Dhiammara

16 Wyvernesse

Now that the river no longer ran as far as Nexis, the Nightrunners had been forced to resort to other means to smuggle their goods in and out of the city.—Aurian and her companions left that night concealed, along with various artifacts made by Nexian craftsmen, in a row of gaily painted wagons which, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be a traveling carnival. The Mage had to smile at such a fanciful method of moving illicit goods. Zanna’s idea, I’ll be bound, she thought.

Such a thing would never have happened during the rule of the Magefolk—in fact this was the first traveling carnival that Aurian had ever seen, though Forral told her he could remember them from his childhood. Miathan, objecting to the wayfarers’ light-fingered ways and their light-hearted manner that, by their very presence, spread a general air of restlessness and disaffection among the townsfolk, had forbidden them access to Nexis many decades before. They were a good disguise, though. For one thing, there was something very satisfactory in being able to hide in plain sight like this, and for another, respectable folk tended to give the travelers a wide berth. When not parting them from their coin, wayfarers were generally very private folk, defensive and hostile to strangers and outsiders—often with good reason. Also, they had a reputation for being notorious thieves, so people, quite wisely, approached them with wariness, if at all.

“Stop right there!”

Clearly, the caravan of wagons had reached the city boundaries. The Mage, huddled in the hay-scented darkness of her wagon, crossed her fingers as the wagon came to a juddering halt. Now, if we can only get past these accursed guards, she thought. With her ear pressed to the thick planking, she could hear every word of the conversation that was taking place outside.

There was a squeak of leather as the guard walked over to the wagons. “Who’s in charge of this rabble? Identify yourself.”

The second voice was rich and mellifluous—and very, very loud. “I sir, am the Great Mandzurano,” it declaimed. “I am the master of this exceptional troupe.”

Aurian grinned. She had only met the Great Mandzurano briefly, but she had already discovered that he was a former sailmaker’s son from Easthaven, and his name was actually Thalbutt. She had been surprised to discover that many of the jugglers, acrobats, conjurers and trick-riders came from similar backgrounds, lured by the romance of the wandering life.

Outside the wagon, the guard seemed less than impressed with the carnival folk. “Really?” he said in acid tones. “Well, Master Mandzurano, kindly tell your exceptional troupe to get their arses out of those wagons right now.—We’re looking for the thief that robbed Lord Pendral. Get a move on, there!—I’ve a search to conduct, and I don’t have all bloody night.”

“My good man, are you insinuating ...”

“No—I’m telling you. No respectable folk would feel a pressing need to be leaving the city in the middle of the night. You wayfarers are always up to no good, and tonight is no exception, I’ll be bound. Get your rabble out here now—or I’ll arrest the lot of you.”

In the darkness of the wagon, Aurian smiled to herself. Apparently Mandzurano had a particularly aggravating effect on persons in authority. It was good to have something to smile about, she thought ruefully. It was suffocatingly hot and desperately cramped in her hiding place, crammed in as she was in the darkness together with Hargorn and all of her companions, including the little thief she had rescued the previous night. If they managed to get out of the city, however, all the discomfort would be well worthwhile. They would soon find out.

“Come on, you lot. Everybody out!” The guards were walking along the wagons, clouting the wooden sides with their sword hilts. Aurian could hear a ragged chorus of complaints and oaths as the carnival folk hauled themselves reluctantly out of their wagons. Angry accusations and outraged protests marked the progress of the search. As the guards drew gradually nearer to her hiding place, Aurian clenched her fists tightly around the hilt of her sword, unable to bear the agonizing tension of this wait.

The guard had reached her wagon. The Mage could hear his voice directly outside. “And what’s in here, that you’ve got it locked up so tight? Come on, let’s have it open!”

“Please, sir—do not open that door if you value your life,” Mandzurano was protesting. “There are dangerous wild beasts within!”

“Dangerous wild beasts, indeed! Pull the other one, Master. As if some ragged-arsed bunch of traveling vagabonds would have real wild beasts ...”

Within the wagon, Shia and Khanu waited until the man’s hand was actually on the latch. As he began to pull back the bolt, they broke into a deafening cacophony of bloodcurdling roars and snarls.

“Thara’s titties!” shrieked the guard. Even above the row, Aurian heard the bolt go crashing back into its socket. As the wagons moved on again, she buried her face in her sleeve and shook with laughter.

Aurian was wakened by the noon sun in her eyes, shining through the open doorway of a small and gaily striped tent. She felt wonderfully snug and relaxed in her cocoon of blankets, warmed by the two guardian cats who slept on either side of her. In the background she could hear the soothing burble of a stream mingled with a murmur of low voices and the sharp crackle of burning twigs. The glorious piercing song of a skylark rained down like a shower of silver from far above her head. The Mage felt her spirits rise with the sound.—How good it was, to be back in the living world!

A whiff of frying bacon drove her from her blankets, and as Aurian emerged into the open she was struck by the chill of the moorland air. It might be late summer, but there was no warmth at all in these northern uplands, not even in the midday sun. The camping place was in the bottom of a secret dell, formed and sheltered by three swelling green hills, with a stream for water and thickets of bramble, gorse, and whin to provide fuel, swift-burning though it be—enough for a small cookfire, at least. The colorful wagons had been drawn together in a sheltering semicircle near the banks of the stream. The horses, almost as colorful as the wagons, being mainly piebald, skewbald, or spotted, were picketed nearby.

Most of the carnival folk were up and about, moving drowsily from tent to wagon in what was clearly a regular routine, as the striped canvas shelters were struck with the swift ease of long practice. The Mage hid her cold hands in her sleeves and looked around for her companions. Grince was nowhere in sight but Finbarr—or rather, the Wraith that was occupying Finbarr’s body—she spotted immediately, sitting huddled in the lee of a wagon, his cloak wrapped tightly around him. Though its borrowed corporeal shell could be nourished in the normal way, Aurian wondered, with a pang of disquiet, how soon the creature itself would need to feed, now that she had taken it out of time.—Beyond the wagons, Forral was exercising Anvar’s body, sparring with a wiry young carnival lad using wooden staves. Aurian turned away and went to the fire, where Hargorn and the Great Mandzurano were engaged in the homely task of frying bacon.

“Aurian, lovey.” As Hargorn rose to greet her, Aurian noticed how happy he looked to be out of the city, out of retirement, and back to a soldier’s outdoor life again. “Sleep well?” he asked her. “There’s some taillin in the pot there, by the fire’s edge.”

“Thanks, Hargorn.” The Mage poured taillin into a tin mug and cupped her hands around it, appreciating the warmth that leaked into her frozen fingers. “I slept wonderfully well surprisingly well, in fact. I think it was pure relief at getting out of Nexis—the city has turned into an evil place since I was last there.” She shook her head. “I could feel it in the air the whole time: the sense that dreadful things have already happened—and far worse is yet to come.”

Hargorn, his grey hair bound back in the neat tail he had always worn as a warrior, handed her a tin plate laden with bacon fried crisp and a large, soft hunk of bread. “I couldn’t agree more. I didn’t even realize how bad it had become until I left last night. It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off me.” He shook his head. “I’d as soon sell the Unicorn and get right out of the place, but I worry about Hebba. I know she would never leave Nexis again.”

Forral joined them, his face gleaming with a sheen of sweat and his chest heaving. “Out of condition,” he panted.

Aurian put down her plate. “Anvar was a Mage, not a warrior,” she said shortly. “Have a care you don’t do yourself some permanent damage . . .” she swallowed what she had been about to say, but her unspoken words hung in the air between them as though illuminated in letters of fire: because it’s Anvar’s body, and someday he may take it back.

Hargorn broke into the strained silence. “Now then, what do you say to us getting on our way? Now we’re safely out of Nexis, Thalbutt—sorry, Mandzurano—can give us horses and we can travel to Wyvernesse far quicker than the caravan.”

“Sounds good to me.” Aurian scrambled to her feet. “Has anyone seen Grince this morning?”

Hargorn and Aurian finally ran the thief to ground in one of the wagons. His skilled fingers had located the catch for one of the secret compartments that the smugglers used, and he was now prying into a variety of boxes and bales that had been sneaked out of Nexis under the very eyes of the guards.

“Grince!” thundered the Mage. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Grince started violently, then turned around with a broad smile and a carefully studied air of nonchalance. “Just looking.” He shrugged. “My compliments, Master Mandzurano. You wayfarers are very clever folk. Who would have thought that all this could be hidden in an innocent-looking wagon?”

Mandzurano preened himself. “The guards are looking for items pilfered from townsfolk, you see, not contraband. .. .”

Aurian, however, went on looking severely at Grince, until he began to fidget uncomfortably beneath her relentless gaze. “We don’t steal from our friends,” she said.

Grince leapt to his feet. Digging deep in his pockets, he hurled a handful of small items to the wagon’s wooden floor. “I don’t have any friends.” He pushed past her, jumped to the ground, and ran.

Stooping, Aurian sifted through the scattered objets—a pathetic collection of painted trinkets, cheap copper brooches, and carved wooden combs. “There wasn’t even anything of value here.” Looking in the direction Grince had fled, she shook her head sadly.

Hidden from curious eyes among the rolling swells of the northern moorland, the small group of travelers made their way swiftly eastward. For Grince, who had never ridden a horse before, the journey was an experience he could well have done without. There was no time for him to learn horsemanship—all he could do was to cling to the saddle and bump painfully along, while one of the others took his reins and led him as though he were a small child. It was utterly humiliating—but had only his pride been hurt, Grince could have put up with it. The aches and bruises, however, were a far more serious matter.—During the first day he must have fallen off a dozen times at least—and on one unforgettable occasion, the horse tossed him right into a bramble thicket.

“Serves him right,” Hargorn had muttered as the Mage struggled to disentangle the cursing, yelping thief from the mesh of thorny briars. The veteran had still not forgiven Grince for attempting to steal from the smugglers. “Maybe that’ll make up for the thrashing you wouldn’t let me give him, Aurian.”

Nursing his hurts and scratches, Grince glowered at the veteran who was riding up ahead and hauling him along as though towing a cart. The horse didn’t like such treatment either, Grince could tell from its laid-back ears and the direful expression in its rolling eyes. The minute Hargorn lets go of those reins, he thought ruefully, with a sinking sense of the inevitable, this accursed creature will fling me off its back again—and I’ll have even more bruises to add to those it’s given me already.

Much to Grince’s dismay, they rode on well into the night, navigating by the stars and seeing their way by the merest sliver of moonlight. Aurian, with her Mage’s vision, rode ahead to pick out the easiest path. The two cats, who tended to scare the horses if they came too close, flanked the procession well out on either side. The thief was so exhausted that despite his hurts he fell into a half-doze, half-reverie as the miles passed by. His mind went back to earlier that day, when he had run from the smugglers’ camp.

Having more sense than to lose himself in the bleak, trackless wilderness, Grince had followed the course of the stream up between the hills, until all sight and sound of the encampment had vanished. Damn them! He hurled a stone into the stream with all the force he could muster. Why had he left the city with these cold-eyed, hard-faced strangers? He could have dodged that ass Pendral’s guards with both eyes shut and one hand tied behind him! In the end the High Lord would have forgotten . ..

Grince’s thoughts wound down into a small, cold silence, in which he realized all too clearly that Pendral would not forget—not while he had a breath left in his body. All at once, the thief was seized with panic. Gods help me, I can’t go back to Nexis, he thought. I can never go back there—I’ve lost everything! He threw himself to the ground and huddled there, oppressed and terrified by these vast, empty open spaces that stretched out around him.—Without a building or a fireside or a person within dozens of miles. And Grince needed people. Stealing was the only thing he knew. Out here he couldn’t feed himself, shelter himself, or even make a fire.

“Grince? Are you hurt?” A hand touched his shaking shoulder. Looking up, Grince discovered that Aurian had used her friends the great cats to track him down. She squatted down beside him, frowning. “What happened? Did you fall?”

It took a moment for the thief to realize that the look on her face was not condemnation but concern. “What do you care?” he snapped.

“Well, somebody has to,” the Mage retorted, equally brusque. “Clearly you don’t.” She held out her hand. “Are you coming back to the camp? We’re getting ready to leave.”

Grince looked away from her. “They don’t want me.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised, after the way you behaved—but whether they want you or not has nothing to do with it,” Aurian told him briskly. “They certainly wouldn’t leave you alone out here to starve. Anyway,” she went on, “no one is really angry with you, Grince—just disappointed, that’s all.”

“What’s the difference?” the thief muttered sullenly.

“A whole lot of bruises, for a start.” A cold grey spark of anger was beginning to kindle in the Mage’s green eyes, and Grince felt an obscure satisfaction at having put it there. He had been snatched away from everything he had known, he felt lonely and scared, uncertain and helpless in this strange new world, but at least he had managed to influence something in his immediate surroundings.

Then it all went wrong as Aurian got to her feet and began to walk away without a backward look. “We’re leaving soon,” she flung curtly over her shoulder. “You’d better be ready, because we’re not waiting for you, we’re not coming back for you, and Mandzurano certainly won’t let you ride with his folk now that you’ve been pilfering his cargo. To perish of cold and starvation on this moor would be a very unpleasant way to die, but it’s entirely up to you.”

She was almost out of sight before Grince realized, to his horror, that she really meant what she’d said. With a thrill of fear he thought of wandering these desolate uplands all alone. What about when night came? He’d be stuck out here in the cold and darkness. . . . Clearly the wayfarers steered clear of well-traveled trails—no one might pass by this place in months, if ever.—And were there wolves on these moors?

Grince took to his heels and pelted after the vanishing figure of the Mage.

“Wait!” he shrieked. “Lady—wait for me!”

His reception had been cool when he had returned to the camp, but Aurian, without really saying anything much, always seemed to be between himself and the wrath of the others—Hargorn, in particular. It had been she who had selected the quietest of the ponies—the spotted mare—for him to ride, and she had taken pains to see that he was as comfortable as could be expected, for a raw novice. It had also been the Mage who had picked him up and dusted him off every time he took a tumble. And everything she’d done had made Grince feel increasingly guilty.

The feeble moon was dipping down behind the hills, and Grince was feeling the shivery, light-headed weariness that came of still being up and about in the deepest hours of the night. He snatched at the horse’s mane with a curse as Hargorn, in front of him, stopped suddenly and the spotted mare barged into him from behind. Hargorn’s animal let fly with a vicious kick, the mare plunged to one side—and the thief found himself on the ground once more. As Aurian had taught him he rolled to one side, out of range of the pounding hooves, and simply lay there, too miserable and weary to rise.

The Mage materialized out of the darkness and snatched at the mare’s bridle before the beast had time to bolt. “Don’t bother remounting,” she said—rather unnecessarily, Grince thought—“we’re stopping here.”

The thief awakened to a cold, grey world. He was wrapped in a blanket and the cloak that Hargorn had found for him back at the Unicorn, and he was curled up in the midst of a nest of springy bracken. Dimly, he remembered his bitter resentment the previous night, when Aurian had made him gather the stuff. He could see the sense of it now, however—it was bed and windbreak both, and far preferable to lying on the short, unyielding turf of a windswept hillside.—The thief rubbed bleary eyes and got to his feet—at least he tried to rise. To his horror, he found he was so stiff that he could barely move, and he ached as though someone had sneaked up in the night and beaten him with a stout stick while he slept. Too wretched and dispirited even to curse, Grince flopped back into the bracken with a despairing whimper.

“What’s wrong with you? Come on—you can’t laze around all day. We’ve got to get moving soon.”

The thief looked up to see Hargorn standing over him. Glaring up at the elderly warrior, Grince told him in acid tones exactly where he could go, and what he could do when he got there.

Hargorn burst into mocking laughter. “Why don’t you make me?” he taunted. “You gutless, ball-less little turd.”

With a yell of rage, Grince leapt to his feet, fists clenched—to find that Hargorn was already standing several feet away. The veteran held up his hands placatingly. “Steady, Grince—I didn’t mean it. See, though—I knew you could get up if you tried. Instead of killing me, why don’t you go and get yourself some breakfast, lad.” He walked away chuckling.

“Poor old Grince, you look terrible.”

In his rage at Hargorn, he hadn’t noticed the Mage approach. “Here,” she said, “sit down for a minute and I’ll help you.”

“I daren’t sit down—if I do I might never get back up again,” Grince told her sourly. Nonetheless, he did as she asked. Aurian knelt down behind him and laid her hands on his shoulders, and immediately, the thief felt a tingling wave of warmth and well-being flood through his battered body. Within moments, it seemed, the aches and stiffness had melted away as though they had never existed.

“There.” The Mage was smiling. “That should get you through the day. No doubt you’ll have collected another set of aches and pains by tonight, but I can always help you again—and it will get better, I promise you. Why, in a few days you’ll be thinking you were born in the saddle.”

“Why—why thank you, Lady.” For the first time in his life, the words came easily to Grince’s lips.

Aurian laid a hand on his arm. “You told me yesterday that you have no friends. Well, you were wrong about that. You have friends here, and I’m sure you’ll find others when we get to Wyvernesse. But friendship works both ways, you know. You must trust folk, and they must be able to feel they can trust you. You won’t need to steal from the Nightrunners. They’re generous folk, and they’ll provide what you need.”

She rose to her feet, dusting bits of grass from her knees. “You think about it. Anyway, there’s taillin in the pot and some bread by the fire. Eat quickly—Forral is getting the horses ready now, and we must be on our way again.” She walked away toward the horses, leaving a very thoughtful thief behind her.

The Mage and her companions rode eastward for another three days, across the bleak and windswept moors. At last the land began to dip, and sunrise on the fourth day found them in a wild, primitive stretch of salt marsh and dune where a river had carved a shallow vale on its way down to an estuary. The land was grey and drear, the only vegetation sharp-edged marram grass and thorny sea-holly. The shrill, lonely cries of gulls and wading birds sounded on the bitter wind, as the red sun struggled vainly to free itself from the blood-tinged clouds smothering the hills to the east.

The Mage turned her horse northward along the coast and the others followed her in a straggling, weary string. Aurian chafed at their slow pace, anxious to get back on the trail of her foe. She was almost certain that Eliseth must have gone south, across the ocean, for scrying had failed to find a trace of her. At Wyvernesse, where the vast Earth-magic of the mysterious standing stone might be harnessed, she hoped to find out more. The Mage remembered the stone from her previous sojourn with the Nightrunners, but at that point, she’d had neither the time nor the need to examine it more closely. She had never forgotten it, but had stored its existence in her memory for the future.—As the companions rode northward, the coastline gradually grew more rocky, until at last they were riding along the top of a craggy cliff, looking down upon narrow beaches of shingle guarded by fanged and jagged rocks. Then, breasting one last rise, Aurian suddenly found herself in sight of her destination. There was the crescent bay, embraced by the reddish cliffs that rose behind it. And there, above the cliffs, was the smooth green knoll, crowned by its dark and sinister stone.

Even from this distance, Aurian could feel the stone’s power beating around her like dark, gigantic wings. She inhaled deeply and threw back her hood, letting the fierce exhilaration course through her body and taking it for her own. At her side, she felt the Staff of Earth begin to pulse in time with this other source of power, and at her back the Harp began to thrum in harmony with them both. Soon, she promised them. We’ll come back soon. Then she turned away from the glory and took her tired horse along the clifftop, toward the smuggler’s haven.

After a short distance the Mage came to a V-shaped niche in the cliff. Looking down, Aurian could see the beginnings of a path in the crevice—a narrow ledge that followed a fault line where the slabs of rock had slipped. It doubled sharply back the way they had come. Forral, who had never been here before, looked at it dubiously. “We have to take the horses down there?”

Aurian shook her head. “No, thank goodness. There’s a tunnel somewhere around here that they use to take their horses down when the weather’s bad. The only trouble is, it’s very well hidden, and I’m not sure I could find it again....”

Hargorn rode up, dragging Grince’s horse behind him. “If I remember rightly,” he said, “it’s in one of those gorse thickets, over there.”

The horses, who had been here before, delivering contraband goods to the Nightrunners, also seemed familiar with the way. They pressed forward eagerly, knowing there was food and a well-earned rest nearby. But when the companions reached the thicket of tall, leggy gorse, there seemed to be no way in. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Aurian was asking dubiously, when a voice that seemingly came from nowhere, cried, “Hargorn! By all the Gods—what are you doing here?”

One of the bushes was pushed outward, supported at the back by a wooden frame, and revealed a narrow, thorn-fringed passage that sloped down into the ground.—From its entrance a lithely built young man with tow-colored hair stepped into the open. He gasped in astonishment as his eyes fell on the Mage. “Lady Aurian! It is you! At last you’ve come back to us!” His face lit up with the broadest of smiles. “And Anvar too,” he went on joyously. “How lucky that I was keeping watch today, dull task though it usually is. Come, come.” He gestured them inside. “Zanna will be so glad to see you! I can’t wait to surprise her.”

The Mage leapt down from her horse and embraced Tarnal with delight, then followed him down into the steeply sloping tunnel, the others close upon her heels. They left their weary mounts in the stable cavern, where a young Night-runner lad came up to care for them. Aurian glanced back as they left the cavern to see the youth staring with wide-eyed curiosity after them; wondering, no doubt, who these strange visitors might be.

The huge torchlit cavern with its shingle beach was astir with people, all going busily about their daily business, mending fishnets and sails, performing essential repairs on the anchored smuggler vessels, and transporting bales and crates ashore from one of the ships and taking them into the storage caverns whose tunnel mouths spotted the rear of the massive cave. Tarnal stopped a little girl, who was running along with the serious mien of someone on an important errand. “Can you fetch Zanna . . . ?” he began, but the child interrupted him.

“She’s just over there.”

Zanna was dressed identically to her Nightrunners, in supple, waterproofed boots and sturdy seaman’s clothing. She was bending over one of the bales that had burst open, seemingly during transit, and shaking her head. “No, there’s water damage here, sure enough. This fabric will be stained for good. By all that’s holy, Gevan—can’t you be more careful? The whole bale’s lost. We can’t trade this—we’ll have to use it ourselves for—” At that moment she looked up and saw the Mage. “Aurian!”

For the first time, Aurian became truly aware of how many years had passed during her absence. Zanna was a woman now: capable, confident, and very much in command. She had cropped her hair short and her skin was brown and weathered by sea and wind. Yet many of the fine lines had been penciled on her face by laughter, and there was wit and wisdom in her eyes. Joyfully, the two women embraced, then, as if conscious of the palpable curiosity emanating from the folk around them, Zanna swung around to face the interested throng. “Now, you lot—no need to stand there gawking. You’ll meet our visitors in good time.—If anyone has no work to do, I can soon find them some,” she added ominously.—The crowd melted away as if by magic.

Aurian chuckled. “I recognize Dulsina in those words,” she teased.

A fleeting shadow dimmed Zanna’s smile for an instant, and was gone almost before the Mage could notice it was there. The Nightrunner woman shrugged. “If a ploy works, why not steal it?” She turned to the others. “It’s wonderful to see you, Anvar, Hargorn ...” Her words tailed off as she looked doubtfully at Grince, and the silent, shrouded form of Finbarr.

“Let’s go somewhere private,” Aurian suggested in a low voice. “We have a tremendous lot to tell you and Tarnal.”

Zanna nodded. “I can well imagine. Besides, you must see Dulsina—I’d better let her know we have visitors, or we’ll hear about it. Yanis is away at sea at present, but we’re expecting him back in a day or two. ...” As she spoke, she was leading Aurian and the others up the beach and into one of the tunnels, which Aurian recognized as leading to the cozy cavern with the wide fireplace that the Nightrunners used as a general common room and meeting hall. Zanna paused with her hand on the doorframe. “By the way, I have a surprise for you.—Another visitor arrived here a few weeks ago.” She opened the door and stood back to let the Mage pass first.

Aurian stopped short on the threshold, utterly thunderstruck. There, sitting alone by the fire, was one of the Winged Folk.