Dhiammara

8 The Wild Hunt

Aurian stood shivering in the deserted courtyard, alone—save for the ghosts.—In the pallid moonlight, the buildings of the Academy took on the ivory gleam of old bone. The void black apertures of its doors and windows held a travesty of remembered life, like the vacant features of a skull that contained a half-familiar echo of loved features now decayed to dust; the abandoned receptacle for a consciousness that had long since fled.

A thin, cold wind sniveled and whined among the abandoned buildings, stirring shadowy movements in dark corners and tainting the air with whispered ghostly voices. Miathan and Eliseth, the arch-plotters; Davorshan and the Fire-Mage Bragar, whose ambitions had exceeded their abilities; the Healer Meiriel, lost in her insanity, who had fallen to Aurian’s sword in a faraway land ... All were here tonight, thronging the shadows, awaiting their revenge upon the one Mage who had dared oppose them ...

“Balls!” Aurian snorted. “Ghosts, indeed,”

Taking a firm hold on her runaway imagination, she put her shoulder to the door of the Mages’ Tower and thrust her way inside.

Once around the first curve, the pitch-black stairwell presented a challenge even to her Mage’s sight. Raising her hand, Aurian called a ball of sizzling blue Magelight to hover above her head. The shallow marble steps spiraled upward before her, slick with a film of icy condensation. Shadows from the sphere of cold fire leapt and lurched across the weather-stained walls and web-hung ceiling, causing flickers of movement at the edges of her vision that froze her in her tracks and sent her whirling, hand on the Staff of Earth, to face a nonexistent threat.

“Don’t be a bloody fool,” Aurian told herself disgustedly. “There’s no point in going on, if you’re seeing ghosts in every shadow.” The only trouble was, she knew perfectly well that ghosts could—and did—exist.

Gritting her teeth, the Mage continued up the staircase. The twins’ chambers, Bragar’s rooms, Eliseth’s suite—room after room she found abandoned and empty, all trace of its former occupant erased. Unease pricked her, an icy finger drawn up her backbone. Surely this could not be right? Even if the Academy had been abandoned, and all the Magefolk were dead, the moldering remnants of their furnishings and belongings should still be here!

When she reached the familiar door to her own quarters, Aurian hesitated, reluctant to discover what lay within. These rooms had been her home for so many happy years—they held precious memories of Forral, and Anvar, and dear Finbarr, her friend the Archivist who had perished to save her life on the Night of the Wraiths. Ridiculously, she felt that to see her chambers vacant and abandoned would wipe away so much of her former existence....

“Ridiculous is right,” Aurian told herself firmly. Possessions, after all, were not so important, and nothing—nothing—could erase the memories of people she had loved so well. Nonetheless, it hurt to enter those bleak, dank, echoing rooms. What had happened, she wondered, to the moss-green carpets and drapes; to her cozy bed with the heavy, brocaded hangings that could be pulled close against the night to create a secluded haven for the joy that she and Forral snared? What had become of the bright clothes the swordsman had persuaded her to buy as they wandered the booths of the Grand Arcade? What had happened to her summoning and scrying crystals, to her irreplaceable collection of books and scrolls, and to Anvar’s precious guitar that had been her gift on that happy Solstice he had spent with Forral and herself? A wave of unbearable loneliness and longing swept over her, so intense that it almost sent her to her knees. Where were they now, the two that she had loved above life itself? Forral dead, and Anvar—where? Where? Aurian shivered, and fled the sad, abandoned chambers, her Magelight hovering above her, always one step ahead of her hurrying feet.

Up, then—and up once more, round another curve of the staircase. Only one set of rooms left to search. Despite her determination, Aurian’s feet began to slow of their own accord. If she had hesitated to enter her own chambers, how much more now did she fear to trespass within Miathan’s domain? The last time she had set foot in the Archmage’s lair, she had felt the menace of the dreaded Death-Wraiths, and seen her beloved Forral slain by the deadly creatures called up through the profane, perverted use of the Grail of Rebirth. As she approached the door, memories came swarming unbidden into her mind, just as those hideous, malevolent abominations of Miathan’s summoning had thronged the chamber where her love lay slain. Dread froze her, shaking in every limb, on the topmost landing of the staircase.

It took more courage than Aurian had known she possessed to open that door, but in her heart she was certain that she must. Knowing that if she hesitated another instant she would never find the strength to do it, she lifted her hand to the latch, every sense alert for the betraying signs of a magical trap, or a wardspell. There was nothing—and that in itself was enough to put the Mage upon her guard. Were he alive or dead, it would be most unlike Miathan to leave his private chambers open to the prying of any stray wanderer—let alone another Mage. And if he hod done so, there was sure to be a reason.

Cautiously, Aurian took the serpent-carved Staff of Earth from her belt and, reversing it, used the heel to push the door ajar. Out of the darkness beyond rushed a fetid reek of carrion. The Mage took a hasty step backward, choking and retching, slipping off the topmost step and only just saving herself from a fall with a frantic clutch at the handrail.

“Seven bloody demons!” Thick darkness surrounded her—her light had gone out when she fell. Beyond the sound of her own, involuntary exclamation, nothing stirred. The silence lay heavy, dead, and thick as the noxious, cloying stench that clogged the air. Yet in Aurian’s mind, a familiar sound began to grow—the snarling, rasping hum of raw magical power. In her hand, the Staff or Earth began to vibrate in response, and glow with emerald light as it answered its counterpart. The Mage’s heart beat fast. The Sword! The Sword of Flame was within! Clinging tightly to the smooth wooden rail, Aurian pulled herself upright, ignoring the throb of bruised ankle and shin and a nagging ache in her left arm, which had briefly supported all her weight. Blotting her watering eyes on her sleeve, she cast another ball of Magelight—as bright as she could manage—and transferred the Staff from her right hand to her left.—Drawing her sword, the Mage crept cautiously into Miathan’s lair—and halted, transfixed with horror and despair.

The Magelight blazed up, highlighting every stark, inescapable detail of the ghastly sight that met her eyes. Aurian took in the entire scene in one single, frozen moment of horror. The floor, the walls—even the ceiling of the chamber—were spattered with blood. A headless corpse was spread-eagled, limbs askew, before the fire, pierced through the heart and pinned to the floor by the Sword of Flame, which was glowing all along its length with a blinding crimson blaze. And set upright upon the hilt of the Sword, the severed neck impaled upon the grip to rest on the crossguard, was the head of Anvar.—A cry of grief wrenched itself free from Aurian’s soul—yet no sound escaped her lips. She could not bear to look, yet she could not look away. Her lover’s face was twisted in a rictus of agony, yet her gaze traced every beloved feature. Then—her heartbeat stumbled, faltered, and began to race as the eyes of the corpse slowly opened, weeping blood, and turned to fix her with a glazed and sightless stare. The Mage’s grasp grew white-knuckle tight around the Staff of Earth, as the grey lips parted. Anvar’s corpse began to speak—but it was not his voice that issued forth, but the strident, mocking tones of Eliseth.

“You should thank me, Aurian—I’ve done you a favor. I have performed the very sacrifice that you were too feebleminded and faint of heart to make yourself.—And here is the Sword of Flame, ready and waiting, marked and bonded to you with the blood of your beloved. It only waits for you to stretch out your hand and claim it; then victory will be yours, and the power to rule the entire world. Go on—take it. Take it if you dare. Pick up the Sword, and take the world into your hand—if you can pass my Guardians!”

Beyond Anvar, beyond the reach of the fading Magelight, there was a stir of movement. From the mouth of Anvar’s corpse, from the dead and staring eyes, strands of dark vapor began to pour, coalescing and growing and forming into a legion of vast and shifting shapes with malevolent gargoyle faces that pulsed and flickered, ever-changing, in a swirling vortex of cold evil. Eliseth had summoned the Nihilim. The Death-Wraiths had returned to claim Aurian’s life, as they had claimed the life of Forral.

Someone was screaming. After a moment, Aurian realized that it was herself.—Wrenching herself free at last from the macabre spell of Anvar’s mutilated corpse, she turned and fled headlong down the tower stairs, pursued by the sound of Eliseth’s laughter—and the Death-Wraiths at her heels.

Sobbing, gasping for breath, the Mage burst out of the tower door and into the courtyard—and swung round, at the sound of another voice.

“Aurian? Aurian!” Faint and ghostly, it seemed to be calling from the library, which lay across the courtyard to her left—and that was only natural, after all, for it was Finbarr who was calling her. Finbarr, who had saved her once before. Without a thought, Aurian turned and ran toward the sound—through the great portal, through the echoing, empty library, and through the scrolled iron door at the far end, that led into the archives. The branching catacombs rang to the sound of her running footsteps as the Mage fled downward, still following the thread of Finbarr’s faint, elusive call, constantly aware of the pursuing Wraiths that thronged ever closer behind her.

“Aurian ...” The voice was coming from her left now, from a dark, narrow, musty passage that Aurian had no recollection of ever seeing before. Though she didn’t like the look of it, there was no time for hesitation—the Nihilim were right on her heels. Sending her faltering Magelight before her, Aurian plunged desperately into the dark maw of the tunnel—and ran right into the arms of Miathan.

“I knew you would return to me at last!” The dead gems of the Archmage’s eyes were alight with a gleam of triumph. Though her mind screamed out in protest, Aurian’s body was limp in his grasp, her will rendered powerless by the hypnotic glitter of those dreadful eyes. Miathan plucked the Staff of Earth from her feeble grasp. His gaunt and haggard face was scant inches away from her own, his noisome breath like the air from an opened tomb. Gathering every scrap of her will, Aurian spat into his face. It was all that she could do. Cold and cruel, the Archmage smiled. Slowly, he turned the Mage around, until she could see the swarm of Nihilim that hung in the shadows, waiting.

“I give you a choice, my dear,” Miathan’s voice was an obscene croon. “Submit your body, your will, and your powers to me—or submit yourself to the Death-Wraiths, as their prey. Choose, Aurian. Choose now!”

“Never! I will never submit to you!”

And then suddenly Shia was there, between the Mage and the hovering Wraiths.

“Aurian. Wake up—you’re dreaming! Wake up!”

As the voice penetrated the sound of her screams, Aurian felt a stinging blow on her face. She tried to fight, but something heavy pressed down on her, preventing her from moving. She opened her eyes to see Maya, sitting over her with one hand raised, ready to strike again. D’arvan knelt nearby, looking grave, and beyond him Aurian could make out a pair of horses watching her quietly, their outlines blurred by the early-morning mist that drifted among the shadowy trees. The scent of moist earth and the rustling whisper of leaves told of a forest. The warm breeze and the thick, heavy fragrance of full-grown greenery hinted at late summer.

“Where the bloody blazes am I?” the Mage muttered.

“Don’t worry,” Maya soothed her. “You’re safe.” She helped the Mage sit up.

“But that was some nightmare, my friend!”

“Nightmare?” Aurian echoed blankly. “I don’t remember ...”

“Well, I do!” A huge black shape emerged from the bushes.

“Shia!” Aurian cried.

Another great cat, with heavier bones and its ebony coat patterned with dapples of gold, followed Shia from the bushes, but though Aurian was glad to see that he had come in safety through the gate in time, her attention at first was all for her dear friend.

Shia was purring fit to rattle Aurian’s bones. “I came to awaken you.” Her mental voice echoed oddly in Aurian’s head. “I was in contact with your mind throughout your dream—and it was not a pleasant experience.” She rubbed her head against Aurian’s face as the Mage embraced her. “Never fear, my friend.—It was only a dream. We’ll get Anvar back.”

“Anvar ...” As the memory of the dream came flooding back to her in all its vivid and ghastly detail, Aurian began to shake uncontrollably. Never, as long as she lived, would she forget that dreadful vision of Anvar, impaled upon the Sword of Flame....

Maya put a comforting hand on the Mage’s arm. “It’s all right, Aurian. No matter how terrible it was, it was just a dream.” She glanced up at D’arvan.

“Get her some water, love, would you?” When D’arvan had disappeared among the trees, she turned back to the Mage. “I already know about the dream. Your thoughts were so intense—probably because you were distressed—that D’arvan was picking up the details from your mind, and passing them on to me.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, Aurian—we should probably have wakened you sooner, but considering where we’ve ended up, we thought the dream might mean something.—When we came out of that—whatever it was—we were in such a sorry state that we all slept for a while. When you didn’t wake, D’arvan said you were suffering from the effects of your struggle with the Sword, and we should let you rest, so the cats went off to keep watch, while we stayed here—”

But Aurian was listening no longer. Maya’s words had been enough to drive the horrors of her dream to the back of her mind. She was remembering, instead, the final battle in the Vale, and her discovery of the Sword of Flame.—Scalding shame flooded over her, as she recalled her failure to master the Artifact, and the catastrophic consequences. Those horses, grazing quietly among the trees, she had also known as men—Schiannath the Xandim Herdlord, and the Windeye Chiamh, Seer of the Xandim and a close friend. Her failure to claim the Sword had unleashed the dangerous, unpredictable Phaerie upon the world once more, and they had used their powers to reclaim their legendary horses, turning the shape-shifting Xandim into simple beasts.

That was not the worst of it, however. Aurian remembered pursuing Eliseth and the wounded, captive Anvar into the gap that had opened up in reality, and trying to follow them through an endless, viscous grey nothingness interspersed with flashes of lurid color. She remembered nausea and disorientation, and helpless panic when her prey had disappeared at last. She recalled the last desperate, wrenching effort that had brought her—with these dear and loyal friends who had followed her—back to the real world. And with a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, the Mage realized that, thanks to her own failure, Eliseth had not only Anvar, but two of the Artifacts—the Grail of Rebirth, and the all-powerful Sword of Flame.—Suddenly Aurian gasped, and frantically groped around her in the thick bed of leaves. She found the Staff of Earth first, safe and sound, and then, as her hand fell on the Harp of Winds, it responded with a plangent cascade of shivering notes, as though the Artifact itself was mourning for Anvar, who had made it his own.

D’arvan returned at that moment, and sat down beside her, placing a dripping cone of folded birch bark in her hands. “Here, you’ll feel better for this,” he told her. “I’m sorry we have nothing stronger—you look as though you could do with it.”

“You can say that again,” Aurian muttered. But, though her nerves were still unstrung and her worries ever-pressing, the sight of the makeshift cup soothed her with its happy memories. She caught Maya’s eye. “I see you’ve been teaching him some of Forral’s wilderness survival techniques. . . .” Her words trailed off. The warrior had mentioned something earlier, about...

“Maya?” The Mage gripped the fragile birch cup so tightly that it crumpled in her fist. “Considering where we’ve ended up, you said. Just where have we ended up?”

The small, dark-haired warrior sighed. “We’re in the woods, above the southern side of Nexis.”

Aurian dropped the ruined cup, barely noticing that she had done so. “What does Nexis look like?” she asked softly.

Maya bit her lip, plainly reluctant to answer, and finally it was D’arvan who replied.

“It has changed, Aurian. Nexis has altered beyond any accounting for the one year of our absence.”

The Mage frowned, trying to put her thoughts in order, despite the throbbing in her head. “So we traveled ... Clearly, we moved between places—but have we also moved between times!”

D’arvan nodded. “It’s a difficult notion to accept—but what else could explain such a difference in the city?”

A coldness settled in the pit of Aurian’s stomach. “Show me,” she demanded.

“Indeed, Mage. Look upon your city. See that the Phaerie have not been idle in your absence.” Hellorin smiled bleakly and drew back from his Window of Seeing. Though his face remained impassive, as befitted the Lord of the Phaerie, he could scarcely contain his excitement. Oh, he had waited long for this day! He had always known that his son would return one day—and as a bonus, D’arvan had brought the missing Xandim horses with him.

From his high tower in the delicately constructed palace, Hellorin sent out a mental summons that reverberated to the furthest reaches of his new city. This time, there was no need to wait for moonlight. The Phaerie hunt must ride at once. Not a moment must be lost, lest the Forest Lord’s quarry should escape him once again.

As the cats, the Mages, and Maya stole through the woodland, moving with as little noise as possible over the soft blanket of living moss, Aurian could feel the dew of dawn striking right through her cloak and the Xandim leather tunic and breeches that she still wore. She felt lost and anchorless, lightheaded and drifting. This change in time and place had happened far too fast. For the Mage, it was as though the dreadful battle in the Vale and her disastrous confrontation with the Sword of Flame had taken place but an hour ago. She could still smell the smoke on her hair from Eliseth’s burning of the wildwood, and the leather of her garments was stained and stiffened in places with Cygnus’s blood. When she reached the edge of the forest and looked out between the last trees, Aurian felt her stomach lurch. Nexis it was—so much was still familiar—but so much of the city had changed!

The companions had come out of the woods above a steep fall of land where an earthslide had stripped the slope of its trees as far as the river. Below the eminence where Aurian stood, the verdant forest ended abruptly and below it lay a wilderness of boulders, mud and naked earth, strewn with the snapped and splintered trunks of trees. The river, dammed by the rubble that had swept down the hillside, had swollen above the obstruction to fill the upper valley with a long, narrow lake. Below the choking mass of earth and trees, the river had dwindled to little more than a stagnant thread that trickled haphazardly through the bottom of the muddy trench that had once been the riverbed.—Now that the river, the lifeblood of the city, had vanished, Nexis had begun to die. The wharves on the northern bank rose high and dry on stilt-legged pilings above the abandoned watercourse. It looked as though many of the warehouses had been destroyed by fire. Miathan’s great new walls, which had been described to the Mage by Zanna during her brief stay in the Nightrunner stronghold, were cracked throughout their length and in places had collapsed completely. The Academy, however, still stood high on its promontory in the loop of the dried-up riverbed. As far as Aurian could see at this distance, the library and the Mages’ Tower were still intact, though the weather-dome had been broken open like the shell of a shattered egg. Was Anvar somewhere down there, as she had dreamed? Aurian could scarcely bear to think of it.—The Mage wrenched her attention from the Academy and forced herself to examine the remainder of Nexis. What had happened to the houses on the northern slopes of the valley? The outlines of the streets, once so neat and regular, seemed to have altered and lost their definition, and as far as Aurian could tell, many of those homes had been destroyed. Lower down there was similar ruin.—Though the great domed edifice of the circular Guildhall seemed unscathed, part of the roof of the grand Arcade had fallen in, exposing the labyrinth of stalls, aisles, and walkways to the elements. A broad fissure ran right across the Garrison parade ground, making Aurian wonder uneasily if the edge or the plateau would eventually break away and crash down in ruin on the lower part of the city.

As the light continued to grow, the Mage lifted her eyes to what had once been a deep, wide river, and looked upon the ravaged landscape and altered city.—She shook her head in dismay. “What in the name of the Gods can have happened here?” Taken with the landslip that had dammed the river, the destruction seemed to point to some kind of earth tremor. But why? The land around Nexis had always been stable before. She remembered—how could she forget?—that Eliseth had possessed the Grail of Rebirth when she had attacked in the Vale.—That implied that she had found some way of defeating Miathan. Had the two Mages fought? Was that the cause of this extensive damage to the city? Yet if the Arch-mage had been killed, surely she and Anvar would have felt his death.—So where was Miathan now? Aurian shuddered, remembering her nightmare.

“How much time do you think we’ve missed?” Maya asked softly.

Aurian shrugged. “Who knows? That kind of destruction could have taken place over years—or in a single day.”

“I don’t think so,” D’arvan demurred. “Not in one day—at least, it’s more than a day since the earthslip happened. Look there.” The Earth-Mage gestured at the sprawling hillock of earth that dammed the river. “It’s hard to tell for sure, but there’s at least one year’s growth on that exposed soil—probably more, I should say.”

“You could be right.” Aurian squinted across the intervening distance, wishing that the light were better—and wishing still more for Chiamh, with his cheerful good humor and his ability to take her riding the winds so that she could look more closely at the ruined city.

“Of course I’m right,” D’arvan replied firmly. “Your mother was a good teacher.”

Maya was looking troubled. “But if you’re right, love—and I’m not saying that you aren’t—then why in the name of all creation haven’t they done something about it? If the folk in the city had organized themselves properly, it would have taken far less than a year to shift that mudslide and let the river flow again.” She frowned. “Which begs the question . ..”

“Who is leading the Nexians now?” Aurian finished for her, “Who could possibly benefit from leaving the city in this ruinous condition?” She swung around to face her companions, her face drawn in lines of bitterness. “We may have no notion of what’s going on down there, but we do know that neither Vannor, nor Parric, nor any of our other friends are in charge. None of them would ever abandon the city to such desolation. And if our friends don’t rule Nexis ...”

“We must assume that the city is in the hands of our enemies,” Maya finished grimly.

When the Mage and her companions returned to the horses they discovered that Khanu and Shia had been hunting, and had saved two fat rabbits for their human friends. The companions decided to rest and eat before going down into Nexis to search the Academy for clues to the whereabouts of Miathan and Eliseth.—Even the Mage, who was consumed with impatience, had sense enough to realize that it would be plain stupidity to face unknown danger with her strength and judgment impaired by hunger and fatigue. Besides, nightfall would be a safer time to slip unseen into the city. As soon as Maya and D’arvan were busy preparing the rabbits, Aurian slipped away by herself among the trees. She was sure that, after their long separation, her companions would appreciate a little time together—and as for herself, she wanted to be alone to think.—As the sharp odor of scorching flesh stung her nostrils, Maya extricated herself reluctantly from D’arvan’s embrace. With a curse she fumbled for the rabbits that had been spitted over the fire, and turned the sizzling carcasses, moving them a little farther from the flame.

“Careful.” D’arvan met her eyes with a half-guilty grin. “Aurian won’t thank us for ruining her breakfast.”

Maya, busy straightening her clothing, returned his smile. “I’m sure she’d forgive us, under the circumstances, but it wouldn’t be fair to starve her for our sake.” Try as she might, however, the warrior couldn’t make herself sound repentant. Though it had seemed rash and self-indulgent to be thinking of such things right now, she and D’arvan had been so long apart that the urge to make love had been irresistible. Besides, she knew that Aurian had tactfully slipped away to allow them a few moments’ privacy—though if she and D’arvan had been embracing long enough to let the rabbits burn, then the Mage should have been back long before now.

Stifling a stab of guilt, Maya berated herself for being so inconsiderate.—It’s all very well for us, she thought—but poor Aurian has lost her lover. For the second time. It still hurt to remember Forral; he had been Maya’s commander and close friend, but Aurian had been her friend too, and she did not begrudge the Mage another chance of happiness with Anvar—if only Anvar could be found. And we should be helping her find him, Maya thought. She turned to D’arvan with a frown. “Don’t you think one of us ought to go after Aurian? She shouldn’t be brooding alone right now.”

“I don’t suppose that Aurian is really brooding—but Shia went, in any case.”

D’arvan gestured to the now-vacant spot on the opposite side of the fire.—The warrior raised an eyebrow, then shook her head ruefully. “I just can’t get used to it. Not only the fact that those creatures are so fearsome, but the idea that you and Aurian can go around talking with them just as though they were ordinary folk.” Much to Maya’s surprise, it had been Shia who had filled in a great deal of the background of Aurian’s quest for them, while the Mage had been asleep.

D’arvan grinned. “From their point of view, they are ordinary folk, love. Shia is as close in friendship to Aurian as we are—probably closer, in fact.”

Maya grimaced. “Maybe I’m only jealous. I wish I could talk to her as you can.”

“I wish you could, too.” D’arvan smiled. “I think the two of you would get along very well. You have a good deal in common—and when you come to consider, it’s no stranger than the fact that those two horses over there used to be men.”

The warrior’s eyes flew open wide. “Don’t tell me you can talk to them, too!”

D’arvan’s expression sobered. “I wish I could. But not even Aurian can reach into their minds to find the humans they once were. The Phaerie use the Old Magic, remember, with which we Magefolk are no longer familiar. Something in Hellorin’s spell that sealed the Xandim permanently into beast-form has blocked even mental communications such as we have with the cats. Unless my father is persuaded to change them back, Chiamh and Schiannath—along with the rest of their folk—are as good as dead.”

Maya shuddered at the bleakness in his voice. “And you resent Hellorin for what he did,” she added with instinctive certainty.

“Of course I do!” D’arvan slammed his fist impotently against the ground. “How could he act in such a callous fashion I loved him, Maya, despite the difficult things he asked of us, and the loneliness and danger he put us through. In betraying the Xandim, I feel as if he betrayed me, too.”

“All the legends warn us that the Phaerie are tricky folk,” the warrior murmured.

D’arvan’s jaw tightened. “Then I’m going to have to stand up to my inheritance—and be just as tricky as my father. Because I promise you, Maya—one way or another, I’m going to make my father the Forest Lord restore the Xandim to what they were.”

Maya smiled at him, burying the shiver of dread that ran through her in the glow of her pride. “I rather thought you might,” she told him softly. “But first we’d better tell Aurian. I think it might ease her mind a little if the Xandim can be saved.” Her eyes twinkled. “Which do you want to do? Tend the rabbits or go and find her?”

“Ugh!” D’arvan shuddered. “You know what the Magefolk are like at cooking. If you want any breakfast at all, I had better go and look for Aurian.”

As Aurian wandered through the misty woodland, there was a chill around her heart that had nothing to do with the bright summer day. How much time had passed? Months? Years? Centuries? What had happened to Yazour and Panic, Vannor and Zanna? Were all the people she had known and loved dead now, and gone to dust? And what of Wolf? She had left him safe with the smugglers, but what had happened to the Nightrunners since she’d departed the world? What had become of her son? Had she failed him, too? Should she have kept him safe in the South until he was old enough to take care of himself, before going after the Sword?

The Mage walked on blindly. As the questions circled in her mind without respite or answer, the desperate loneliness and isolation she had known in her dream returned to swamp her.

Then suddenly Shia was beside her, pressing against her reassuringly. “You are not alone,” she said. “Khanu and I are here, and your friends the warrior and the Mage. Chiamh and Schiannath ...” She bit off her words quickly, but it was too late.

“Schiannath and Chiamh are no more than dumb beasts,” Aurian retorted bitterly. “Thanks to my stupidity—”

“Your stupidity is in carrying on in this fashion!” the cat retorted sharply.—She looked into the Mage’s face, her golden eyes blazing. “So events have gone awry? When has that ever stopped you, before? Will you give in now, and flounder in guilt and self-pity? Can you afford such a luxury? Can your friends the Xandim? Can Anvar?”

Aurian’s head came up sharply. “How dare you say such things? I thought you were my friend!”

“I am your friend,” the cat retorted. “You have no time to indulge in such destructive thinking. We must discover what has befallen us and make our plans. Besides,” she added softly. “I understand what truly lies behind your despair. It is Anvar, is it not?”

Aurian knelt and put her arms around the great cat’s neck, hiding her face in the cat’s silken fur. “Partly, it’s Wolf—but partly, yes, it’s Anvar. Shia, I miss him,” she confessed. “And I’m terribly afraid for him. If Eliseth has harmed him ...”

“She will not,” another voice put in firmly. D’arvan had stolen up on her unnoticed. Aurian looked round at him in surprise—and not a little indignation. She had forgotten that there was another Mage present who could understand her mental dialogue with the great cat, and was embarrassed that he must have heard Shia rebuking her. “Has everybody in the bloody camp been following me around the woods?” she demanded in acid tones.

D’arvan colored, but did not flinch from her angry gaze. “Maya thought you shouldn’t be alone,” he replied calmly, “and from what I overheard—I’m sorry, but I did overhear you and Shia—she was right.” The young Mage smiled sympathetically and held out a hand to her. “Remember how I came to you when I was in trouble at the Academy? You were the one who saved me from Eliseth and from my brother. You helped me then—and now, at last, I can return the favor.—Eliseth was never one to discard what might be useful,” D’arvan went on. “My guess is she’ll use Anvar as a pawn, or as bait, or a hostage—or more likely, given her vindictive nature, she will try to turn him against you, Aurian.—Think how she would revel in such a victory.

Aurian clenched her fists tightly. “Then she’ll be disappointed,” she snarled.

“D’arvan—you’re absolutely right. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll creep down to the Academy and find out what—”

Suddenly the forest’s silence was split asunder by the harsh shrilling of many horns. Through the trees, Aurian heard Chiamh and Schiannath screaming in terror. Shadows swept across the clearing, obscuring the pale sunlight, and a capricious wind swirled leaves and dust into the Mages’ eyes as the Xaridim steeds churned the air with flashing hooves.

As the Phaerie came hurtling down like meteors toward the treetops Aurian thought, for one horrific instant, that she had somehow slipped back into the past to the battle in the Vale. The truth was worse. Even as she drew her sword and groped for the Staff of Earth at her belt, two Phaerie had swooped down upon D’arvan and borne him, screaming, aloft. The Mage, aghast, ran back toward the place where she had left Maya and the horses—but she stood no chance against the airborne Phaerie steeds. Before she could come anywhere near, she saw Maya in midair, screaming curses as she struggled in the iron grasp of a Phaerie warrior who had thrown her across the withers of his horse.—Chiamh and Schiannath followed, each of them cruelly bridled in burning light and ridden by one of Hellorin’s bright-eyed folk.

Then the leaves and dust settled as the wild wind sank away, and the sky was empty once more.

Aurian stood for a moment, hurling curses at the unfeeling sky. Then, as though the last of her strength had left her, she slumped to the ground and put her face in her hands. She felt the tentative touch of Shia’s worried thoughts upon her mind, but could respond with nothing but a numb blankness.—After a time Aurian looked up, her eyes gleaming like frosted iron, her jaw clenched. “They won’t beat me,” she muttered fiercely. “Supposing they take everything I’ve ever loved away from me, I still won’t let them beat me.” She put her arms around Shia. “We’ll get our lost friends back, every one of them—I swear it. Somehow, I’ll get them all back—if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You still have Khanu and me,” Shia told her, “and anyone who tries to part us from you will discover that they’ve made a grave mistake! But where to next, my friend? What do we do now?”

“Well, we can’t go chasing after the Phaerie yet—I wouldn’t know where to start,” Aurian sighed. “We’ll take things one step at a time, as Forral always used to say. First I’m going to eat, and then I’m going to force myself to keep it down. I think we should rest until nightfall—then we’ll go across the valley to the Academy. Maybe we’ll find some answers there.”

“If you wish to sleep,” Shia said, “Khanu and I will guard you.”

“Right now,” the Mage said bleakly, “I feel as if I’ll never sleep again.”