Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (29 page)

Then suddenly Corisand sped forward and took a mighty leap into the sky, accompanied by a wild yell from Iriana that might have been either alarm or excitement. Rosina snatched at the bit and
raced after her companion and, without warning, gave an almighty bound that never landed but took her into the air, leaving Dael’s stomach on the ground behind her – or so it felt. He
screwed his eyes tight shut as terror burst through him, but after a moment or two, when he felt more secure and it became clear that nothing terrible was going to happen, he opened them to find
the world was suddenly at his feet.

Far below him the forest stretched, a vast ocean of trees that reached far ahead until it lapped around the skirts of the northern mountains. The air felt cold, crisp and clean against his face
and its song, as it whistled past his ears, was the only sound he could hear. Though Dael still clutched the edge of the saddle with a white-knuckled grip, it was simply a reflex now, rather than
the fear he’d felt when they had taken off. Filled with the exhilaration of the flight, he had forgotten to be afraid. To see the world spread out below him in all its immense grandeur made
him feel as though he ruled it all, as though it was his own personal plaything.

For an instant his mind flashed back to the time before Athina had rescued him, when he had fallen from the nets of the Phaerie slavecatchers and been lost in the forest. He remembered
struggling on stumbling feet through every treacherous, perilous mile; starving, injured, exhausted, lost, terrified and absolutely without hope.

And just look at me now, riding the skies in lordly splendour like the Wild Hunt themselves! Look at me, not a slave any longer, but a friend and companion to these marvellous, magical
beings, the Wizard and the Windeye. I’m useful, I’m wanted. I belong. My life is better than I ever dreamed it could be. I can make a difference, and help to free another race of
slaves. What more could I ask?

‘Athina,’ whispered a small, sad voice inside his mind, but Dael, for once, chose to ignore it. What was done was done. For a little while he would put away those thoughts of loss
and sorrow, and simply enjoy the glory of this wild ride through the skies.

The sun had passed the zenith when they finally saw the broad, glinting line that was the Carnim river that marked the boundary of the Phaerie realm, and all of them were growing weary. They had
landed once, briefly, to give Dael and Iriana a chance to get out of the saddle and stretch their legs, and permit Corisand to relax for a short while from the pressure of continual concentration
on her flying spell. They wasted no time, however, and soon were on their way once more, sipping from their water flasks and chewing trail rations as they flew.

They followed the shining path of the Carnim for another hour or so, until finally, on the northern bank, the land reared up into a low range of craggy hills, their surfaces too rocky and steep
for trees or anything other than weeds and small shrubs to gain a foothold. As the companions swooped down towards the rugged eminences, they saw the river change colour to mark the confluence of
the Carnim and the Snowstream. For a few hundred yards, until they were churned together by the swirling currents, the conjoined torrents looked as though the two separate rivers ran side by side
in the same bed, with the Snowstream’s opalescent blue-green glacier melt running alongside the Carnim’s turbid flow, stained brown with silt and tannins from the trees.

Following the oddly bicoloured river upstream, they saw the canyon slicing down through the hills to channel the northern river into its broader counterpart. The Snowstream poured, surging and
foaming, through the constricting rocky gates of the gorge as the two horses swooped down and entered the narrow defile. The sun never reached the bottom of this gloomy crevice. Ferns grew in
profusion in every cranny of the damp rock, and swags of bramble and ivy snaked down from the clifftops on either side to hang in tangled, thorny curtains that dripped with moisture. Looming like a
threat, the echoing walls of rock reared up on either side of them, and the roar of the river reverberated in the enclosed space until their ears were ringing. A cold, dank wind blew into their
faces, carrying the faintly metallic tang of wet stone.

Iriana shuddered. ‘This is a horrible place.’

‘You should try it with the hearing of a horse,’ Corisand replied. ‘I think my head is about to explode. Couldn’t Taine have found a less unpleasant location for a
hideout?’

Iriana shrugged. ‘Maybe he could, but this place is safer, I suspect. Who would linger here long enough to find a cave, unless they were absolutely desperate?’

‘Well, for safety’s sake we can put up with a bit of unpleasantness, but I hope we won’t have to stay here too long.’

The cave was indeed well hidden. Taine had described its location as being within a mile of the confluence, on the eastern side of the ravine, yet it took over an hour of flying up and down this
part of the canyon, carefully examining every cranny and shadow, before the companions finally found the opening, several hundred yards from the mouth of the ravine and about two-thirds of the way
up the cliff face.

Dael was the one who finally spotted it, tucked away in the shadowy niche behind a jutting projection, partially obscured by ferns and a tangle of ropy, thorny bramble briers that cascaded down
the precipice from the forest above. He was never sure what drew his gaze to the spot – he had passed it a dozen or more times already – but this time, approaching from a slightly
different height and angle, his eye was caught by a deeper patch of darkness amid the shadows.

‘Hold on,’ he yelled, straining his voice to be heard above the roar of the river. ‘I think I see it!’ With Corisand’s help he managed to manoeuvre Rosina across to
the right place, and pushed aside the overhanging greenery. ‘Ow! If this is the right place, we’re going to have to be careful of these brambles.’

‘It must be the right place,’ said Iriana, sharing Corisand’s vision as the tangled vines were thrust aside and a dark void was revealed behind them. ‘Well done, Dael.
You have my eternal gratitude. I was sick and tired of flying up and down this accursed canyon.’

In an awkward, lurching move which had him almost tumbling out of the saddle, Dael managed to scramble across into the cave mouth. They had come prepared with lanterns taken from Athina’s
tower, and he lit one now. ‘I’ll take a look inside,’ he said. ‘If this is the right cave, I’ll come straight back and tell you.’ As Dael stepped into the dark
opening, he was pleased to note how brave he sounded.

The cave, its dark stone walls glittering in the lamplight, turned out to be little more than a narrow tunnel that went back into the cliff for about thirty feet. It then split, with a branching
cave on the right-hand side, the remnants of another passageway that had been blocked at its far end by a fall of rock, leaving a chamber about nine or ten feet on a side. Although the walls near
the entrance still carried the dampness of the canyon, the further in Dael went the moisture grew less and less until, by the time he reached the branching cavern, the walls were perfectly dry. The
ceiling began from a low place, about six feet high, not far inside the entrance, then gained another foot or two at the far end of the cavern. The floor was rock, fairly uneven, but smooth enough
for them to get Rosina inside without much trouble.

Dael hurried out to the others with a grin on his face. ‘Looks like the place all right.’ A brilliant smile broke out across the Wizard’s face, and even the Windeye lifted her
weary drooping head and pricked her ears.

With Corisand pushing and Dael tugging on her bridle, Rosina was finally persuaded to enter, and Dael led her along to the far end of the straight section, where he hobbled her so that she could
not turn round and go back to the entrance. Unfortunately, the ceiling was too low for Iriana to enter the cave while still mounted on Corisand, even if the Wizard tried to lie very flat along the
Windeye’s neck to avoid hitting her head on the roof. Instead, the Windeye brought Iriana right up to the very mouth of the cave and hovered there, as close as she could to the lip of rock at
the entrance, while Dael put out a helping hand to steady Iriana as she scrambled across, using Corisand’s vision to see where to put her feet. Once she was safely inside, Corisand followed.
Dael removed her saddlebags and Melik’s basket and, while Iriana freed her cat, the Windeye changed back into her human form.

She clapped Dael on the shoulder. ‘Well done, Dael. Had it not been for your keen eyes, we might have been flying up and down that accursed canyon all day.’ She grinned at him.
‘Just for that, you win the prize.’

‘What’s the prize?’

Corisand chuckled. ‘Iriana and I will make dinner tonight.’

‘Is that a good thing?’ Dael asked dubiously. It was becoming a standing joke among the three of them that he always ended up doing the cooking, mainly out of self-preservation,
because the other two were woefully bad at it. Obviously, cooking had never been a skill that Corisand had needed – or indeed been able – to acquire in her life as a horse, and in
Iriana’s case, there were human servants in Tyrineld to deal with the Wizards’ domestic chores. Only a handful of her people had any interest in the culinary arts.

‘Take heart, Dael,’ the Wizard said. ‘Since Taine told us not to light any fires while we’re here, we’re only having cold rations tonight – and not even
Corisand and I could muck that up.’

They unpacked their provisions and settled themselves in the inner chamber, with Dael on the left-hand side of the entrance, Iriana on the right, and Corisand at the back of the cave. It did not
take long to make their cramped quarters as comfortable as possible, with blankets and cloaks as primitive beds, and their packs as pillows. Iriana replaced their lantern with a globe of magelight,
which she sent up towards the ceiling to hover above them and illuminate the chamber with its soft glow.

The companions had been up before sunrise that morning, after a night of very little sleep. Dael, indeed, had not been to bed at all. He’d spent the night roaming round the tower and its
environs, storing up memories of what had been the happiest time of his life. Iriana was still feeling the after-effects of that wild night when she’d lost Esmon, Avithan and her animals, and
had come very close to being murdered herself. Both she and the Windeye were still recovering from their journey to the Elsewhere and the battle to regain the Stone of Fate, while Corisand was also
fighting the fatigue of holding the flying spell in place all day.

It was a relief to be able to sit down and rest at last. They had found their haven and could finally be comfortable. They were so ravenous that even the cold trail rations of bread, cheese and
dried meat, washed down with water, tasted delicious to them, but none of them got to finish their meal, for now that they had relaxed, all their exertions and lack of rest finally caught up with
them. Heads drooped and food fell from fingers gone suddenly limp. Desultory attempts at conversation petered out into silence in mid-sentence.

Corisand was the first to go, slumping back against the wall, her head tilting to one side as her eyes closed, and the rest of her body following suit. Dael caught her by the shoulders as she
began to slide, and as he lowered her gently to the cave floor, Iriana slipped her pack beneath her head.

She looked so comfortable that it seemed only natural to follow suit. ‘Sorry,’ Dael mumbled to Iriana. ‘Close my eyes – just for a moment . . .’ He curled up on top
of his cloak and was lost to the world. Iriana stayed awake for about two minutes longer, prompted by the guilty thought that someone, at least, ought to stay awake and alert, but her weariness got
the better of her and she gave up the unequal struggle. She lay down on her cloak beside Melik. Taine had said this place was safe, after all. A little rest, and she’d be fine . . .

As her eyes closed, an image of Esmon, shaking his head at her and frowning, came into her mind, but she was already drifting into slumber. Melik lay by her side as if on guard, his sapphire
eyes reflecting the magelight that she had left floating by the ceiling. The sound of soft breathing filled the cave. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the cat’s eyelids drooped, and soon even he
was fast asleep.

~

T
he next morning Chiannala arrived at the infirmary bright and early, to find the atmosphere had changed completely; the fear and unease that had
permeated the place on the previous day had vanished. At first she wondered what the problem had been, and how it had been solved, but then, as she approached the desk in the main reception area,
she overheard Lameron (whom she had already tagged as a dreadful gossip) saying, ‘The rumour was that Tinagen had been arrested, but today he’s back, so surely it can’t
be—’ Then he saw Chiannala approaching, and shut up like a clam.

So was that really what had happened to Tinagen? There had been all sorts of rumours flying round the student refectory at the Academy the previous night, of Luen Heads going missing and being
replaced. Chiannala knew that the truth would all come out eventually, and meantime this new, positive ambience within the Luen of Healers suited her down to the ground, for she was filled with
newfound determination to excel. To her frustration, however, she found that there was little for herself and Haslen to do.

Though one problem had seemingly been solved, the other – the mystery patient behind the forbidden door – was still very much in evidence. Judging from the tired, worried faces going
in and out of the room, the foreigner’s condition had deteriorated, and he was taking up everyone’s time and energy. Chiannala and Haslen were simply told to continue to observe,
looking at what they wished and asking questions where they would – but not about the firmly closed door and whoever lay beyond it.