Songsmith

15

“Eydryth.” A voice reached her ears… a familiar voice. “Eydryth…” it called again. “Sister, awaken, please…” Fingers stroked her aching head, easing the pain behind her temples. She was resting on something soft and warm. “Here,” the voice said. “Some water… drink, Sister.”

Cool liquid in her mouth, trickling down her throat, easing the dryness. The songsmith swallowed eagerly, then opened her eyes to see Hyana’s face hovering above hers.

“Eydryth… Sister, how do you feel?” she asked, concerned. Hyana resembled her mother, with her light chestnut hair, green eyes and the fair complexion of a Daleswoman. Only her high cheekbones and pointed chin marked her as being Kerovan’s daughter, also.

“Oh, Hyana,” Eydryth whispered. “What of Kerovan? Is he safe?”

“He is,” a new voice said, and the songsmith turned her head as Firdun appeared beside his sister. “Father is fine.”

As her foster-brother smiled reassuringly at her, Eydryth was again reminded of how much he had grown. At fourteen, he was more youth now than lad, tall and leggy. He had his father’s long, oval face, dark hair, and eyes that in some lights appeared yellowish brown, and in others pale grey.

“Where is Kerovan?” Eydryth asked. Her mind seemed to be filled with wool rather than thought. She could see from the expression on her foster-siblings’ faces that they were barely holding themselves back from a thousand questions. “He is in danger. I rode from near Garth Howell to warn him…”

“Have no fear for Father,” Firdun assured her. “Even now he is sitting on Landisl’s throne in the Great Hall, ringed about with enough charms and talismans to set up a booth at a fair.” He flashed his irreverent grin. “And complaining loudly because Mother warned him not to leave the protections. He is demanding to know what chances out here. I told him I would do my best to find out.”

“Where is Joisan? And Sylvya?” Eydryth demanded.

“They left me to tend you, while they are tending to your… mount,” Hyana replied.

“Tending to him?” Eydryth repeated blankly. “But… Monso is dead…”

Her foster-sister shook her head, her long braids, wrapped with colorful embroidered ribbons in the Kioga fashion, bouncing on her shoulders as she did so. “The creature lives,” she said. “But for how long…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“I thought I had ridden him to death,” Eydryth murmured. Indeed, her brain was not working well… or was it her hearing that was lacking? It did not seem possible that Monso could still be alive, after the way the Keplian had collapsed.

“No, he lives,” Hyana assured her. “But… he is very weak, Eydryth. Mother is using her healcraft, but she does not know whether he can be saved.”

Memory rushed back, propelling Eydryth upward, off Hyana’s lap. Ignoring Hyana’s and Firdun’s efforts to restrain her, the bard sat up. “The water!” she cried, looking wildly about her for Monso’s tack. “The water in my flask. The water from Neave’s spring—perhaps it can save him!”

Firdun held something up before her eyes. “This flask?”

“Yes!” Eagerly, the minstrel grabbed it. She hesitated, feeling her own weakness. She needed strength, too, or she would never be able to do what she must during the remainder of this night. Where was Alon by now? Confronting Yachne?

Determinedly, the girl unstoppered the flask, held it to her lips. Carefully, deliberately, she counted swallows, allowing herself only five.

She could feel the restorative effect of the blessed springwater working on her tired body almost immediately. After a minute, Eydryth was able to climb to her feet unaided, then walk steadily across the stone flags to where Joisan and Sylvya crouched beside the stricken Keplian.

As she neared them, the songsmith was horrified to see that the gaping wound on Monso’s foreleg had opened. The leg was covered with both fresh and dried blood. The stallion must have run for leagues after the wound had opened, and she had not seen it in the darkness. “Monso…” she whispered, sinking down beside him and stroking his neck. He lay unmoving, barely breathing. Eydryth felt tears well up again, and resolutely fought them back. Weeping would not help Monso, but Neave’s springwater might!

“Joisan… Sylvya…” She clasped hands briefly with each of these women who had helped to raise her. There would be time later, after everything possible had been done for Monso, for embraces and loving greetings. “I have something that may help. We have to drench him with this,” she said, holding up the flask. “He is too weak to swallow, so I will have to pour the water down his gullet while you hold his head up.”

“Water?” Joisan asked. Eydryth saw that the Wise Woman had her bag of simples and her healcraft supplies arranged beside her. The wound was already cleansed. A curved needle and a length of pronghorn sinew were laid out on the clean cloth beside her foster-mother. “What kind of water? How can mere water aid him?”

“Not just any water,” the minstrel explained. “This is water from Neave’s spring. It has great restorative effects.” She held out her own hands, palm up. “I just drank some, and see how it has aided me. Otherwise, I would not be on my feet any more than Monso is.”

Joisan gave her a measuring glance, then nodded quickly. “Firdun! Hyana!” she called. “Come, help me hold this creature’s head up so Eydryth can drench him!”

It took three of them to raise Monso’s head so that his neck lay at the proper angle for him to swallow. Then Eydryth used both hands to pry open the unconscious stallion’s jaws. Pulling his tongue out to one side of his mouth, she drew the stopper from the flask, then, cautiously, poured the water down the pale pink tunnel with its enormous teeth.

She poured… rubbed the Keplian’s throat until he swallowed, reflexively, then poured another measure down.

This time Monso swallowed on his own. Eydryth replaced the stopper, saving the remaining water for a later dose. Gently, her helpers eased the big head back down onto the pavement.

Monso’s eyelids lifted, then closed again. The stallion groaned, but did not awaken. His breathing grew stronger, more distinct, however, and Joisan, who kept one hand on his chest, behind his foreleg, looked up excitedly. “His heartbeat is strengthening!”

Sylvya laid her head against his shoulder, then glanced up at her friend, her enormous round eyes beneath her downy head-covering full of warning. “It is indeed! You had best do your stitchery while the beast remains unconscious, Joisan!”

Nodding agreement, the Wise Woman bent to her task, again cleansing the wound, then aligning the gaping edges, pulling them closed with careful, precise stitches, knotting and securing each one separately.

“Eydryth, I am anxious to know the whole of your story,” Joisan said as she worked, not looking up from her task.

The songsmith sighed. “So much has happened that I scarcely know where to start! Oh, Joisan… we must save Monso, if that is possible. He is Alon’s horse… and Alon may even now be in terrible danger! We must help him!”

Joisan gave her a quick, sideways glance. “Who is Alon?”

Eydryth could not help it; she felt her cheeks grow hot. Firdun and Hyana, who were crouching nearby, exchanged speculative glances. “Alon…” the girl muttered, still blushing. “He is… Monso—this Keplian’s—owner and master,” she began. “He is my… friend…”

The Wise Woman smiled slightly, and gave her fosterling a fond look. “Friend,” she repeated blandly.

Eydryth grew very busy checking to see that the water flask was indeed stoppered tightly. “He is an Adept who helped me on my quest to find a way to heal Jervon.” She patted the box in Alon’s jerkin pocket. “I have the cure with me. Praise Gunnora it will—”

She broke off at the click of hooves upon the steps. They all turned to see Kerovan descending. The Lord of Kar Garudwyn was of the heritage of the Old Ones, and was plainly not of full humankind. His eyes were amber, with slitted, uncanny pupils, and he stood upon cloven hooves rather than feet. Otherwise he was human, with black hair and features typical of the Old Race.

Eydryth’s mouth fell open, then she leapt up. “Kerovan, you must not leave your protections! Yachne may be trying to bespell you even now!”

“I could no longer remain inside,” her foster-father said testily, even as he enveloped her in a tight embrace. His strength and warmth felt wonderful after the perils of the night. Eydryth felt tears threaten again as she leaned against him for a moment; then he held her away, looking full into her face. “Eydryth… Daughter… scold me if you must, but, by the Nine Words of Min, tell me what chances tonight!”

Joisan carefully knotted the last stitch, then looked up at her lord, her brows drawing together in a frown. “Kerovan,” she said sternly. “Eydryth says that you are in danger. You must not—”

He shook his head impatiently. “You cannot expect me to sit in there and remain idle while there is a threat to my home and family, Joisan!” Kerovan turned to his foster-daughter, one hand going to the hilt of his sword. “Who is this Yachne you spoke of? How does she threaten us?” he demanded, all his years of soldiering coming to the fore.

The songsmith silently struggled to order the events of the past days into some kind of coherent account. As she hesitated, Joisan threw a blanket over the still-recumbent Keplian, then turned back to her lord. Suddenly the Wise Woman stiffened, then pointed at her husband’s feet with a cry of dismay. “Kerovan! Look!” she exclaimed.

Eydryth stepped back and stared, wide-eyed. On the stone around Kerovan’s hooves a dark mist—one that she well remembered from Yachne’s cave—was slowly forming!

“Kerovan!” she gasped, pointing. “That is Yachne’s spell! She means to draw you to her, then drain you of all Power! You must break the ensorcellment!”

Joisan bolted forward, hands going out to her lord, but he motioned her back, staring down at the dark purple mist now swirling around his legs. “No, my lady,” he ordered, in a voice that brooked no argument. “Do not seek to touch me, lest you be taken also.”

Eydryth felt as though she were trapped in a nightmare with no waking. She twisted her hands in impotent anguish. “Oh, Kerovan… can you stop it? Don’t let it take you!”

He raised one hand into the air, slowly, formally, in a beckoning gesture that was not aimed at anyone present. “Yes,” he said a moment later, calmly. “I can stop it.” The lord’s strange, inhuman eyes seemed to glow with an inner light as he began chanting in the Old Tongue.

The stunned onlookers watched as a glowing shape began forming around the heir to the gryphon-lord, encompassing him as he stood. Eydryth glimpsed a fierce head that reminded her of Steel Talon’s, then a huge, raised paw. Tawny hindquarters like unto a lion’s merged into an eagle’s foreparts.

The unhuman shadow’s eyes glowed golden-amber… and its eyes were Kerovan’s eyes. But the rest of that uncanny, dimly glimpsed shape was that of Landisl’s messenger, guardian and protector, the gryphon, Telpher. All her life Eydryth had heard the tales of how Landisl, the gryphon-lord, and Telpher, his servant, had protected both Joisan and Kerovan during their adventures… but never had she seen Landisl’s heir summon the guardian spirit until now.

Slowly, almost contemptuously. Telpher’s shadowy form raised a massive paw, then dragged it through the thickening mist, breaking the spell-circle.

Then both mist and shadowy gryphon-image abruptly vanished. Kerovan stood, hooves planted firmly upon the stone pavement, unharmed.

Eydryth staggered forward with a cry of gladness, flung her arms around her foster-father, clutching him tightly. The rest of his family crowded around, exclaiming with relief.

“You… you broke the spell!” Eydryth stammered finally, stepping back to look up at him. “And so easily… where Dinzil could not help himself.” She frowned, thinking of how hard they had striven to reach Kerovan with the warning, remembering the Deepwater, Monso’s collapse… and, most frightening of all, her abandonment of Alon. Had it all been for naught? “Perhaps…” Her voice faltered. “Perhaps my warning was not necessary. Perhaps I did not need to leave Alon…”

Joisan by now was close-pressed against her lord’s side, one arm around him, the other encircling her foster-daughter. The Wise Woman shook her head. “Not so, Eydryth,” she said solemnly.

Kerovan echoed his wife’s gesture. “My lady has the right of it, Eydryth,” he said. “I was warned, and thus could defeat the spell when it attempted to ensnare me. But had you not come here tonight, this Yachne’s ensorcellment would have found me asleep and unprepared…” He shook his head grimly. “And I have no doubt that I would have been trapped.”

“You have a long story to tell us, Sister,” Hyana said. “And you spoke of an Alon who is in danger…”

“There is so much to tell, and so little time!” Eydryth said. “I must see Jervon immediately—I may have found the means to heal him! And then we must all ride to aid Alon, because I fear that Yachne will try and take him, since she could not prey upon Kerovan. He went to seek her, but he is wearied, and was wounded yesterday. I fear greatly for him…”

“Eydryth… dear one…” Sylvya was staring at the young woman in open amazement, as if she had never seen her before. “I sense so many changes… you are so different! You have been places, done things… changed…” Quickly, the woman from the ancient past of Arvon traced a symbol in the air, and it glowed blue, tinged with green.

The songsmith drew herself up. “You have the right of it, Aunt,” she said, smiling faintly, proudly. Then, humming softly, she drew a sign of her own in the air—the shape of a musical note. It hung before them, outlined as if in a trail of turquoise fire. “I have discovered Power of my own kind,” she said. “Through my music. Else I could not have gotten Monso past the valley’s wards.”

Amazement spread across their faces; then they all stepped forward, besieging the songsmith with questions. Kerovan had to shout to be heard above the excited inquiries. “We must have the entire story, sitting down!” he ordered, now very much the lord of the hold. “And I for one will be most interested to hear about this mysterious Alon!”

Eydryth felt warmth again reddening her cheeks. She cast about again for words to tell the group about Alon, but still could find none. She smiled at her family, feeling their love, their concern, enclose her like warm arms after a nightmare. “I will tell you everything,” she promised, “as soon as may be. But first…” She took out Dahaun’s box, then opened it to peer cautiously within. To her vast relief, the healing red mud still lay within, seeming as fresh as the time she had used it to treat the Adept’s wrist. “First Jervon. I cannot sit still until I have seen my father.”

“Is that the cure you have brought?” Kerovan asked, peering skeptically into the little box. “Mud?”

Joisan put out a finger, touched the moist earth tentatively, then drew back as if it had stung her. “Where did you find this?” she gasped.

“From the Lady of the Green Silences in Escore,” Eydryth said. She glanced down at the sleeping horse, then picked up her harp from where it lay on the ground, still wrapped in her cloak. “If we are fortunate, there may be enough mud in Dahaun’s box to help Monso’s wound, also.” She smiled at all of them. “But first, oh, first I must see my father!”

Joisan smiled warmly as her fosterling. “Go, by all means, my dear. In the meantime, Kerovan and I will prepare food—I believe we have all worked up an appetite, with all these midnight alarums and excursions. Firdun and Sylvya will watch over your mount.”

“Come, Sister,” Hyana said, taking the songsmith’s arm, “I will accompany you.”

Carrying her harp and the little box, Eydryth followed her foster-sister through the halls of Kar Garudwyn, along a corridor lit by the light-globes like unto those she had seen in Es city, in the witches’ citadel. For a moment she found herself remembering Avris and wondered how her friend now fared. Then they came to Jervon’s door, and paused outside, trembling suddenly.

What if Dahaun’s mud does not work? she wondered, feeling her mouth go dry with fear. I have traveled so long… it has been so many years… please, Amber Lady… please, Neave! I beg of you, give my father back to me!

Hyana placed a steadying hand upon her arm. Eydryth nodded at her foster-sister, straightened her shoulders, then walked in.

Jervon was lying on his pallet. A Kioga girl sat in a chair, dozing. A servant or a member of the family always watched over the Power-blasted man, lest he wander away or harm himself inadvertently, like the very young child he now resembled.

The girl, whom Eydryth remembered was named Karlis, stared wide-eyed at the newcomer. “Eydryth!” she blurted. “Welcome home, Lady!”

The songsmith greeted the servant; then Hyana smiled reassuringly at the girl. “We will watch him for a while,” she said, and Karlis took her leave.

Eydryth walked slowly over to her father’s pallet. Even in his sleep, the slackness around his mouth, the vacant expression on his face, betrayed his malady. Sitting down beside him, his daughter took his hand gently. Beneath tumbled russet-brown curls, he opened blue eyes that had once been the same vivid color as his daughter’s, but now were faded, empty of reason. “Father…” the songsmith whispered, stroking his hair, “I’ve come home.”

Jervon grinned, then babbled at her, mixing random words with nonsense syllables. At least he still recognizes me, the girl thought, wiping a smear of wetness from his chin when he had finished his greeting—if such it could be termed. “Just hold still, now,” she whispered, then began to gently stroke Dahaun’s healing mud across his forehead, covering it with a thin layer of the cool redness.

Jervon twitched, raised his hands to swipe fretfully at the healing substance. “No, don’t wipe it off,” Eydryth said, and together, she and Hyana held his hands down until he subsided, eyeing them both nervously.

“When he quiets,” Eydryth said softly, “I want you to take the mud that is left to Joisan. Tell her to spread it over the Keplian’s wound. Then have her rinse the container in a bucket of water, so that he may be offered that water to drink when he awakens and can stand again.”

“I understand,” her foster-sister said, softly.

Jervon gazed at them, then at the water jug that stood in its place on the bureau. He waved at it, babbling again. “He wants a drink,” Eydryth said, recognizing the gesture and sounds.

But before she held the goblet Hyana filled to Jervon’s lips, Eydryth, acting on impulse, dropped a dollop of the red mud into the liquid, then stirred it with a forefinger until it dissolved. “Here, Father,” she said, aiding him as he sat up. Jervon drank thirstily, then smiled vacantly and lay back down. He tossed restlessly, still wanting to scratch at the mud now drying across his forehead. “No, no,” Eydryth whispered. “Leave it where it is, Father…”

Hyana was holding the container, eyeing the red mud still within it. “Whoever this Lady of the Green Silences is, she is someone with great Power,” she said. “I can feel her magic through this container.”

“Dahaun has great Power, yes,” Eydryth said. “That is part of the story I have yet to tell you. Shhhh,” she said, turning her attention back to her father, “lie still, dear Father. Rest easy.”

“Perhaps if you sang to him…” Hyana suggested. “That always used to quiet him, even on his worst days.”

Eydryth nodded, then picked up her hand-harp. A moment to tune it, then she began gently plucking the strings, humming as she searched in her mind for a song. Alon’s face swam before her eyes, and before she knew what she was about, she was singing:

She sang the old song quietly, as tears filled her eyes and slipped quietly down her face. When she was finished, Jervon had fallen asleep again. The red mud had dried, and was now hardening into its crust upon his forehead. Hyana placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You love him, do you not?” she murmured. “This… Alon.”

“Yes, I love him,” Eydryth whispered, leaning her face against Hyana’s shoulder, unable to meet the older girl’s eyes. “I love him… more than I can say.”

Hyana hugged her gently, stroking her foster-sister’s curls. “Tell me, does he return your love?”

Silently, the songsmith nodded. “But I fear for him,” she murmured. “He was heading into great danger.”

“We will aid you, Sister,” Hyana promised, drawing back and clasping Eydryth’s hands in a reassuring grip. “I will tell Mother and Father to prepare to ride forth tomorrow.”

Eydryth shook her head. “Tomorrow may be too late. We must go as soon as possible. Tonight. Alon went alone to track Yachne, to a Place of Power—Dark Power. I dare not delay until daylight.”

Hyana looked grave. “There is no moon tonight,” she said quietly. “The Power of the Shadow is at its strongest, now. Especially in one of the Dark Places.”

The songsmith nodded. “I know. That is all the more reason to go before dawn.”

Joisan and Kerovan’s daughter nodded, then, quietly, slipped from the room, leaving Eydryth alone with her father.

The songsmith sat beside him, his hand clasped in hers, watching him sleep. Softly, she sang to him again, as memories ran through her mind like playful children. Jervon… carrying her on his shoulders when she was very small. Jervon, practicing swordplay in the courtyard with Kerovan, his face flushed and full of life. Jervon, teaching her to lunge and parry with her own wooden sword. Jervon, picking her up after her first hard fall from a horse, his face drawn with worry… Jervon, standing with his arm around his wife, the last time she had seen them together before Elys disappeared…

Eydryth’s memories dissolved into dreams as she dozed, sitting on her father’s bed, still holding his hand.

The songsmith started awake when the door opened to admit Joisan. Her foster-mother had changed her dress for riding trousers and thigh-high boots to protect her from underbrush. She wore a padded leather jerkin and heavy tunic, and her chestnut hair was braided tightly.

In her arms, she carried a bundle of clothing. “I brought some of your clothes,” she whispered. “So you can change out of those damp ones.” She gazed down at Jervon. “How fares he?”

Eydryth tapped the mud with a testing forefinger. “It is dry, and cracking,” she said. “Dahaun said to remove it when—”

She broke off as Jervon opened his eyes. His gaze traveled from Joisan to Eydryth; then he blinked, and it sharpened. “Joisan?” he whispered, staring at the Wise Woman.

Both women gasped in sudden hope and amazement. “Jervon!” Joisan exclaimed, her hand going out to clasp her friend’s. “Jervon, you know me?”

“Of course I know you,” he replied, obviously bewildered. “But… who is this?” He pointed at Eydryth.

The songsmith gulped, then raised the hand she still held to her cheek. Her tears splashed down, hot and salty. “Father…” she whispered. “Oh, Father! Thank you, Amber Lady! Thank you, Dahaun!”

Jervon stared at her, his eyes widening incredulously. He sat up, grasping her shoulders hard. “Eydryth?” he whispered. “Is that you? But… but…”

Joisan hugged her foster-daughter, who was now crying too hard to speak. “Yes, Jervon. It is Eydryth. You have been… ill… for a time. A long time. It was only tonight that your daughter brought home a cure for your malady, and it was thus that you have awakened at last!”

Jervon reached out to hug Eydryth, cradling her against his shoulder. Joy welled up in her, such joy as made all her struggles, her sacrifices, seem as nothing by comparison to the feeling of having her father’s arms around her, hearing his voice speak her name.

After a moment, Jervon spoke again, his voice strained and still bewildered… but already he was beginning to grasp that there had been changes… vast changes… that he yet remained unaware of. “Time…” he whispered. “Joisan… how much time?”

The Wise Woman drew a deep breath. “Six years, Jervon,” she said, steadily, giving him the truth.

“Oh, no…” Jervon whispered. “My child… grown into a woman. My wife…” Sudden hope brightened his voice. “What of Elys?”

“Still missing, Father,” Eydryth said, pulling back a little to look at him, run her fingers over his dear, familiar face. Tenderly, she chipped away the last of the red mud. Now that his expression was animated, full of life again, it seemed that the intervening years had wrought but little change in him.

Her father stared at her. “You look so much like her,” he said, wonderingly. “You have grown into a beauty, Daughter.”

“What is the last thing you remember, Father?” she asked.

“The Seeing Stone,” he said. “I climbed… I looked…” He drew a quick breath. “Eydryth, I saw her! I saw Elys that day! She lay within a Place of Power—one I would recognize if I saw it again. In my vision, she was lying upon a pallet, her hands folded upon her breast. Our son…” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Our son was still within her. I could see the swell of her belly. Elys was surrounded by a mist, a glamourie of some kind, that shields her from view… but”—he grasped his daughter’s hands tightly—“she is alive, Eydryth! Alive!”

“Oh, Father!” she whispered. “If only we can find her… save her!”

“We will,” he promised, and his words bore the ring of a sacred vow. “We will.”

Joisan stood up, one hand resting on each shoulder. “I must carry these happy tidings to my lord,” she said. “And then… Eydryth, we are all still waiting for your story.”

The songsmith smiled up at her foster-mother. “I will be with you shortly,” she said.

“We will both be there,” Jervon amended. “If there is a story to be told, I want to hear it, also.” He smiled ruefully. “I have much catching up to do, it seems.”

Less than an hour later, Eydryth, dressed in fresh clothing, her hunger truly satisfied for the first time in days, sat on one of the stone benches in the Great Hall, finishing her food, her tale (cut to the bare bones) told. “And so,” she concluded, “Alon went to track the witch alone. I fear for him.” She glanced at her family’s faces. “So much so that I ride back out tonight. Guret must already be waiting with the horses saddled.”

“I will ride with you, Sister!” Firdun was the first to speak. “I have no fear of a sorceress!”

“And that lack of fear is precisely why you will remain here,” Kerovan told his impetuous son, grimly. “I will ride with Eydryth.”

“And so will I,” Hyana and Joisan said, together.

“And I.” Jervon was only a heartbeat behind. The former invalid was dressed now in riding garb. Thanks to the walks and rides his companions had taken him on, he was not wasted, although he had complained bitterly at his own thinness and lost muscle tone.

Now he smiled at his daughter and squeezed her hand, his blue eyes sparkling with teasing laughter. “We must rescue this young sorcerer, if only so that I may inquire as to his intentions toward my daughter.” He shook his head. “What a night! I have regained myself after years of lost time, only to discover that I now have a sorceress of no little power as a daughter, and an Adept as a prospective son. My head is spinning!”

Eydryth shook her head, willing herself not to blush again. She had said naught about what had happened in the Fane of Neave, beyond the bare fact that the Place of Power had cured both she and Alon of the Shadow-taint. And she knew that Hyana had not betrayed her confidence. But her family knew her well, and her voice had given her away every time she had spoken Alon’s name, she feared.

“Father!” she said, mock-reprovingly. “I said nothing of… of…”

“You did not have to,” Jervon said gently; then he sobered. “After so long unaware of anything, I see tonight as if I have been new-forged. My daughter is a woman, and a Wise Woman at that. All of this will take me some time.”

“Thanks to the Lady of the Green Silences, we will all have that time,” Joisan said. “But for now, I suggest that we ride!”

In the end, it was decided that Sylvya and Firdun would remain behind… over Firdun’s bitter protests. Kerovan reminded his son that he could track his sister by mind-link, and thus keep those at Kar Garudwyn informed as to their progress. As soon as all was in readiness, Joisan, Kerovan, Eydryth, Hyana and Jervon left the Great Hall together.

Outside Kar Garudwyn, Monso stood, chewing a mouthful of hay, awaiting them. The Keplian’s ordeal had left him thin and worn, but Dahaun’s red mud had again worked its magic, and his leg was nearly healed. The stallion had finished the water from Neave’s spring, and the water that Sylvya had given him after rinsing Dahaun’s box in it. Looking at him, Eydryth could scarcely believe that only two hours had passed since they had arrived at Landisl’s citadel.

She patted the Keplian, then swiftly saddled and bridled him. “Surely you do not intend to ride him?” Joisan said. “He needs rest, not more riding!”

Eydryth shook her head. “I will ride Vyar,” she told her foster-mother. “But Alon will need a mount, if we find him. And Monso will not be content to wait here for his master’s return. No stall or fence could hold him if he wishes to come with us… and he does,” she said, smiling as the stallion whickered, then pawed, as if he understood her perfectly.

She removed the reins from the Keplian’s bit, so he would run no risk of stepping on them, coiling them and tying them on the saddle. Even as she had predicted, Monso clattered after them as they descended the ramp to the valley.

Within minutes, the rescue party set out, trotting slowly in single file, with Jervon, who did not have the night-sight, riding in their midst.

By the time they had reached the road, and set out along it, Eydryth was barely able to hold herself back from galloping full speed along it. Her worry for Alon gnawed at her like some wild creature.

As they moved westward at a ground-eating trot, she chafed, realizing for the first time how slow a mortal horse’s gaits were, in comparison to Monso’s. The riderless stallion ranged ahead of them, scenting the air as though trying to trace his master that way.

Suddenly Monso shrilled his stallion’s scream into the night, then reared before them. Fearing that the half-bred had gone berserk, the riders drew rein, watching the Keplian anxiously as he stood pawing nervously in the middle of the road. The half-bred screamed yet again—

—and this time he was answered!

A shrill cry broke through the night air, and Eydryth suddenly discerned a blacker-than-black shape winging toward them. A shape that bore a white V on its breast.

“Steel Talon!” she gasped, as the falcon came to rest on the cantle of Monso’s saddle. She knew that the falcon would not normally fly at night, and her heart began slamming within her.

“This is the falcon you spoke of?” Kerovan asked.

“Yes,” Eydryth whispered, through dry lips. The bird looked straight at the songsmith and screamed again. “He has come to lead us to Alon,” she said, suddenly sure that she spoke truth. “He is even now in terrible danger!”