back. She lifted her voice in wordless discordant song a listener would have been hard put to distinguish from the shrieking of the wind. Her rage and the wind’s flowed together. The wind roiled around her. It tugged at her cloak, loosened it, and lifted it up like a sail. She grabbed the edges and tried to gather the cloak around her. The wind was too powerful. She could only hang on as it caught her up, and Claid’s shouts and Ruffian’s frantic barking faded into the distance.
The wind bore her away on a nightmare ride, spinning, speeding, rising, falling, jerked this way and that like a bit of chaff. She no longer sang, had no breath for screaming. Terrified, helpless, she expected death when the wind tired of its game and dropped her. Instead it dipped down and deposited her, shaken, half frozen, onto a rock outcrop.
A cold spray soaked into her clothes and a roar of rushing water filled her ears. The violent churning of the river warned her she was not far from Nine Falls. She shuddered. What had possessed her to sing the wind on such a night? She might well have been dropped into the cascade or smashed against the boulders over which it fell.
Feeling her way, she crept off the rocks and away from the river and huddled in the darkness, cold and afraid, waiting for morning.
The wait could not be long; the night must have been already far spent when she left the mage’s house.
She thought about that parting, about Dannel, who was really Alair. The unkindness he had shown her as Alair he had compensated for as Dannel. She didn’t understand his reason, but she couldn’t ignore Dannel’s effect on her.
The full impact of Claid’s revelation struck her now that she had time to think.
It had been Alair who spoke through his creation to comfort her, to recite poetry to her, to touch her tenderly. It had been Alair who released her, allowed her to go with Claid, and permitted Ruffian to accompany them.
Alone and lonely, she’d longed for the comfort Dannel had given.
Not Dannel. Alair.
So the mage did have a gentler side. Maybe he cared for her but was too proud to admit it in his own person. She should go back to Starwind Peak and confront him, tell him she knew of the deception, see whether he would show the same kindness—she dared not call it affection—directly, without Dannel as go-between.
First, she must locate Claid and Ruffian. They would be searching for her, and it had been wrong of her to abandon them. They had been trying to help her.
Gradually the sky lightened. When she could distinguish trees and rocks and the contours of the surrounding mountains, she changed into her windspeaking shift and climbed the nearest slope to a small clearing. Shivering, teeth chattering, she greeted a bitter blue wind. Arms lifted, voice soft and cajoling, she implored the wind’s pardon.
The wind swooped shrieking from the mountains. Her crooning failed to calm it. It tore around her in fury, plastered her shift to her body, whipped her hair into a tangled mass. She grew hoarse from singing, but the indigo hue did not soften. The wind was being capricious again—as she had been.
Cold, weary, defeated, she returned to her pack, got back into her trail clothes, and set out to search for Claid and Ruffian on her own.
Her nearness to the river and the thunder of Nine Falls gave a fair idea of her location. She had be
en blown southwest from Starwind Peak. It shouldn’t be hard to find the trail that led back toward the mage’s residence.
The mountain she was climbing was neither as high nor as steep as Starwind Peak, but it was still a slow and tiring trek to the top and down through a narrow pass and up the next slope.
Beneath her cloak, her pack bit into her shoulders; her back ached. She’d had nothing to eat all day, and her stomach protested its emptiness with loud growls. What she needed in the pack was food, not books. Even without those Claid had taken, the remaining books, added to her bowl, two pots, and change of clothes, made it burdensome.
She spotted a clump of chirberry bushes. Hoping to find a few of the purple berries clinging to the branches, she left the winding path and picked her way through jumbled rocks and thorny groundcover to the chirberry thicket. The edges of the leaves were brown and curling, but she spotted a purple cluster deep in the thicket and pushed her way through brittle branches to reach the prize.
The berries fell into her hand at a touch. She stuffed them into her mouth and ate them eagerly, dry and tasteless though they were.
A search for more proved futile: her poor stragglers had been the last. She backed out of the thicket and turned toward the path.
A mindstealer strode into view. She ducked into the bushes.
Then she remembered. Claid. She stepped forward. Its head swiveled toward her, orange eyes glowing. “Cla—”
Her shout cut off in mid-syllable. Two other mindstealers tromped down the path and stopped beside the first.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRANSFORMATIONS
Kyla pressed into the bushes, too frightened to care that the branches jabbed and snatched at her clothes and flesh. Silently she cursed the thick backpack that prevented her from burrowing in farther.
The mindstealers moved toward her as one—a single creature that focused its six eyes on her, the glowing orange pupils a beacon drawing her to them. She stepped forward. Her cloak snagged on the branches, pulled free of her shoulders, and remained entangled in the bushes. She felt its loss but could not draw her gaze from the combined gaze of the mindstealers.
Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1) Page 13