Winds Of Fate

*Chapter Eighteen ELSPETH

This was, possibly, the strangest land Elspeth had ever crossed. There were no roads and no obvious landmarks; just furlong after furlong of undulating grass plains. There were clumps of brush, and even tree-lines following watercourses, but grassland was the rule down on the Dhorisha Plains. It was truly a "trackless wilderness," and one without many ways of figuring out where you were once you were in the middle of it.

Right now, the Plains were in the middle of high summer; not the best time to travel across them. Nights were short, days were scorching and long; the grass was bleached to a pale gold, insects sang night and day, down near the roots. Otherwise there wasn't much sign of life, no animals running through the grass, no birds in the air. Or rather, there was nothing they could spot; the Plains might well teem with life, as hidden in the grass as the insects, but silent. Here, where the tall, waving weeds made excellent cover, there was no reason for an animal to break and run, and every reason for it to stay quietly hidden where it was.

A constant hot breeze blew from the south every day, dying down at sunset and dawn, and picking up again at night. And not just hot, but dry, parchingly dry. Thirst was always with them; it seemed that no sooner had they drunk from their water skins than they were thirsty again. Elspeth was very glad of the map; since they had descended into the Plains near a spring, she'd puzzled out the Shin'a'in glyph for "water"- the water that was very precious out here in the summer. This was not a desert, but there wasn't a trace of humidity, day or night, and there would be no relief until the rains came in the fall. The mouth and nose dehydrated, skin was flaking and tight, and eyes sore and gritty, most of the time. Many of the water sources shown on the map were not springs or streams, which would have been visible by the belt of green vegetation along their banks, but were wells. There was no outward sign of these wells anywhere; in fact, they were frequently hidden from casual searching and could only be found by triangulating on objects like rocks, a mark on the cliff wall, a clump of ancient thornbushes. There were detailed, incredibly tiny drawings of the pertinent markers beside each water-glyph. Elspeth marveled again and again at the ingenuity of the Shin'a'in and their mapmakers. And she was very glad that she did not have to travel the Plains by winter. A bitter winter wind, howling unchecked across those vast expanses of flat land, would chill an unprotected horse and rider to the bone in no time. And there was little fuel out here, except the dried droppings of animals and the ever-present grass. Would it be somehow possible to compact the grass into logs?

There were no natural shelters from the winter winds either, at least that she had seen. Small wonder the Shin'a'in were a hardy breed.

Since their goal was the northern rim of the Plains, they had chosen to follow the edge, keeping it always on their right as they rode. But Elspeth wondered aloud on their third day out just how the Shin'a'in managed to find their way across the vast Plains, once they were out of sight of the cliffs. And soon or late, they must be out of sight of those natural walls. How could they tell where they were?

Skif shrugged when she voiced her question. "Homing instinct, like birds?" he hazarded. "Landmarks we can't see?" He didn't seem particularly interested in the puzzle.

The sword snorted-mentally, of course : they use the stars, of course.:

Like seafarers. With the stars and a compass, you can judge pretty accurately where you are. I expect some of those little scribbles on your map are notes, readings, based on the compass and the stars. And I know the lines they have cross-hatching it are some way of reckoning locations they have that you don't." Elspeth nodded; she'd heard of such a thing, but no one in landlocked Valdemar had ever seen the sea, much less met those who plied it. They both had compasses, bought in Kata'shin'a'in, though Skif had complained that he couldn't see what difference knowing where north was would make if they got lost. She'd bought them anyway, mostly because she saw them in places where the Shin'a'in often bought made-goods.

She reckoned that if the Clansmen needed and used them, she should have one, too. She bit her tongue when he complained, and somehow kept herself from pointing out that on a featureless plain, if he knew which way north was, he would at least be able to prevent himself from wandering around in a circle.

The cliff wall loomed over their heads, so high above them that the enormous trees on the top seemed little more than twigs, and one couldn't hope to see a human without the aid of a distance-viewer. Elspeth had one of those, too, purchased, again, in Kata'shin'a'in. Skif hadn't complained about that, but he had coughed when he'd learned the price. It was expensive, yes, but not more than the same instrument would have been in Valdemar-if you could find one that the Guard hadn't commandeered. Here they were common, and every caravan leader had one. The lenses came from farther south, carried between layers of bright silk, and were installed in their tubes by jewel-smiths in Kata'shin'a'in. The workmanship was the equal of or superior to anything she had seen in Valdemar.

Elspeth ignored Skif's silent protest over the purchase of the distance-viewer, as she'd ignored the vocal one over the compasses. She had saved a goodly amount of their money on the road by augmenting their rations with hunting; she also had a certain amount of discretionary money, and some real profit she had made by shrewd gem-selling. She had a notion that Quenten had known these gemstones, amber and turquoise, changes-tone and amethyst, were rarer here, and therefore in high demand, for he had invested quite a bit of their Valdemaren gold in them. She was very glad the mage had. It enabled her to make those purchases without feeling guilty about the expense.

She'd done very well with her first attempt at jewel trading, so she didn't feel that Skif had any room to complain about how she spent some of that money. There was a curious slant to his complaints-a feeling that it wasn't so much that she had spent the money, but that she hadn't first consulted him. She also had a sneaking suspicion that if she had spent that same money on silks and perfumes, he would not have been making any complaint. And that, plainly and simply, angered her.

Not that she hadn't wanted silks and perfumes, but this was neither the time nor the place for fripperies. Instead of buying those silks and perfumes, she had bought other things altogether; the compasses and distance-viewer, some special hot-weather gear, and a full kit of medicines new to her, but which the Healers here seemed to depend on. If she could get them home intact, she would let Healer's Collegium see what they could do with these new remedies. She had bought two sets Of throwing knives, in case she had to use and leave the set she now wore. She had purchased an enveloping cloak, and had gotten one for Skif as well-because as they left Kata'shin'a'in at the break of dawn, they had been wearing their Whites again, and she had wanted to disguise fthe fact until they were well down onto the Plains.

Wearing their Whites again was not something she'd insisted on just for the sake of being contrary, though Skif seemed to think so. It had seemed to her that, since the Shin'a'in already knew what Heralds were, it would be a good thing to travel the Plains in the uniform of their calling.

Skif argued that they'd been in disguise to avoid spies. She pointed out that it would make no difference one way or another insofar as possible spies were concerned. If Ancar could get spies near enough the Plains for them to be seen, he was more powerful than any of them had ever dreamed, and whether or not they wore their Whites would make no difference.

But if he were not that powerful, then wearing their uniforms could provide them with a modicum of protection from the Shin'a'in. The Plainsfolk had a reputation for shooting first, and questioning the wounded. Being able to identify themselves as "nonhostile" at a distance was no bad idea.

Except that even with all the best reasons in the world, Skif didn't like that idea, either.

She was just about ready to kill him in his saddle. Now that he had her "alone," he seemed determined to prove how devoted he was to her safety. But he was going about it by looking black every time she did something that was "unfeminine" (or rather, something that asserted her authority) by disagreeing with her decisions, and by repeating, whenever possible, his assertion that this was a mistake, and they should go back to the original plan. If that was devotion, she was beginning to wish for detestation.

Tonight they camped beside a spring; easy enough to spot from leagues away as a patch of green against the golden-brown of the waving sea of grass. Because of that, she had decided to bypass the well they encountered earlier in the afternoon and journey on into darkness to reach the spring. After all, they were supposed to be making as much time as possible, right? They couldn't possibly bypass the place; it was the only spot ahead of them with trees. They couldn't even miss in the dark; they'd smell the difference when they reached water and the vegetation that wasn't scorched brown. And even if, against all odds, they did miss it, the Companions would not.

Skif, predictably, had not cared for that either. He only voiced one complaint, that he didn't think it was a good idea to push themselves that hard in unknown territory. But he did brood-she was tempted to think "sulked" but did not give in to the temptation-right up until the moment they made camp. She couldn't think why he should have any objections, not when they'd already agreed to make as much time as possible. All she could think was that it was more of the same-he didn't want her to make the decisions.

Once there, they had chores, mutually agreed on. She avoided him with a fair amount of success. While he set up camp, she collected water and fuel. Not too much of the latter; they didn't need much more than to brew a little tea. Elspeth was nervous about grass fires; one spark could set the entire area ablaze, as dry as this vegetation was. In her view, Skif was simply not careful enough. When she returned with her double handful of twigs and fallen branches, she discovered he had etched a shallow little pocket in the turf, just big enough to hold the fire she intended to build. Plainly that was not good enough; but Skif was a child of cities, and likely had never seen a grass fire. It was hard for someone like Skif to imagine the fury or the danger of a grass fire. A city fire, now, that was something they could comprehend-but grass?

Grass was tinder, it wasn't serious, it burned up in the blink of an eye and was gone with no damage.

Right.

Elspeth knew better. It was tinder; it caught fire that easily and burned with incredible heat. But there was a lot of it out here-acres and acres-and that was what Skif couldn't comprehend. She had never, ever forgotten the description Kero had given her of a patrol caught in the path of a grass fire during her days as merc Captain of the Skybolts. Kero had described it so vividly it still lived in her memory.

"It was a wall of flame, as tall as a man, driving everything before it.

Herds of wild cattle were followed by a stampede of sheep. that was followed by a sea of rabbits, frightened so witless they'd charge straight up to a man and run into his legs. that was followed by the little birds that lived in the grass, and a river of mice-and then the wall was on top of you. You could hear it roaring a league away, and nearby it was deafening. It moved as fast as a man can run, and it sent up a great black pall of smoke, a regular curtain that went straight up into the sky. The burning area was farther than I could jump-at the leading edge the ends of the grasses were afire, in the middle, all of this year's growth-but on the trailing edge, all the previous years' growth that was packed down was burning as fiercely as wood, and hotter-" Kero paused and passed her hand over her eyes.

"Everyone let go their beasts; you couldn't hold 'em, not even Shin'a'inbreds.

A couple of the youngsters, I'm told, tried to run across the fire. It was unbelievably hot; their clothing, anything that was cloth and not leather or metal. caught fire. Not that it mattered. The hot air stole the breath from them; they fell down in the middle of the flames, trying to scream, and with no breath to do it, burning alive. The rest, the ones that survived, wet their shields and cloaks down with their water skins, put their shields over their backs and their wet cloaks over that, and hunkered down under both."Like turtles under tablecloths' is what one lad told me.

They stuck their faces right down into the dirt, and did their best to breathe as little as possible. That was how they made it. And even some of those got scorched lungs from the burning air. She shook her head. "Don't ever let anyone tell you a grass fire is 'nothing, 'girl. I lost half that patrol to one, and the rest spent days with the Healers, for burns inside and out.

It's not 'nothing," it's hell on earth. My cousins fear fire the way they fear no living thing." No, a grass fire was nothing to take lightly. On the other hand, there was no purpose to be served in giving Skif a lecture, especially not the way she felt right now. Anything she told him would come out shrewish; anything she said would be discounted. Not that it wouldn't anyway.

Rather than risk sounding like a fishwife, she simply took out her knife and cut a larger circle in the turf, removing blocks of it and setting them aside to replace when they were finished. She made a clear space about half as wide as she was tall. Skif sat and seethed when he saw her kindling a tiny fire in the middle of this comparatively vast expanse of clear earth, but he didn't comment. Then again, he didn't have to; she didn't even have to see his face, his posture said it all.

Even without her saying a word, he took what she did as criticism.

Was it? She couldn't help it. Better to do without a little tea than risk a fire. She decided that he was going to seethe no matter what she did,

whether or not she said anything.

And when the tea was boiled and their trail rations had been toasted over the fire, she put the fire out and replaced the blocks of turf enjoying, in a masochistic kind of way, the filthy mess she was making of her hands-again to the accompaniment of odd looks from Skif.

"He thinks you're doing this just to avoid him," the sword observed cheerfully.

I don't particularly care what he thinks," she retorted. "I do care about making sure any watchers know that we're being careful with their land. It seems to me that since we're here on their sufferance, we'd better think first about how they're judging us. And I know they're out there."

"Watchers?" the sword responded. they're there," she replied.

There're at least four," Need said, after a moment. "I didn't know you could See through shields. You must be much better than I thought." She came very close to laughing out loud. "I can't. I simply guessed. the Shin'a'in are notorious for not allowing strangers on their land; and that they not only allowed us, they gave us a map, says that they are bending rules they prefer to leave intact. that didn't mean that they were going to leave us on our own, they don't trust us that much; if we didn't actually see anyone watching us, it followed that they were hiding. they aren't going to stop us, but I'll bet that if we did something wrong, we'd be dis-invited, and if we strayed from the path, we'd be herded back." She thought about it for a moment; it was the first thing that had offered her any amusement all day. "Might be fun to do it and see how they'd get us back on track. I bet it wouldn't be as straightforward as riding up and helping us back to the "right" way. I bet they'd start a stampede or something." The sword was silent for a moment. "Convoluted reasoning, that; 'if we can't see them, they must be there.'"

"Merc reasoning," Elspeth replied, and let it go at that.

When she finished replacing the turfs, she looked up to see Skif still sitting there, watching her. There was no moon tonight, only starlight, but his Whites stood out easily enough against the high grass and the night sky, and seemed to shimmer a little with a light of their own. He looked like something out of a tale.

Or a maiden's dream, she thought scornfully. A hero, a stalwart man to depend on for everything. Perfect, strong, handsome-and ready to take the entire burden of responsibility on his shoulders.

She stood up; so did he. She moved off a little, experimentally. He followed.

More than followed; he came closer and put his arms around her, and she stiffened. She couldn't help herself; it just happened automatically, without thinking. She didn't want him to touch her-not like that. Not with the touch of a lover.

"Don't!" he said, sharply.

"Don't what?" she asked, just as sharply, trying to pull away without being obvious about it.

"Don't be like that, don't be so cold, Elspeth," he replied, softening his tone a little. "You never used to be like this around me."

"You never used to follow me like a lovesick puppy," she retorted, getting free of him, walking away a little to get some distance, and turning to face him. "You used to be my 'big brother' until all this started."

"That was before I paid any attention to-how much you'd grown up," he responded. "All right, so I was a fool before, I wasn't paying any attention to what was in front of my nose, but I've-" Oh, gods, it's a bad romantic play! She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Both would have been so full of anger that they would have made her incoherent.

"You've been paying too much attention to idiot balladeers," she interrupted, rudely. "All of which say that the young hero is supposed to finally notice the beauty of the young princess, fall madly in love, rescue her and carry her off to some ivy-wreathed tower to spend the rest of her days in sheltered worship." She took a deep breath, but 'the anger didn't fade. "I've heard all of that horse manure before, I didn't believe in it then, and I don't now. You're not a hero and neither am I. I'm not a beauty, I just happen to be the only woman who's a Herald around here. I don't need rescuing, and I don't want to be sheltered!"

"But-" he said weakly, taking a step back, and overwhelmed with her vehemence.

"Stop it, Skif!" she snapped. "I've been nice, I've hinted, I've tolerated this, and I am not going to take any more! Leave me alone! If you can't treat me as your partner, go home. Nothing is going to happen to me in the middle of the Dhorisha Plains, for Haven's sake!" She waved her arm out at the expanse of trackless grass to the south of them.

"There're half a dozen Shin'a'in out there right now, and I doubt any of them is going to let something get past them."

"That's not the point, Elspeth," he said, pleadingly. "The point is that I-"

"Don't you dare say it," she snarled. "Don't you dare say that you love me! You don't love me, you love what you think I am. If you loved me, you wouldn't keep trying to prove you were better than me, that I should follow your lead, let you take over, permit you to make all the decisions."

"But I'm not-"

"But you are," she retorted. "Every decision I make, you find a reason not to like. Every job I try to do, you try to do better. Every idea I have, you oppose, Except in those times when I'm acting, thinking, like a good little girl, who shouldn't bother her pretty head about warfare, and should go where she's been told and learn the pretty little magics she's been told to learn."

"I'm not like that!" he bristled, "Some of my best friends are female!"

She very nearly strangled him.

"So-any female you're not interested in can be a human being, is that it?" she said, her voice dripping scorn. "But any female you want had better keep her proper place? Or is it just that every female who outranks you can have her position and be whatever she needs to be, and anyone who's your peer had better let you be the leader? Oh that's noble, that truly is. How nice for you, how terribly broad-minded."

"Just who do you think you are?" he shouted.

"Myself, that's who!" she shouted back. "Not your inferior, not your underling, not your child to take care of! Not your doll, not your toy, not your princess, and not your property!" And with that, she turned and stalked off into the grass, knowing she could lose him in a scant heartbeat-and knowing that Gwena could find her immediately if Elspeth needed her.

She ducked around a hillock, and dropped down into the dusty smelling grass. She held her breath, and listened for his footsteps, waited for him to blunder by in pursuit of her, but there was nothing.

"Gwena?" she Mindcalled, tentatively.

"He's just sitting here on his bedroll," she said, and the disapproval in her mind-voice was thick enough to cut. "that was cruel." Elspeth slammed her shields shut before Gwena could reproach her any further. She didn't want to hear any more from that quarter. Gwena was on Skif's side in this, like some kind of matchmaking mama. She'd escaped her real mother's reach, and she wasn't about to let someone else take over the position.

She lay back into the fragrant grass; it was surprisingly comfortable, actually-and looked up at the night sky. The night was absolutely clear, and the stars seemed larger than they were at home.

Her back and neck ached with tension; her hands had knotted themselves into tight fists. Her stomach was in an uproar, and her throat tight.

This was no way to handle a problem.

She tried to empty her mind, just empty it of all the anger and frustration, the need that was driving her out into the unknown, and the heavy burden of responsibility she was bearing. Gradually the tension drained out of her. Her stomach calmed, her hands relaxed. She concentrated on the muscles in her back and neck until they UN-knotted.

She stopped thinking altogether. She simply-was. Watching the stars, letting the warm, ever-present breeze blow over her, inhaling the dry, dusty scent of the grasses she lay in, feeling the earth press up against her back.

This place felt very much alive, as if the warm earth itself was a living being. It calmed her; she found her tension all drained out of her, down into the earth, which accepted it into a tranquillity that her unhappiness could not disturb.

Gwena's right. I was cruel. She felt her ears flushing hotly, and yet if she had the chance to do it over, there was nothing she would not have repeated. What happened to us? there was a time I would have gladly heard him say he loved me. there was even a time when I might have been able to fall in love with him. Gwena was right; I could do so much worse.

Tears filled her eyes; they stung and burned. Not from what she had done to Skif-he was resilient, he'd survive. But from what she was going to face in the years ahead. If we all survive this, I probably will do worse. I'll probably have to marry some awful old man, or a scrawny little boy, just to cement an alliance. We'll need all the help we can get, and that may be the only way to buy it. If I took Skif, I'd at least have someone who loves me for a little while...But that wasn't fair to him; it was wrong, absolutely wrong. She'd be using him and the affection he was offering, and giving him nothing in return. She didn't love him, and there was no use pretending she did.

Furthermore, he was a Mindspeaker; he'd know.

Besides, when she married that awful old man, whoever he was, she'd have to break with Skif anyway, so what was the point?

What was the point of all of this, at all? When it all came down to it, she was just another commodity to be traded away for Valdemar's safety.

And intellectually, she could accept that. But emotionally?? she asked the stars fiercely as tears ran down into her hair. Why do I have to give up everything? why can't I have a little something for myself? that's not being selfish, that's just being human! Talia has Dirk, Kero has Eldan, even Mother has Daren... Why isn't there anyone for me.

There was no answer; she held back fierce sobs until her chest ached.

Maybe she wasn't as sophisticated as she had thought, after all. Maybe all her life she had believed in the Bardic ballads, where, after long struggle, the Great True Love comes riding out of the shadows.

All right, maybe it's childish and stupid, but I've seen it happen-Happen for other people. That fact was, the notion was childish and stupid-and worse, if she spent all her time waiting for that One True Love, she'd never get anything done for herself.

But, oh, it hurt to renounce the dream...Chapter Nineteen INTERLUDE

Dawnfire woke all at once; her heart racing with fear, but her body held in a strange kind of paralysis. She couldn't see anything. All she could feel was that she was so hungry she was almost sick, and that she was standing; her position seemed to be oddly hunched over, but-No, it wasn't hunched over, it was a perfectly normal position-for Kyrr's body. She was still in the body of her bondbird. Only-Kyrr was gone. She was alone.

She opened her beak to cry out, and couldn't-and then the paralysis lifted, and a hazy golden light came up about her, gradually, so that her eyes weren't dazzled.

She was on a perch.

As she teetered on the perch, clutching it desperately, trying to find her balance without Kyrr to help her, she saw that there were bracelets on her legs, and jesses attached to them, and that the jesses were fastened to a ring on the perch.

The light came up further; she moved her head cautiously at the sound of a deep-throated chuckle to discover that now she could see the entire room. An empty, windowless room-except for a bit of furniture, one couch, and its occupant.

She couldn't help herself; panic made her bate, and she flapped uncontrolled right off the perch. She couldn't fly even if she hadn't been jessed; she hadn't Kyrr's control-and she hung at the end of the leather straps, upside-down, swinging and twisting as she beat at the air and the perch with her wings.

I can't get back up!

That sent her into a further panic, and she flailed wildly in every direction but the right one, with no result whatsoever. She twisted and turned, tangled herself up, and banged her beak against the perch support, and never once got a claw on the perch itself.

Finally she exhausted herself; she hung in her jesses with her heart beating so hard she could scarcely breathe, listening to it thunder in her ears, growing sicker and weaker with every moment she stayed inverted.

She had gone, as any raptor would, from a state of uncontrolled panic to a state of benumbed shock.

She was hanging facing the wall, not the room beyond, and its bizarre occupant; she didn't even hear the footsteps coming toward her because of the sound of her own heart.

Suddenly there was a hand behind her back, and another under her feet. She clutched convulsively as she was lifted back up onto the perch.

She released the hand as soon as she was erect, transferring her grip to the sturdy wood, as the Changechild took his gloved hand away, and smiled enigmatically down on her.

"Having trouble, dear child?" he purred, stepping back a pace or two to observe her. The glove was the only article of clothing he was wearing, and now he pulled it off, and tossed it on a shelf next to her perch. He really didn't need much in the way of clothing-long, silky, tawny-gold hair covered him from head to toe-except for certain strategic areas.

If she could have blushed, she would have. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen nude males before, certainly there was no nudity taboo among the Tayledras, but he seemed to flaunt his sexuality like some kind of weapon. It was somehow obscene, even though he wasn't doing anything overtly to make it so. It was all in posture, unspoken body-language.

He seemed to sense her embarrassment and take amusement from it-and that made it even more obscene.

He looked like a cat-a lynx-and he moved like a cat as he padded back to his couch. That was where she had seen him when the light came up; reclining with indolent grace on a wide couch piled high with silken pillows, in black and golden tones that matched his hair. He resumed his position with studied care, and a fluidity not even a real cat could have matched, then rested his head on one hand to watch her with unwinking, slitted eyes.

Her feet twitched a little and she teetered on the perch.

That was when she realized just how helpless she truly was. He didn't need the jesses, except to keep her from falling to the floor every time she bated. Without Kyrr, she was as helpless in this body as a newborn chick. She could do simple things that were largely a matter of reflex-like perching-but anything more complicated than that was out of the question. She could no more fly now than she could in her own body.

She stared at him in despair; he smiled, and slowly, sensuously, licked his lips.

"I," he said, in a deep, echoing voice, "am Mornelithe Falconsbane.

You made the fundamental mistake of attacking me. And I am afraid that you, dear child, are my prisoner. To do with as I will." Fear chilled her, and made all her feathers slick tight to her body, as he said that. Mornelithe Falconsbane-this must be the Adept that Darkwind's Changechild had fled from; the Adept that had trapped and tormented her dyheli herd-his name did not invoke a feeling of comfort in a Tayledras.

It's a pity that you managed to have yourself trapped in that bird's body," he continued. "The ways that I may derive pleasure from it are so limited, but I'm sure you can be flexible." He mock-sighed and lowered his lids over his slitted, green-golden eyes, looking at her through thick lashes. She clutched the perch nervously, swaying back and forth, her mouth dry with fear as she waited for him to do something.

He raised a single finger. The door beside his couch opened, and a human in golden-brown leather that clung to his body as if it had been sewn around him entered the room, carrying a deep pannier. He went straight to her perch, as she flapped in alarm, and put the basket down underneath it. Then he untied her jesses from the ring, tied a leather leash to it instead, and attached the leash to her jesses.

Then he turned his back on her and left her, all without saying so much as a single word.

She looked down into the basket. Cowering in fear, and looking up at her, were three live mice.

Now her stomach growled with hunger, even while her mind rolled with nausea. She stared down at the mice, ravenous, and feeling just as trapped as they were.

She was starving-this was food. And she didn't have the slightest idea of how to kill and eat it.

Kyrr would, but Kyrr was gone.

Then it hit her. Kyrr was gone. Not waiting patiently in the back of the bird's mind, but gone completely. Dead. Part of her soul, her heart, her life-gone without a trace. She was completely alone, in a way she had not been since she was ten.

The grief that descended over her was so total that she forgot everything, including her hunger.

Oh, Kyrr-Her beak gaped, but nothing happened. Not even a single sob.

She couldn't cry, she wasn't even human anymore. How could she mourn as a hawk? She didn't know, and the inability to cry out her pain and loss redoubled it. They were both lost, she and Kyrr-and they would never come home again.

She closed her eyes and rocked from foot to foot, trapped in a sea of black grief, drowning in it.

A satisfied chuckle made her snap her head up and open her eyes wide.

Mornelithe was watching her with amusement.

Her grief turned to rage in the blink of an eye; she mantled and screamed at him, her cry piercing the silence and shattering it-though she was careful to keep a tight grip on the rough wood of her perch as she shrieked her defiance at him.

He found that even more amusing; his smile broadened, and his chuckle turned into a hearty laugh.

"Perhaps you won't be a disappointment after all, clever bird-child.

He caressed her with his eyes, and her rage spilled away, leaving her weak and frightened again.

He returned his gaze to something in his lap, and as he shifted a little, she could see that it was a dark crystal scrying-stone. He stared at it, his gaze suddenly going from casual to penetrating-and what he saw in it made him frown.

Chappter Twenty DARKWIND

Starblade turned away from the little knot of Tayledras Adepts and Healers surrounding Dawnfire's ekele in despair, and sought the sanctuary of his own ekele. The fools were trying to thrash out what could have killed Dawnfire, and why-when it was obvious, as obvious a taint on the girl's body as the taint on his own soul, and the contamination that had cracked the Heartstone.

He knew it the moment he saw it. And he could not say a single word.

He felt old, old-burdened with secrets too terrible to hide that he could not confess to anyone, weary with the weight of them, sick to his bones of what he had done. As he had so many times, he climbed the stairs to his ekele, then sought the chamber at the top, and stood looking down on the Vale) wondering if this time he could find the strength to open the window and hurl himself to the ground.

But the crow on his shoulder flapped to its perch as soon as he entered the room, and sat there watching him with cold, derisive eyes. And he knew, even as he fought the compulsion to turn away from the window and suicide, that Mornelithe Falconsbane still had his soul in a fist of steel, and there was nothing he had that he could call his own. Not his thoughts, not his will, not his mind.

He flung himself down on the sleeping pad, hoping to lose himself in that dark oblivion-but sleep eluded him, and Falconsbane evidently decided to remind him of what he was.

The memory-spell seized him Smoke wreathed through the trees as he paused in an area he had thought safe, and the acrid fumes made him cough. The fire was spreading, far faster than it should have. For a moment, Starblade wondered if perhaps he should go back for help. But other emergencies had emptied the Vale of all but apprentices and children, and he had a reputation to maintain. He was an Adept, after all, and a simple thing like a forest fire shouldn't prove too hard to handle. He sought shelter from the smoke down in a little hollow, a cup among some hills, and closed his eyes to concentrate on his first task.

No, you fool, Starblade cried at his younger self. Go back! Get help!

Nothing trivial would frighten that many firebirds!

But this was a vision of the past, and his younger self did not heed the silent screaming in his own mind.

He reached out with his mind, seeking the panic-stricken firebirds first of all.

Until he could get them calmed and sent away, he would never be able to put the flames out. One by one he touched their minds; turned their helpless panic into need for escape instead of defense, and sent them winging back to the Vale. One of the beast-tenders, the Tayledras who spoke easily to the minds of animals, would take care of them. He had a fire to quench. there were more firebirds than he had expected, and they were in a complete state of mindlessness. It took time to calm them.

But while he had stood there like a fool, the fire had jumped the tiny pocket of greenery where he worked, and ringed him. He opened his eyes, weary with the effort of controlling the birds, to find himself surrounded by a wall of flame and heat. the leaves were withering even as he watched, the vegetation wilting beneath the heat of the hungry flames. Fear chilled him, even as the heat made him break into a sweat. That was when he realized, when he reached for the power to quench it, that he had exhausted himself in calming the birdsand that he was cut off from the node and the nearest ley-lines. Something had sprung up while he worked; something had arisen to fence him away from the power he needed, not only to quell the fire, but even to save himself. He was enveloped in a wall of shielding as dangerous as the wall of flame.

Smoke poured into the hollow; something brushed against his leg, and he glanced down to see that a rabbit, blind with panic, had taken shelter behind his ankle. The heat increased with every passing moment; it wouldn't be long before this little valley was afire, like the rest of the forest here. He was not clothed for a fire; he had run out in his ordinary gear, a light vest and breeches. He had nothing to protect him from the flames, nothing to breathe through. There was only one thing he could do-wrap the remains of his power about him in as strong a shield as he could muster, and run-As the nearest flames licked toward him, he sent his bird up into the safety of the skies, and sprinted for what he hoped was the easiest way out. Straight into hell.

On the sleeping pad, his body writhed in remembered agony, his mouth shaping screams of pain he was not permitted to voice.

Flames licked his body, hungry tongues reaching out from burning scrub, a tree trunk. There was no pain at first-just a kind of warm pressure, a caress as he ran past. Then came the pain, after the flame had touched-red heat that blossomed into agony. Sparks fell on him as he dashed under a falling, blazing branch. He wrapped his hair around his mouth, and still the air he breathed scorched his lungs. Within moments, there was nothing but pain-and the fear of a horrible death that drove his legs.

Then-cool, smokeless air. He burst out past the fire-line, into the unburned forest. Freedom.

But not from pain. He fell into a stream, moaning, extinguishing his smoldering leather clothing and hair. the stream cooled him but did nothing for the pain, for the horrible burns where the skin was blackened and crisped on his arm. How long he lay there, he did not know. Smoke wreathed over him, but the flames did not grow nearer. He could not tell if it was the smoke that darkened his sight-or his pain. Only that, after a dark, breathless time of agony, salvation loomed out of the smoke, a spirit of mercy-vague and ghostlike.

NO! he screamed. NO! Don't believe him! Kill yourself, draw your knife, kill yourself while you have the chance!

He reached out toward the mist-wreathed shape, who seemed to be someone he knew, yet could not identify. Hazy with an intimation of power, the stranger's white hair was a beacon that drew his eyes. White hair-a Tayledras Adept, surely. Yes, he knew this one; he must. Rainwing? Frostfire? Both were recluses. No matter-he managed a croak, and the other started and turned his steps in Starblade's direction.

No- he moaned. No" I thought I heard someone Call," said the other, stooping over him in concern. "I see I was right. ~ His lips shaped words he could not speak for lack of breath. "Help meSilver hair wove a web of light that dazzled his eyes. the Adept's own eyes, gilded-silver, held his. "I will have to take you to my home," the other said worriedly. "The fire has cut us off from Tayledras Vale. But I can tend you there, never fear. Will that be all right?" Starblade nodded, giving consent, and as a consequence of that consent, relaxed all of his defenses. And as the other bent closer over him, to lift him in amazingly strong arms, he thought he saw a peculiar gleam in the other's eyes...He awoke again, resting on something soft, his arms thrown over his head, with a tawny silken coverlet swathing him from chest to feet. He still hurt, but he was no longer covered with angry, blackened burns, and he took a deep, experimental breath to find his lungs clear again.

Then he tried to move his arms-and couldn't.

He tried harder, struggling against silk rope that bound him hand and foot-with no better success. A deep chuckle answered his efforts.

He twisted his head to face the source of the sound.

"So eager to take leave of my hospitality?" said the tall, catlike Changechild, smiling as he paced toward the couch on which Starblade lay tethered. the creature had modeled himself on a lynx; was clothed mostly in his own tawny-silk hair, but wearing a supple, elaborately tooled and beaded leather loincloth. "How-uncivilized of you. it-he-smiled, with sensuously parted lips. Starblade wrestled furiously against his bonds. "My Clan will know where I am," he warned. "Even if You kill me, they will know where I am, and they will-"

"They will do nothing," the Changechild yawned, examining the flex of his own fingers for a moment, admiring his needle-sharp talons. "You accepted my offer of help, consented to come away with me. You will leave no trail of distress for them to follow-and you are behind my walls and shields now. Call all you like, they will not hear you." Starblade snarled his defiance. "You forget, misborn-I am Tayledras.

My bird will bring them here!" He sought for Karry's mind with his own, even as the Changechild moved slightly aside and gestured. "If you mean that-it tried foolishly to attack me.

Starblade followed the gesture to a shadow-shrouded corner, where something thin and almost-human looked up with wild, unfocused eyes, its hands and mouth full of feathers.

Perlin falcon feathers.

Karry's feathers.

Silent tears ran into his hair; silent sobs shook his body. None of it brought Karry back.

The crow cawed; it sounded like scornful laughter. the Changechild sat on the edge of the couch, and flicked away the covering, leaving him naked and unprotected, even by a thin layer of silk. He shrank away, involuntarily. "I am called Mornelithe, rash birdman," the creature said, idly gliding a talon along Starblade's side. "I think I shall take another name, now. Falconsbane." He glanced sharply at Starblade, who continued to fight his bonds, though his eyes blurred with the tears for Karry he would not-yet-shed. "And believe me, my captive. In a shorter time than you dream possible, you will have another name for me." He paused, and a slow, lascivious smile curled the corners of his mouth. "Master, he said, savoring the word. then he bent over his captive and transfixed him with a pair of green, slitpupiled eyes, that grew and grew until they filled Starblade's entire field of vision.

"I think we shall begin the lessoning now.

Mercifully, he could no longer remember that lessoning, not even under the goad of Mornelithe's spell. It involved pain; it also involved pleasure. Both hovered at the edge of endurance. Mornelithe was a past master at the manipulation of either, of combining the two. When it was over, Mornelithe had the keys to his soul.

He knelt before the Changechild, abasing himself as fully as he could; worshiping his Master, and detesting himself for doing so. All that was in his line-of-sight at the moment was the golden marble of the floor, and Mornelithe's clawed feet. thankfully, he had not yet been required to kiss them this time.

"Ah, birdman," Mornelithe chuckled. "You grovel so charmingly, so gracefully. It is almost a pity to let you up." Starblade felt himself flush with shame, then chill with fear. Too many times in the past, such seemingly casual words had led to another "lesson."

"'You have learned your place in the scheme of things quite thoroughly, I think, Mornelithe continued. "It is time to let you return to your lovely home.

Instead of elation, the words brought a rush of sickness. Bad enough, what he had become-but to return to the Vale, bringing this contamination with him-He wanted to refuse. He wanted to rise, take the dagger at his belt, and slay his tormentor. He wanted to take that same dagger and slay himself.

He tried to assert his will; he closed his eyes and concentrated on placing his hand on the hilt of that dagger. He was an Adept-he had training, experience, his own personal powers. His will had been honed to an instrument like the Starblade of his use-name. Surely he could reclaim himself again. Yes... yes, he could. He could feel his will stirring, and opened his mouth to denounce his captor.

"Yes, Master," he heard himself say softly. "If it is your will.

He felt his lips stretching in an adoring smile; his head lifted to meet Mornelithe's unwinking eyes. His hand did not move from the floor.

There were two Starblades inside his mind. One worshiped Mornelithe and looked to his Master for all direction. That was the one that was in control, and there was no unseating it. But buried deep inside, away from all control, bound and gagged and able only to feel, was the real Starblade.

Mornelithe could have destroyed even this remnant; he had not, only because it amused him to see his victim continue to suffer, long after the contest of wills had ended.

"I do not entirely trust you, dear friend," Mornelithe said, softly, as he reached down and touched Starblade's cheek. "You were a stubborn creature, and I do not entirely trust you away from my sight. So, I shall send you a watcher, also-one that the rest will take for your new bondbird.

Here-" He snapped his fingers, and held out his hand-and a huge crow, identical in every way to those the Tayledras bonded with, flapped out of the shadows beside Mornelithe's chair to land on the outstretched arm. the Changechild gestured with a lifted finger that Starblade should rise from his crouch to a simple kneeling position; the Tayledras' body obeyed instantly, even while his helpless mind screamed a protest.

The crow lifted silently from Mornelithe's wrist, and dropped down onto his shoulder.

And what little remained of Starblade's will was frozen with paralysis.

"There," Mornelithe said with satisfaction. "that should take care of any little problems we may have, hmm?" The crow cawed mockingly, joining Mornelithe's laughter...The memory-spell released him, leaving him limp and shaking, with the echo of that laughter in his ears.

From the moment he had left Mornelithe's stronghold-which leave-taking he did not remember-he had been completely under the Adept's control. And Mornelithe was an Adept; there was no doubt of that. All that he lacked to make him a major power was control of a node. The only two for any distance around lay in the hands of the Tayledras.

Mornelithe intended to change that. And at the time of his release, that was all that Starblade had known; he had no idea what Mornelithe planned.

Nor, when he was found wandering in the heart of the burned area, did he even remember that he had been taken.

Instead, he had false memories of being overcome with smoke, of losing Karry somewhere in the heart of the fire-of taking a blow to the head from a falling tree. Then vague and confused recollections of crawling off and hiding in a wolverine's hole until the fire passed, of smoke-sickness that pinned him in the area for several days, of bonding to a huge crow who brought him fruit to feed him and supply his fevered body with liquids, and his final desperate attempt to get back to the Vale.

And the false memories passed muster. The crow was unremarked upon.

He had only an unusually touchy temper that caused his friends and son to give him some distance until he should regain his normal calm. Any changes in him, they-and he-ascribed to the trauma he had endured, and they all felt that those changes would pass in time.

All else seemed well, until the ritual to move the Heartstone.

Only then, after the disaster, did his true memories return. And it was then that the rest of his hidden memories emerged-Memories of going to the Heartstone every night, and creating a flaw in it, leeching the power away from a place deep inside, and creating an instability that would not be revealed until the entire power of the Vale had been loaded into it, preparatory to bridging the distance between the old Heartstone and the new.

That was the first night he had tried to fling himself from the top of his ekele.

Once again, Mornelithe exerted his power over him, through the compulsions planted as deeply within him as he had planted the flaw in the stone. The crow was the intermediary of those compulsions, and since it never left his side, Mornelithe's hand was always upon him.

And when he tried to confess his pollution, he found his tongue uttering simple pleasantries. When he tried to open his mind to let others see the traitor within their ranks, he found himself completely unable to lower his own shields. As he had been in Mornelithe's stronghold, he was bound, gagged, and paralyzed, a prisoner within his own mind, still toyed with and controlled for Falconsbane's pleasures and purposes. At least half of the time, that tiny portion of himself that was still free was buried so deeply that it was not even aware of what passed, what Mornelithe made him do, and say.

All he could do, in the moments he was free to speak and act, however circumspectly, was to alienate his son, in the barren hope that, once made into an enemy, anything Starblade supported, Darkwind would work against. It looked as if the ploy was working.

At least, it had until the death-no, murder-of Dawnfire. Once again the hand of Mornelithe Falconsbane had reached out to take what he wanted, and again Starblade had been helpless to prevent it.

There was only one further hope. Darkwind had withdrawn from the company of mages after the disaster. Darkwind lived outside the influence of the flawed and shattered Heartstone. So Darkwind's powers should be uncontaminated by Mornelithe's covert influence. If he could just get Darkwind to take up his powers again-Darkwind would call for help from the nearest Clan. The deceptions that had held for so long would shatter under close examination, and Mornelithe would find himself locked out, once again.

But how to get Darkwind to resume his powers, after all that Starblade had done to keep him from doing just that?

Starblade groaned, and threw his arm over his eyes. There seemed no way out; not for him, nor for anyone else. k'sheyna was doomed, and his was the hand that had doomed it. The only way out was death, and even that had been denied him.

Damn you, Falconsbane! he shrieked inside his own mind. And it seemed to him that he caught a far-off echo of derisive laughter.

Darkwind felt torn in a hundred pieces, divided within himself by conflicting emotions, responsibilities, and loyalties. Treyvan had kindled a mage-light; a dim orange glow in the center of the ceiling of the lair.

Yet another surprise to Darkwind; he hadn't known the gryphon could do that, either.

He slumped in one corner of the gryphons' lair with his head buried in his hands and his mind going in circles. Hydona curled protectively around her youngsters, trying to minimize whatever harm Falconsbane had already done them. Her shields were up at full strength, with Treyvan's augmenting them. Darkwind's shields augmented both of theirs; he had never renounced that part of his mage-craft, and he squandered his own energies recklessly to stave off any more disaster that might befall his friends.

Nyara sat curled into a ball in the opposite corner of the lair, with as much distance between herself and the rest of them as she could manage.

After his initial outburst of rage-during which he had come very close to breaking her neck with his bare hands-Darkwind's anger toward the Changechild faded. After all, none of this was of Nyara's plotting. He should have known better than to leave her with the hertasi, who were mostly creatures of daylight, to keep her watched at a distance by tervardi and dyheli who also moved mostly by day.

I should have found a night-scout willing to watch her, he thought distractedly.

Hindsight is always perfect.

"All right," he said, breaking the silence, and making everyone jump.

He turned to Nyara, who shrank farther back into her corner, her eyes wide and frightened. "Stop that," he snapped, his tightly-strung nerves making him lash out at her as the only available target. "I'm not going to kill you."

"Yet," Treyvan rumbled. He had taken Nyara's news much worse than Hydona. His mate tended to ignore the past as beyond change, and was interested only in what she could do to fix what had been done to her younglings. Treyvan felt doubly guilty; because he had failed to protect Hydona, and because he had failed to protect his offspring.

Darkwind knew exactly how he felt.

Nyara tried to melt into the rock behind her, her eyes now wide and focused on Treyvan.

Darkwind recaptured her attention. "I want to know everything that you know about us, and what he knows that you're sure of. I mean not only what you've told your f-Falconsbane, but what he knew before this." Nyara shivered but looked as if she didn't quite understand his question.

He stood up, walked over to her, and towered over her. "What does he know about the Vale?" he asked, speaking every word carefully.

"Begin from the very first thing you knew." Nyara began, stuttering, to tell them fairly simple bits of intelligence that anyone could have figured out for himself. That the only nodes Falconsbane could possibly access were in Tayledras hands. That he had made several attempts to get at one or the other of the nodes. She identified each attempt that she knew of, going back to long before the arrival of the gryphons. Most of these trials had been low-key, tentative feints.

And as she spoke, she gained confidence, until she was no longer stuttering with fear, and no longer speaking in short, choppy sentences.

Most of the feints she described, Darkwind had already been aware of. But then she took him by surprise.

"Then F-father decided to take the Vale from within, I think," she said, her hands crooking into claws, as her eyes glazed a little. "This was when he was angry with me, and he was-he was-he was angry with me." Her expressive face was as still as stone, and Darkwind sensed that this had been one of those periods when Falconsbane had "trained" her, using methods it made him ill even to contemplate.

But this was important. She had said that Falconsbane meant to "take the Vale from within." He had to know what that meant, and what had happened.

"What did he mean by that?" he prompted. She gave him a frightened, startled look, as if she had forgotten he was there.

"He set a trap," she replied tightly. "He set a very clever trap. He sent many of his servants to create diversions-emptying the Vale of all but one of the Adepts." This was beginning to sound chillingly familiar-but she was continuing.

When that one was alone-he knew that there was but one Adept still present by the level of power within the Vale-he created a disturbance that required an Adept." She licked her lips nervously and gave him a pleading glance. "I truly do not know what that was," she said,

"I was not in favor. He did not grant me information."

"I understand that," he said quickly. "Go on."

"When the Adept came to deal with the disturbance, Mornelithe sprung the trap and closed him off from the Vale. He was hurt-and that was when Mornelithe cast illusions to make him appear to be of the Birdkin, so that the Adept would accept him as rescuer. The bird, Father slew. It was not deceived, and attacked him. But by then the Adept's hurts were such that he was unconscious, and did not know. Father took him to the stronghold and imprisoned him to break him to Father's will.

"And you know who this Adept is?" Darkwind felt himself trembling on the brink of a chasm. If it was his father-it would explain so much.

And yet he dreaded the truth-She looked directly up at Darkwind, and said, clearly and forcefully," I did not know until Father called me on the night of moondark who that man was. It was your father, Darkwind. It was he that is called Starblade." She licked her lips, and raised one hand in a pleading gesture. "He wanted you, as well, the son as well as the father-he wanted me to-entice you. I told him 'yes," but I told myself 'no," and I kept myself from working his will, as he worked it upon your father." There it was, the blow had fallen. He surprised himself with his steady, cold calm. "So Falconsbane succeeded?" She nodded, dropping her eyes, her voice full of quiet misery. "When he sets out to break one to his will, he does not fail. I was-present-for much of it. It was part of my t-t-training. That this could be happening to me. Both the pleasuring, and the punishment. I can tell you some of what he did, what he ordered Starblade to do when he returned to the Vale. You do not want to know... what was done to control him." Darkwind tried to speak and could not. Treyvan spoke for him, in a booming, angry rumble. "Continue! All that you know."

"He was, firstly, to forget what had happened to him. Mornelithe gave him false memories to replace what had truly occurred-until Mornelithe chose otherwise. Then he was to creep in secret to the heart of the Vale." She gave Darkwind a look of entreaty. "I have not the words-"

"The Heartstone," Darkwind supplied, at her prompting, feeling sick.

"The Heartstone," she said. "Yes. He was to go to it in secret, and change it-he was one who created it, so he would know best its secrets.

Father did not know that his trap would ensnare someone of that quality, but he was so pleased that he had, he forgot, often, to mete out punishment to me."

"Return to the subject, Changechild," Treyvan growled. She wilted, losing some of the confidence she had regained.

"What was it Starblade was supposed to do to the Heartstone?" Darkwind prompted her, with a bit more gentleness. She turned gratefully to him.

"He was to make a flaw in it, a weakness, one that would not appear until the Birdkin prepared to move. then he called back all his creatures, to make it appear that all was made safe here. He even sent his creatures to guard beyond your borders, so that you would be prepared to shift your power elsewhere." Darkwind held up his hand. "How much does he know-how can he continue to control Starblade, and does he know our strength?" She shrugged. "I do not know what he knows, but he has long patience and is willing to move slowly, so that each move he makes is sure.

But as to how he controls Starblade, it is with a crow."

"His bondbird." Somehow that was simply the crowning obscenity.

To take the closest tie possible to a Tayledras other than a lifebond, and pervert it into an instrument of manipulation" He cannot speak, move, or let his thoughts be known. All that is under Father's control, from compulsions planted when he was broken, and held in place by the crow." She hesitated a moment. "There is little, I think, that he can learn unless Starblade goes to him, and that, he has not done. The barriers still in place about the Vale prevent that.

But there is much that he can do with the compulsions already in place."

"Not for long," Darkwind said, with grim certainty, heading for the door of the lair. "Hydona, forgive me-I can't do anything about the younglings yet. But I can do something about this.

"Go," she replied. "Frrree thisss placsse of the viperrr, then perrrhapsss we can frrree the little onesss asss well."

"I will guard the Changechild," Treyvan said, before Darkwind eve

thought of it.

And before Darkwind could think to ask "how?" the gryphon turned to face Nyara, his eyes flashing. She looked surprised-And then she slumped over, unconscious.

Darkwind returned to Nyara's side. She was asleep, deeply asleep, but otherwise unharmed.

Treyvan sighed. "I have not hurrrt herrr, Darrrkwind. But it isss better to have the enemy underrr yourrr eye."

"She isn't exactly the enemy," Darkwind said, uncertainly.

"She isss not exactly a frrriend," Treyvan replied. "Ssshe isss at bessst, a weaknesss. I will watch herrr, for my magic isss ssstronger than hersss. Go." Darkwind did not have to be told twice. He was out the door of the lair and running for the Vale before the last sibilant "s" had left Treyvans beak. Dawn's first light flushed the eastern horizon, and Vree shot into the sky from his perch on a stone beside the lair crying greeting to his bondmate, projecting an inquiry. While running, Darkwind tried, as best he could, to give Vree an idea of what he had learned, in simple terms the bird could understand.

He conveyed enough of it that Vree screamed defiance as he swooped among the forest branches, preceding Darkwind and making sure the way ahead was clear of hazard. The bird was angered, but he had not lost his head or his sense of responsibility.

"where?" Vree demanded, his thoughts hot with rage.

"The Vale," Darkwind replied, as he leapt a bush, and took to the game trail that led most directly to the k'sheyna stronghold.

"I go," the bird said. "I go in, with you." Once again, Darkwind was surprised, but this time pleasantly. "I go," Vree repeated firmly.

That took one worry off his mind. It would be a great deal easier to handle that thrice-damned crow with Vree around.

Now he concentrated on running; as hard and as fast as he could, keeping his attention fixed on the ground ahead and leaving his safety in Vree's capable talons.

Where would Starblade be at this moment? He was an early riser, as a rule. By the time the sun was but a sliver above the horizon, he was generally in conference with one or more of the Adepts. There was a kind of informal ceremony there, as the memorial fire at the foot of the Heartstone was fed with fragrant hardwoods and resinous cedar. Those Adepts remaining-even the most reclusive-generally attended at least one of of these meetings; they remembered those who had been lost, and monitored the Heartstone very carefully, looking for changes in it morning and night.

With Father carefully making sure they accomplish nothing, he thought with nausea. Now I know why he never misses a meeting.

Now he was on safer ground; he passed his own ekele, and that of his brother; passed night-scouts coming in and day-scouts going out, both of whom stared at him in equal surprise. He ignored the ache of his lungs and his legs; dredged up extra reserves of energy and ran on, long hair streaming out behind him. He caught sight of other bondbirds flying beside him, peering down at him curiously, and guessed that their bondmates were somewhere behind. He ignored them; he would take no chances that a carelessly shielded thought would warn Starblade-or more importantly, the thing that controlled him in the guise of a blackbird.

Up hills, and down again; he took the easiest way, not the scouts' way-using game trails when he could find them. Finally he came out onto a real path, one that led to the border with the Dhorisha Plains, and had, in better days, been used by visitors from both peoples. It terminated at the entrance to the Vale, and Darkwind took deeper breaths, forcing air into his sobbing lungs. It would not be long now ...The shimmer marking the shields that guarded the entrance flickered between the hills. This was where Vree usually left him.

A cry from above alerted him, and Vree swept in from behind in a stoop that ended with the forestgyre hitting him hard enough to stagger him, and sinking his talons into the padded shoulder of Darkwind's jerkin. A fraction of a heartbeat later, he was through the shields, a tingle of pure power passing through him as the shields recognized him and let him by.

He was inside the Vale, but this was no time to slow down. He flung himself down a side path, bursting through the overgrown vegetation, and leaving broken branches and a flurry of torn leaves in his wake.

He was nearing the Heartstone; he heard voices ahead, and he felt its broken rhythms and discordant song shrilling nauseatingly along his nerves. Vree tightened his talons in protest but voiced no other complaint.

He staggered, winded, into the clearing holding the Heartstone, taking the occupants by complete surprise.

Vree did not wait for orders; he had an agenda of his own. Before Darkwind could say a word, the forestgyre launched himself from Darkwind's shoulder, straight at the crow that sat like an evil black shadow on his father's shoulder, as if it was whispering into Starblade's ear.

The crow squawked in panic and surprise, and leapt into the air-heading for the shelter of the undergrowth, no doubt counting on the fact that falcons never followed their prey into cover. But the evil creature did not know Vree; his speed, or his spirit. The gyre hit the crow just as he penetrated the cover of the lower branches; hit him with an impact audible all over the clearing. Rather than taking a chance that his stunned victim might escape instead of letting it fall, Vree bound on with both sets of talons, and screamed his victory as he brought his prey to the ground. And Starblade collapsed.

The action of Darkwind's bird stunned the Adepts, all but Stormcloud, who shouted something unintelligible, and flung out his hand in Darkwind's direction. The scout found himself unable to move or speak, and fell hard on his side-Vree bent and bit through the thrashing crow's spine, ending its struggles.

Darkwind fought against his invisible bonds as the outraged Adepts converged on him-but as they started to move, an entirely unexpected sound made them freeze where they stood.

"Free-" Starblade moaned, the relief so plain in his voice that it cut to the heart. "oh, gods, at last, at last-" The Adepts turned to stare at their leader, and Darkwind took the momentary distraction to snap his invisible bonds.

He stumbled to his father's side and reached for his hands. Starblade took them; his mouth trembled, but he was unable to say anything. It seemed as if he was struggling himself, fighting against a horrible control that even now held him in thrall.

"He's been under compulsion! Put a damn shield on him!" Darkwind shouted, throwing his own around his father, and startling the others so much they followed suit. And just in time; Darkwind felt a furious blow shuddering against his protections as the others added their strength to his. Another followed-then another. A half dozen, in all, before the enemy outside gave up, at least for the time being.

And now I know your name and face, Darkwind thought with grim satisfaction. I know who you are. Now it's just a matter of hunting you down.

Starblade groaned, still fighting the binding that kept him silent. "I know, Father," Darkwind said, urgently, as the other Adepts gathered around them. "I know at least some of it. That's why Vree killed that damn crow. We'll help you, Father. I swear it, we'll help you." Starblade nodded slightly, and closed his eyes, silent, painful tears forming slowly at the corner of his eyes and trickling down his ghost-pale cheeks as Darkwind explained what he had learned from Nyara as succinctly as possible. The others wasted no time in argument; Starblade's own reactions told the truth of Darkwind's words.

"Let me tend to him," Iceshadow said, when Darkwind had finished.

The scout moved over enough for the older Adept to take a place cradling Starblade's head in both his hands. Iceshadow stared intently into Starblade's eyes, but spoke to the son, not the father. "Tell me in detail everything you know." Darkwind obeyed, detailing Nyara's explanations of how Falconsbane had caught Starblade, and how he had broken the Adept and set the compulsions. Iceshadow nodded through all of it.

"I think I have enough," he said, then looked down into Starblade's eyes. "But first, old friend, I must bring down your shields. He has trained you to respond only to pleasure, or pain. And since I do not have time for pleasure-forgive me, but it must be pain." As Starblade nodded understanding, Iceshadow caught Darkwind's attention. "Take his left hand," the Adept said. "Spread it flat upon the ground." As Darkwind obeyed, mystified, Starblade closed his eyes and visibly braced himself.

"Take your dagger and pierce his hand," Iceshadow ordered. And when Darkwind stared at him, aghast, the older Tayledras frowned fiercely. "Do it now, young one," he snarled. "That evil beast has tied his obedience to pain, and I cannot break his shields to free his mind without driving him insane. Now do what I tell you if you wish to help him!" Darkwind did not even allow himself to think; he simply obeyed.

Starblade's scream of agony sent him lurching to his feet and away, tears of his own burning his eyes and blurring his sight.

When he could see again, he found Vree standing an angry and silent guardian over his victim, the crow that Mornelithe Falconsbane had used to control Starblade and shatter the lives of everyone in k'sheyna. Showing a sophistication that Darkwind had not ex pected of him, Vree had neither eaten his victim, nor abandoned it.

The first might have left him open to Falconsbane's contamination-the second might have given Falconsbane a chance to recover his servant, perhaps even to revive it. Almost anything was possible to an Adept of Falconsbane's power. It only depended on whether or not he was willing to expend that power.

Even if they buried the crow, it was possible that Falconsbane could work through it, to a limited extent. There was only one way to end such a linkage.

Destroy it completely.

There was always a fire burning beside the Heartstone; that memorial flame to the lives of those who had died in its explosion. Darkwind picked up the bird carefully by one wing, and took it to the stone basin containing the fire of cedar and other fragrant woods long considered sacred by both the Shin'a'in and the Tayledras.

He raised his eyes to the shattered Heartstone, truly facing it for the first time since the disaster.

The surface of the great pillar of stone was cracked and crazed, reflecting the damage beneath. The invisible damage was much, much worse.

And none of it-none-was his fault. The personal burden he had carried for so long, the ghost of guilt that had haunted his days, was gone.

Darkwind bent over the basin's edge and closed his eyes in a prayer to the spirits of the woods and an apology to the spirits of the Tayledras that had died when the Heartstone sundered.

Mornelithe Falconsbane, you have a great deal to answer for.

He drew back and hurled the body of the crow into the fire pit-so hard that something shattered with a splintering crunch as it hit-perhaps the bird's bones, perhaps the branches of the fire...The Adepts were so intent on Starblade that they didn't even look up, but a sudden heavy weight on his shoulder, and the soft trill in his ear, told him that Vree approved.

The feathers caught fire quickly; the rest took longer to burn-but the flames from the resin-laden branches were hot, and eventually the flesh crisped and blackened, then burst into flame. He watched until the last vestige of the bird was ash and glowing coals, and only then turned back to the rest.

Iceshadow still cradled Starblade's head in both his hands. A pool of blood had seeped out around Starblade's hand, with Darkwind's knife laid to the side. The expression on Iceshadow's face was just as intent, but Starblade's expression had changed entirely.

Darkwind wondered now how he could ever have mistaken the changes in his father for anything other than a terrible alteration in his personality.

Here was the father he had loved as a child-despite the pain, the grief, and the suffering etched into his face.

Starblade opened his eyes for a moment and saw him; he smiled, and tried to speak.

And couldn't. Once again, he came up against a terrible compulsion.

His face twisted as he strove to shape words that would not come.

"Keep trying," Iceshadow urged, in a low, compelling voice. "Keep trying, I'm tracking it down." Iceshadow was seeking the root of the compulsion, and reversing it; since Falconsbane had changed his father's will rather than placing a simpler block, it was not a matter of removing a wall. Instead, Starblade's mind had to be altered, set back to normal bit by bit as each compulsion was found and changed, so he could regain the use of all of his mind.

The internal struggle, mirrored in Starblade's face, ceased as Iceshadow found the series of problems, and corrected them one by one.

Darkwind dropped to his knees beside his father, and took the poor, wounded hand in his own. Blood leaked through an improvised bandage. but Starblade managed a faint ghost of a smile, fleeting, and full of pain.

"I made you my enemy," he whispered. "I made you hate me, so that anything I told you to do, you would do the opposite. Then, when M-M-" his face twisted with effort.

"Mornelithe," Darkwind supplied.

Starblade sighed. "When he twisted my thoughts, so that they were no longer my own, I knew that he would want you to take up magic again. If you did, eventually he would find a way to take you, too. through me. And blood of my blood, you would have been vulnerable."

"He almost had what he wanted," Darkwind replied grimly, thinking of all Nyara had told him.

Starblade nodded. "The only way I could think of to protect you was to drive you away from me. So that the more I tried, beneath his compulsion, to bring you back to magic, the more you would fight it. Then when my mind was not my own... you were safe." He looked up tearfully, entreatingly, at his son. "Can you... ever forgive me?" Darkwind blinked away tears. "Of course I can forgive you," he said quickly, and took a deep breath to calm himself He looked up at Iceshadow." How clear is he?" he asked.

Iceshadow shook his head. "I've only begun," the Adept replied, exhaustion blurring his words a little. "It's going to be a long process.

The bastard set the compulsions in a few days, but they've had all this time to work and develop. We'll have to keep him under shield the whole time."

"Put him in the work area," Darkwind suggested. "It has strong shields, and there aren't any apprentices who need it right now. Those shields are the best we have."

"which is why I was not-permitted-to go there," Starblade whispered." The bird would not let me."

"Then that is a good indicator that the shields will hold, don't you think?" Darkwind responded. He started to let go of Starblade's hand, but his father clutched it despite the pain that must have caused.

"Wait," he coughed. "Dawnfire-" Darkwind froze. Iceshadow asked the question he could not manage to get out.

"What about Dawnfire?" the Adept asked. "She's dead."

"No," Starblade said urgently. "The bird was never found, but M-M-his sign was on her body. I think he has her-trapped in her bird. Still alive, but helpless. A-another toy." Starblade's face was twisted, but this time with what he remembered. "It would-please him-very much."