Dhiammara

19 The Sunrise Hawk

Finally, Forral abandoned the idea of ever getting to sleep that night. With a bitter sigh he got out of his lonely bed, lit the lamp, and poured himself a cup of wine. It had been a long, long night. Though these underground caverns tended to baffle his instinctive sense of time, he was sure it must be nearing dawn by now. Pulling a blanket around his shoulders, the swordsman drew his chair close to the stove in the corner and stuffed a log from the basket into its maw, huddling over the embers until the fresh wood had time to catch.—Cradling the cup in his hands, he sipped abstractedly at the drink and struggled with his disappointment. He told himself that he’d been a colossal fool to count on Aurian joining him tonight, but when something meant so much to a man, how could he help but hope?

With a sigh, Forral poured another cup of wine. Though Aurian had told him why she was reluctant to let him come any closer to her, it was difficult for the swordsman to understand. She’d said that it was hard for her to adjust to the mind and personality of one love within the outward form of the other, but considering what they had been to one another, surely she ought to have welcomed him with open arms? Forral, who was finding it easier and easier to forget that he was not occupying his own true form, was hurt and frustrated by her attitude.

“You’ve only been back a few days,” he told himself. “Give the poor lass time—she’ll come around. . . .” But would she? Well did he remember Aurian’s stubbornness of old! No, even if it was the middle of the night, it would probably be better for them to have the whole business out, right here and now where they were safe and private. With sudden decision, he drained the cup, and went off in search of the Mage.

Her room was empty, save for one of the great cats, who was curled up asleep, occupying the whole of the neatly made bed. It lifted its head as he opened the door, and opened one lazy eye, yawning to show a truly fearsome collection of sharp and gleaming fangs. Though Forral was fairly sure it wouldn’t hurt him, he backed out hastily nonetheless. Aurian was a fool to trust these dangerous wild animals as she did, and the swordsman had too much sense to follow her example and take risks with beasts of such vast size and power.—A quick search of the kitchen and community caverns told Forral all he needed to know. He raced to the door of Zanna’s quarters and began to hammer on it loudly. After a few moments Tarnal answered, barefoot and clad only in breeches, his brown eyes glinting with fire. “What the bloody blazes is going on, man? Have you been drinking? You’ve wakened the children!”

“Where’s Aurian?” the swordsman demanded. “Where has she gone?”

“How should I know?” the smuggler demanded irritably. “In bed if she’s got any sense—where we all should be... .”

But over Tarnal’s shoulder, Forral caught a glimpse of Zanna, in her nightgown and with a shawl around her shoulders, peering tentatively from behind the curtain that led to the sleeping quarters. With an oath, he shouldered his way past the young smuggler and wrenched the curtain aside to confront the Nightrunner woman. “Where is she, Zanna? Curse you, woman, tell me!”

Even in his new body Forral was very much the bigger and stronger of the pair, but Zanna stood her ground. “Aurian asked me to see her past the sentries. She told me not to tell anyone where she went—and I promised,” she said firmly.

“Now look here Anvar, or Forral or whoever you are.” Tarnal put himself between the pair, his voice low with anger. “How dare you come barging in here in the middle of the night, threatening my wife? Get out of here right now, or I’ll put you out.”

The old brawny Forral would have laughed at such a threat, but Tarnal, though wiry, was strong and fit from hauling on rope and oar, and the swordsman wasn’t entirely confident of his ability to handle his new body if it came to a fight. Besides, looking at it through the eyes of the two smugglers, his anxiety about the Mage had made him act like an ill-mannered lout.... Backing up a step, Forral held out a hand in apology. “I’m sorry Zanna, Tarnal. But Aurian’s bed hasn’t been slept in, and if she’s been away all night she may have got herself into some kind of trouble. I only want to assure myself that she’s in no danger.”

He managed to summon a smile. “Come on Zanna,” he coaxed. “Think how you’d feel if Tarnal had vanished who-knows-where. Wouldn’t you be worried? And if she’s been gone all night, then surely I’m far too late to interfere with whatever she had planned? It wouldn’t do any harm to tell me now, would it?”

“I have to admit, Zanna, that Forral has a point,” Tarnal put in. “Aurian has been away for hours now. If she has managed to get herself into danger, I wouldn’t like to think we just stood by and did nothing.”

Zanna frowned thoughtfully. “Very well,” she said at last. “You’re right—I don’t see what harm it could do now. Aurian went to the hallow.”

“What?” Tarnal shouted. “And you let her?”

“The standing stone?” Forral asked in puzzlement. “What’s the significance of that?”

“Aurian said it was a matter of great urgency. She knows what she’s doing,”

Zanna insisted, answering her husband. “She can take care of herself—and besides, Shia went along to guard her.”

“What is this about the stone?” Forral bellowed. “Someone tell me what’s going on!”

“It’s magic. It’s dangerous. We don’t go near it,” Tarnal said tersely, struggling into a tunic and belting on his sword. “Zanna, you must have lost your mind letting her go up there. Come on, Forral—we’d better go and find her.”

“I’m coming too.”

Forral and Tarnal spun to see Grince standing in the doorway. “How long have you been there?” the swordsman demanded.

“You woke me with all that yelling.” The thief looked at Forral gravely. “The Lady Aurian was kind to me. If she’s in some kind or danger, then I want to help.”

Forral shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He strode off down the passage, leaving the others to follow as they might.

Although Forral did not count himself a cowardly man, he was unable to suppress a shudder of awe as he set foot on the sloping turf of the hallow.—Last night’s wind had dropped and the sky was pale with cold, predawn light.—The flat sea below him was the color of iron and lost dreams. On the hill above, he could see the top of the tall stone, towering black and sinister against the dreary sky. There was no sign of Aurian.

“She must be at the top,” Tarnal muttered, as though he had read the swordsman’s mind. “We wouldn’t see her from here.”

“No, but she would see us,” Forral replied doubtfully. “Which must mean either that she’s hiding something from us, or she’s hurt in some way, and can’t call out.” Without another word, he set off quickly up the slope.

A finger of blood-red light touched the top of the standing stone as the rim of the sun reared itself above the horizon. A hawk swooped low over the swordsman’s head and hovered over the top of the stone, hunting the small creatures of the dunes. Forral was unconcerned with such details. As he reached the brow of the hill and came in sight of the summit, he encountered a sight to chill his blood. Aurian’s body lay on the ground beside the stone, composed as if for burial with her hands clasping the Staff of Earth at her breast. The great cat was standing over her, guarding her seemingly lifeless form.

The swordsman acted without thinking. With no sight for anything but the Mage, and no thought of her guardian, he ran toward Aurian, calling her name. Shia’s head came round. She left the Mage and stalked, stiff-legged, toward him, snarling menacingly. Swearing, Forral slowed his pace and drew his sword. The cat circled warily, her blazing, baleful eyes never leaving his face. Tarnal tried to creep past her while her attention was fixed on the swordsman, but the cat sprang toward him with a growl, forcing him into a swift retreat. The thief had vanished—the little rat probably ran away, Forral thought. While Shia was distracted, Forral had managed to get a few steps closer to the Mage.—She darted back toward him, trying to watch the two men at once.

“Stay away from her!”

“What?” Forral shook his head. Where had that voice come from? It sounded nothing like Tarnal. Had he imagined it?

“Stay back, human! If you disturb her body while she walks Between the Worlds, Aurian may die!”

Glancing past the threatening cat, Forral saw the thief creeping out from behind the great stone. While the others were preoccupied, he had worked his way around the back of the hill and crept up behind Shia. He reached Aurian, knelt over her still form, and took her hand. His voice came clearly to the swordsman in the stillness of the dawn:

“Come back, Lady! Don’t leave us now—come back, please.”

Then everything seemed to happen at once. With a savage snarl, Shia sprang at the thief, knocking him away from the Mage and bowling him over on the grass.—Dark clouds came boiling across the sky on an icy wind from the north, and gathered in a dark, coiling mass, the color of a bruise, right above the stone. The air turned icy cold, and stinging flurries of hail and sleet blew across the exposed hilltop. With an ominous rumble, the monolith stirred and shifted, rocking back and forth on its base. The Mage’s body gave a convulsive heave, and a great breath sucked into her lungs with a ghastly wheezing sound.—Her eyes, huge with panic, shot open, and her staff rolled away as she tried to rise, grasping frantically at the air with empty hands. The hawk that had hovered above the hill came plummeting down from the sky as though shot, and thudded to the turf close to Aurian’s outstretched hand.

The Mage scrambled to her hands and knees, and snatched up the Staff. “Run!” she screamed at the top of her voice. Grince scrambled up, took one look at her face, and obeyed. Reacting to her urgency, Forral, no longer hindered by the cat, grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, and together they fled down the hill, Shia flanking them and Tarnal and Grince running ahead of them down the slope, their feet slipping on the wet and frozen turf.

Suddenly Aurian turned her head, as though reacting to some call that only she could hear. With a stifled cry she dragged her arm free of Forral’s grasp and ran back up the hill.

“What the ... Come back, you idiot!” The swordsman spun on his heel and hared back up the slope in pursuit. Aurian ran to the stunned bird and scooped it up, then came racing back the way she had come.

Lightning sheared down from the crown of tenebrous cloud and struck the monolith with deadly accuracy. With a tearing crack like a thunderclap, the great stone split asunder and a massive explosion ripped the top off the hill.—The distant deathsong of the Phaerie was like the whine of a sword blade splitting the air. The fierce, wild cries of their silver horns were like the raw breath of winter on the wind. Vannor, in his sleep, turned restlessly and dreamed of the Valley, and the Lady Eilin with a glowing sword clasped in her hand. Then he awakened, bolting up from his blankets with a hoarse cry of dismay. The horns and cries were louder now. This was no dream—the attack on Hellorin’s city must have failed, and the Phaerie had come to Nexis to extract their vengeance.

Pulling on whatever garments came to hand, Vannor ran to the window. Already the Wild Hunt could be seen as streaks of glittering light arcing down through the sky like shooting stars. In the city, the brassy calls of horns arose to combat the sounds from the sky, while the great forewarning bell of the Garrison had begun to ring, alerting the Nexians to their peril as it had done in times of danger throughout all the centuries since the Cataclysm itself.—Much nearer than these sounds came a tumult of voices from downstairs, where Vannor’s household staff were beginning to panic. Through the window he could see manservants and housemaids running out into the garden to witness the spectacle, as they mingled in terrified knots with the gardeners and grooms.—Vannor threw the window open with a bang. “Get inside,” he bellowed. “Get into the house, you fools—and stay there.” Snatching up his sword, he ran downstairs. For the first time since her angry departure he was glad that Dulsina had left him. At least in the secret caverns of the Nightrunners she would be safe.

As Vannor watched from the vantage of his hilltop mansion, the Phaerie came down on the city like a firestorm, their shimmering robes shedding drifts of sparks that swirled in the air behind them. The exultant horns had taken on a deeper, more menacing note. Spars of light leapt from the top of the Mages’

Tower as the immortals rode past on their great horses, the luminescence spreading rapidly down the curving sides of the building and throughout the Academy complex, outlining in scintillating starlight the splintered shell of the weather dome and the rococo ornamentation of the great library. Similar patches of glimmer were springing up and spreading rapidly throughout the city, wherever the Phaerie touched down.

For the space of a few heartbeats it was a vision of breathtaking beauty. Then harsh angry light dispelled the dreamlike radiance as hungry flames leapt up in a dozen places, and the shrilling of the horns was drowned by screams.—Then Vannor was running, running through the burning streets, seeing a man cut in half by a Phaerie sword, his guts spilling out across the cobbles ... A little girl clutching a rag doll and weeping over the body of her mother ... A young lad running from a burning house, engulfed in a ball of flame. A woman shrieking as her children were snatched away from her and borne aloft, screaming, by a Phaerie woman with burning sapphire eyes ... The victims all had their eyes fixed on the High Lord of Nexis; accusing, condemning ... Scenes of torture, torment, and slaughter were repeated over and over again before Vannor’s eyes, while Phaerie stalked everywhere, cold-eyed and terrible, veiled in the coruscating glamourie of their magic ...

“Vannor is trapped within his own mind,” D’arvan muttered. “He’s a prisoner of his guilt, unable to face the slaughter he caused.” His eyes flashed with anger as he looked at his father. “Judging from some of the outrages I’ve found in his memory, he’d be better off placing the blame where it truly lies.—How could you revel in such atrocities?”

“They’re only Mortals,” Hellorin said mildly. “After the endless misery of their long imprisonment, would you begrudge my folk a little sport?”

D’arvan sighed and kept his thoughts to himself. Right now, his father’s goodwill was all-important. It would serve no purpose to start a quarrel.—Hellorin, he knew, would never change; he was too accustomed to seeing the Mortals as nothing more than low, brute creatures, fit only to be slaves—or quarry.

“It won’t be easy to release Vannor,” he said instead. “His mind is locked into a cycle that relives the horrors of that night over and over again. I’m sorry, but I can’t find any clue as to why he mounted his attack on you—he seems as genuinely baffled by his own actions as the rest of us.” D’arvan turned away from Hellorin so that his father would not see the depth of his dismay. In Vannor’s memory there had been horror unending, and it had shaken him badly. The last thing he wanted was to go back into the mind of the tormented man and experience it all again. “I wish Aurian were here. She would know what to do—she’s been properly trained in the skills of healing.”

“There is no reason why you should not succeed.” There was an edge of impatience in Hellorin’s voice. “And if you do not—well, the world will keep on turning. One Mortal more or less will make no difference.”

“Except to Vannor,” D’arvan said firmly. “My Lord, surely there’s no need to pursue this further? I’ve searched all that I can access of Vannor’s mind and memory—no matter how much you wish it, I can’t find any reason for his attack on the city. Let him go, I beg you. He is no further use to you here. Let me take him to Aurian—it may well be that she can help him where I have failed.”

“No. Try again, D’arvan,” the Forest Lord insisted.

Vannor lay in the tower chamber that had been given to D’arvan, on the same low couch from which, three days earlier, Maya had produced her audacious plan. The Mage sighed. Unfortunately, Hellorin had liked her idea all too well—he was anxious both to extend his bloodline and obtain his son’s help in ruling the Mortal race, and for this he was willing to forfeit a slave or two, or even make the greater sacrifice of releasing the two Xandim.

Putting off the evil moment when he must enter Vannor’s mind once more, D’arvan turned away from the stricken Mortal and went to look out of his window at the spectacular city—a dazzling blend of Phaerie magic and Mortal labor—on the lower slopes of the hill. Over the past few days, events had moved with dizzying speed. Over the years of their long exile, the Phaerie Healers had become expert in the manipulation of Mortal fertility, for the Forest Folk themselves had been unable to reproduce with their own kind, thanks to a cruel twist of the Magefolk spell that bound them. Already, Maya was carrying the tiny mote of life that would one day become their child. At his insistence she had been moved into the comfort of D’arvan’s chambers, away from the slave quarters and their ruthless guards. Parric, still bristling with hostility toward the Mage, had been perforce left down in the caverns until it was time to leave, and now there was only one task remaining—the reconstruction of Vannor’s mind—before Hellorin gave them his permission to depart.

D’arvan, in the meantime, was being torn in two by the cruel turn events had taken. On the one hand he was anxious to obtain the release of Parric, Vannor, and the two Xandim, and go to the assistance of Aurian, who had a right to expect his aid. On the other, he was desperate to remain with Maya, especially now that she was expecting his child. She was the one with all the courage.—She insisted that Aurian needed him, that she herself would be fine during his absence, yet he dreaded leaving her behind, unable to escape with Hellorin’s sorcerous chain around her neck, and at the mercy of his father’s capricious whims. What would become of her if he perished at the hands of Eliseth? And if he should return—what then? He had given his word to his father that he would conquer and rule the city of Nexis, as Hellorin wanted.

“Are you just going to stand there all night?” Hellorin barked, dissolving D’arvan’s troubled reverie. “I thought you were in desperate haste to abandon us and return to your friend the Mage.”

D’arvan frowned at the rancor in his father’s tone. “I am also a Mage—or do you choose to forget that? And am I not proof that you don’t detest all Magefolk? I fail to understand why you, of all people, would persist in continuing this ancient enmity. None of the Mages living now had anything to do with the imprisonment of the Phaerie.” He met his father’s eyes, glad of a chance to revenge himself a little on the Forest Lord. “Or can it be, my Lord, that your grievance is not with all of the Magefolk, but only with Lady Eilin, Aurian’s mother?”

“Do not mention that woman’s name to me!”

“According to what I hear from Parric, she seems less than impressed with you, also,” D’arvan retorted dryly. “Now, my father,” he went on with a malicious smile. “Shall we resume our work with the Mortal?”

“Do as you please. You may report to me when—and if—you succeed.” Glowering thundrously, Hellorin stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

D’arvan stood a moment longer, relishing his small victory. He triumphed over his powerful father so seldom that these rare moments were worth savoring.—Maya emerged from the bedchamber, stretching and rubbing sleepy eyes. The changes the Phaerie healers had made in her body would balance themselves out as her pregnancy progressed, but for now their magical intervention had left her tired, and a little more fragile than her normal, robust self.

“What was wrong with Hellorin?” she asked. “Did I hear the sounds of a royal tantrum?”

The Mage shrugged. “I committed the heinous offense of mentioning the Lady Eilin. On that particular subject his temper is so short it’s almost nonexistent.”

“He only has himself to blame, as far as I can see.” Maya perched herself on the edge of the table, swinging her legs. She was dressed now in rich, silken Phaerie robes that had been altered by Mortal seamstresses to suit her smaller stature. The glowing, jeweled colors suited her dark, delicate beauty, but could not hide the glint of the abominable slave chain around her neck. In that moment, D’arvan was overcome by the depths of his love for her. He put his arms around, her, resting his cheek against her silken, scented hair.

“I’ll make this up to you,” he promised. “When I get you out of here and we return to Nexis, that accursed chain will come off, and you’ll be a Queen.”

“When we return to Nexis,” Maya answered soberly, “I’ll be a traitor.”