“I was a most impressive pterosaur, mistress.” She hadn’t seen Claid approach, but now he stood in front of her and Alair, an insouciant grin on his beautiful face. “Ruffian thought he was being carried off to be eaten. You can imagine how happy he was to be set safely down.”
“Poor Ruffian.” She hugged the dog. “He’s had so many adventures.”
“So have we all.” Alair picked up Kyla’s cloak and wrapped it around her.
Claid knelt beside Marta. “She needs caring for,” he said, lifting her into his arms. “Since you are busy with Kyla, master, I’ll see to this one.”
“Better to make a camp and build a fire,” Alair said, frowning. “We can’t go any farther today.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Claid carried Marta to the shelter of some trees, where he wrapped her in her cloak and a blanket from her pack.
Kyla twisted around to gaze into Alair’s eyes. “If Claid has power enough to change to that flying whatever-he-called-it, why couldn’t he have carried Marta and me across the canyon?” She grew angry thinking how close they had come to being killed.
“He could have, but he knew you had the ability to save yourself—and Marta. Ruffian was helpless.”
Gathering her cloak around her, she got to her feet and glared down at him. “I wish I were as confident of my ability as you and Claid seem to be.”
“You will grow more sure of it each time you use it. And your power will grow through use.”
“If I live long enough,” Kyla said bitterly. “So you and Claid have been manipulating me, forcing me into situations where I had to use the power you keep insisting I have? What if you were wrong?”
He rose and stood beside her. “I wasn’t wrong—”
“You could have been. You gambled with my life—and Marta’s.”
“Kyla, please.” He reached out to take her hands, but she snatched them away. “Listen to me. I’ve done everything I could to protect you. Even though it meant weakening the barrier. In doing that, I put you before the welfare of thousands upon thousands of people. And put my whole life’s work in jeopardy. That’s how much you mean to me.”
The declaration softened her rage. She found she wanted to believe him and to forgive him. Yet … “Alair, you’ve deceived me and refused to answer my questions about Claid. How can you say I’m important to you?”
“I’ve always told you the truth about Claid’s power, but you wouldn’t believe me. Trust has to go both ways.”
“Maybe you did tell me the truth about Claid’s ability, but you’ve kept a great deal else from me.” She thought of Dannel, but could not bring herself to speak of that deception. “If Claid has so much power, how could you force him to take no form but that of a mindstealer? Or a baby?”
“You accept his word as truth but not mine. He told you I forced him to take those forms. I never limited him to that extent.”
“So he was lying? As a baby he seemed so helpless. Was that all a deception?”
“In that form his power was limited, but he was never as helpless as he seemed. I tried desperately to restrain his use of power after you crossed the canyon because I still hoped to prevent a breach that would let the mindstealers escape. But I’ve lost much of my control over him, and you’ve seen the consequences.”
“I don’t understand why the mindstealers had to be confined to Noster Valley. Why is it fair for the good people of the valley to suffer, while the people of Line’s End, who are twisted and evil, have to be spared?”
“Not all the valley people are good, as you well know. And despite your experiences there, not all the people of Line’s End are evil. Furthermore, Line’s End is only one tiny spot in Arucadi.” He clasped her hand. “Come, sit with me while Claid sets up camp. I’ll try to make you understand.”
He led her to a seat near where Claid had arranged Marta and dropped down beside her. “Kyla, what we call mindstealers were originally harmless hive creatures controlled by the directing mind of their queen. Long years ago a single hive somewhere in the Starmist Mountains learned to steal minds and thus became intelligent. “That hive grew and spread into other areas. It would have passed on to other hives the terrible custom of mindstealing. It had to be stopped. If those mindstealers were allowed to spread into the rest of the land, their numbers would increase until they absorbed and destroyed the human population of the entire continent. But no one could find the hive, and destroying individual mindstealers had no effect. So mages were called in to help.
“The mages succeeded in pushing them back into the area now bounded by the two branches of Rim Canyon and the Starmist Mountains. By restricting them to Noster Valley with its surrounding mountains and marshes, the mages could keep the mindstealers’ numbers in check until they discovered how to destroy them. A mountain stream forked to become two fast-flowing rivers with deep banks, cutting off that small area from the rest of Arucadi. The mages poured their strength into deepening the rivers’ banks and creating a forked canyon too deep and steep to be crossed. The strain of calling forth the power to carve such a chasm cost the lives of most of their number. The survivors remained within the barrier, replenishing their strength. Some never did recover. With the boundaries sealed, only the single hive of mindstealers remained. Arucadi was saved.”
“The valley continues to suffer,” Kyla observed bitterly, thinking of her parents.
“The mages didn’t leave it defenseless. They established the windspeakers.”
“The mages did?” No wonder the people beyond the Rim knew nothing of windspeakers. “But why didn’t they just find and destroy the mindstealers’ hive?”
“After sealing off the area, they didn’t have enough strength left to find the hive by magic. It was—and still is—too well hidden to find in any other way. They left to their descendants the task of destroying the creatures.”
“Who is that, besides you?” she asked. “I’ve heard of a few people with minor, limited powers, but you’re the only true mage I’ve heard of.”
He nodded sadly. “The mages did not produce much progeny. Most married normals, and their descendants’ power became diluted. I know of only one with full power besides myself.”
“Who is that?” Kyla asked eagerly.
“You.”
“Me!” Her voice squeaked. “I’m no mage. My parents weren’t mages.”
“You received no training because of your parents’ early death. But your mother was not always a mere healer, and your father was not always a scribe. Both were great mages, called here with the others to seal off the valley. Like my parents, they survived, but that work drained most of their power.”
She sat up and stared into his eyes, unwilling to accept this incredible story. “They would have told me. I’d have evidence.”
“From what my father told me, your father believed children should be left to discover their power for themselves and only then be trained to use it. I’m sure that is what would have happened, had your parents lived.”
That fit with Kyla’s memories. Her father had always encouraged her to figure things out for herself—like the way to alter the pattern in the brainstone. But her father would have given her some direction. She could not believe otherwise.
Alair must have recognized her skepticism. “They did leave evidence.”
“I’ve seen none.”
“Your books, Kyla,” he said. “The whole story is in them. The tale I told Master Stebbins was not false.”
The four of them, along with Ruffian, gathered around Claid’s fire as evening shadows deepened. He’d made camp in a stand of evergreens well away from the canyon, on the mountains’ lower reaches. Marta, recovered finally from her wild ride, helped Claid prepare a generous supper from their supplies. Alair had wandered off into the woods, and Kyla sat brooding, trying to absorb the monstrous implications of what he had told her.
Marta handed her a plate of food. “You need to eat.”
Kyla nodded and took the plate, but m
erely held it on her lap. She wanted to get the books out of her pack and find the evidence Alair had spoken of, but there wasn’t enough light for reading. She also, in a sense, feared both to find and not to find the mysterious messages he claimed were hidden in them.
Claid sat down beside Marta on the other side of the fire. Kyla guessed he was keeping Marta occupied, knowing that his “mistress” needed time alone to think about what Alair had told her. And about the things he had not told her. He had again avoided explaining Claid.
Alair returned from his walk, got a plate of food, and sat beside her. “You must eat,” he said, looking at her untouched plate. “It cost a lot of your strength to sing the wind and have it carry you across Rim Canyon.”
Still not touching her food, she said, “Claid told me my cloak holds power. I thought it was just an old cloak, but it was my mother’s.”
He nodded. “The cloak stores power so that it’s available for you to draw on. Your talent lies in being able to draw on it.”
“So I don’t have power of my own.”
“No, and neither do I. Only Claid has true power. Like all mages, I have the ability to draw power from various sources. Claid is one of those sources. Starwind Peak is another. I live there because it’s the site of a power nexus. Rial Hill where you did your windspeaking is also a nexus, and you were unknowingly drawing from it the power you needed to sing the wind. At times some of that power was stored in your cloak to be drawn on later, in a time of need. Your cloak was made and bespelled for that purpose, just as mine was.”
“I don't understand this at all, " she objected. "You keep talking as though I have mage power and draw on it to windspeak. That's nonsense. Windspeaking is a talent. I can exercise it anywhere.”
“Yes, but it’s more effective when you do it from a power nexus. Then you are in direct contact with the forces that control the wind.”
“Alair, I can’t accept any of this—power, the cloak, the nexuses. Mistress Forythe instructed me in the art of windspeaking, and she never taught me anything like what you are saying. Nor did she need a power nexus to windspeak.”
“Where did she do her windspeaking?” he asked between bites of food.
“On Shalkor Hill, outside of Weaversville,” Kyla answered. “You aren’t going to tell me that’s a nexus, too, are you?”
He nodded. “It is, and so is Tinder Mount near Fenley, where that village’s windspeaker communes with the wind. Very long ago when there were still many who were gifted in the use of power, those towns were deliberately established on the sites of power nexuses. Most people have forgotten. The windspeakers who draw upon the power now do so without real understanding.”
“Well, I certainly don’t understand.” Kyla sighed. “I’ve called on the wind in many places other than Rial Hill, and it has answered. I rode the wind to Starwind Peak—”
“From a place selected by Claid, who knew it to be a nexus,” Alair said. “Now eat. I won’t say another word until that food is inside you.”
She ate, tasting nothing, hungering only for more of what Alair was at last imparting and not trusting that any of it was untainted by deceit.
When she’d emptied her plate, she set it aside and turned to Alair. “You were so secretive when I came to you on Starwind Peak,” she said. “Why couldn’t you have told me all this then?”
“You weren’t ready to hear it,” he said, and added, “And I wasn’t ready to tell it. I knew I couldn’t defeat the mindstealers alone, but I don’t find it easy to ask for help. I’ve been alone so long, Kyla, and throughout my childhood my parents impressed on me that my destiny was to finish the work they’d begun and I must not, could not fail. I’ve always imagined that I could accomplish the feat on my own. I see now that, while I can probably enter the mind and destroy it, I cannot survive that destruction without help.”
So they were back to the mindstealers and the terrible way in which he meant to attempt their destruction. Locking her gaze to his, she said, “I know the mindstealers must be stopped. I believe you when you say the only way to do that is to destroy the central mind. But why do you have to become part of it to destroy it?”
“It can only be destroyed from within, and only by someone strong enough to retain a sense of self when incorporated into the central mind. I think I can do that. I can’t ask anyone else to attempt it.”
“Couldn’t you send Claid?”
“I can’t trust him to destroy the mind,” Alair said, keeping his voice very low. “He could use it and the mindstealers to free himself. He doesn’t care what happens to us humans. That’s why he helped you get across Rim Canyon. He knew his use of power would open a breach, but that didn’t bother him. In fact, I’d guess he let it happen, hoping it would distract me enough to allow him to slip free.”
“So you do keep him chained in some way,” she said.
“I have to. I’ve got to rely on Claid to get me out of there—and on you to see that he does it.”
Recalling how stubbornly Claid had resisted healing Alair that morning, Kyla asked, “Suppose I can’t do that?”
“You must.”
“Then tell me the truth about Claid—what he is. I can’t control him unless I know.”
Her gaze followed Alair’s to settle on Claid, on the other side of the fire. Having finished eating, he teased Ruffian with a stick, throwing it for the dog to fetch and chasing him to wrest it away and toss it again. He seemed unaware of her discussion with Alair, but could anyone be sure of anything about Claid?
Marta, too, was watching Claid while she cleaned the dishes and put away the supplies. The girl was far too fascinated by Claid, and he seemed to encourage that fascination. She could be putting Marta into danger by allowing that relationship to develop. Another reason to know exactly what Claid was.
Unable to restrain her impatience, Kyla said, “Alair, you must tell me. Now!”
He nodded, but instead of speaking he hunched over and with his finger drew lines in the black soil. Whether he worked some magic or merely made idle marks while thinking she could not tell. She called on the stoic patience she’d learned from dealing with Matron at the workhouse to wait quietly until at last he spoke.
“My parents taught me as much as they could, but they died when I was young and still exploring the limits of my power. I accomplished much, but I was helpless to protect Noster Valley from the growing menace of the mindstealers. I conferred with other mages and spell casters, sorcerers and sorceresses. There were more of us in those days.”
He paused and stared at the marks his finger had carved into the soil, as though reviewing a long-departed past. He had to be much older than he appeared. His power must prevent him from aging. She was pondering that idea when he resumed.
“In the end, I found my answer in a book.”
Again he paused and marked the ground while she waited. If he’d only hurry!
He continued slowly as if selecting every word. “Long before you were born, Kyla, a mage—one of those who’d lost their powers—loaned me a book that he said contained a marvelous and dangerous secret.”
So he confirmed her suspicion about his age. How long ago had all this been? She bit her lip to keep from asking, not willing to interrupt.
“After much study I unraveled the pattern and learned of a new source of power—abundant power.” Again he indulged in a maddening pause while Kyla dug her nails into her palms to keep from shouting.
Finally, he said, “I learned about Dire Lords.”
“Dire Lords!”
He bent and marked again in the earth, then went on. “To most people the Dire Lords are the immortal lords of confusion, destruction, and death,” Alair said. “Much of what is said of them is superstition. This book revealed that Dire Lords live in another dimension, open to us through a power nexus. It told how some Lords grow evil from feeding on mortal wickedness and greed; others are amoral, having little or nothing to do with humankind, and some few, a very few, are ennobled by
contact with the righteous dead, whom they help on their way through the stations of the afterlife. Most of that I knew, but the book went on to reveal an amazing secret.”
He stopped as Marta approached with a questioning look. Kyla shook her head. Taking the hint, Marta moved on around the fire to where Claid still played with Ruffian. She sat on a blanket, and Claid dropped down beside her. The low murmur of their voices came to Kyla through the fire. She pulled her cloak more tightly about her against the cold. Her eyes smarted from the drifting smoke, though it carried with it the sweet smell of burning pine.
At last Alair spoke again, keeping his voice so low, she had to bend close to hear. “The book showed the way to forge a chain to bind a Dire Lord. It taught how to travel to their realms, imprison one, and draw his power. That is what I did, and that is who Claid is.”
Kyla gasped. “Claid—a Dire Lord? How—? He doesn’t have that much power. He’s not—”
“He is. He does.” Alair spoke the words so softly, she could scarcely hear them.
How could they be true? Claid was clearly more than a mischievous imp, but he was not vicious, not majestic, not—
“I can’t believe it! If Claid is such a powerful being, why did you entrust him to me?”
He did not immediately answer. His eyes tracked a floating ash.
Several minutes passed. Claid and Marta had fallen silent. The night wind rustled in the evergreens. The fire crackled. The mournful hoot of an owl floated past.
The fire had died low, the cold become knife-sharp. He spread his cloak around her, and drew her close against him. She stiffened, but before she could pull away, he whispered into her ear.
“You saw how he failed me when I made the first attempt to add my mind to the mindstealers’ central mind. If you hadn’t come along—” He paused, twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. Finally, he continued. “I might have succeeded in destroying the central mind, but I would have perished, too. I suppose that wouldn’t have mattered. I would have accomplished my life’s goal. But I confess that I love being alive.”
Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1) Page 25