Storm Warning (5 page)

Firesong was teaching An’desha the Tayledras ways of magic, and every lesson made that fear more potent. It had been magic that brought Falconsbane back to life; could more magic not do the same?

But by the same token, An‘desha was as afraid of not learning how to control his powers as he was of learning their mysterious ways. Firesong was a Healing Adept; surely he should be the best person of all to help An’desha bind up his spiritual wounds and come to terms with all that had happened to him. Surely, if there were physical harm to his mind, Firesong could excise the problem. Surely An’desha would flower under Firesong’s nurturing light.

Afraid to learn, afraid not to learn. There was an added complication as well, as if An’desha needed any more in his life. The first time he had voiced his temptation to let the magic lie fallow and untapped within him, Firesong had told him, coolly and dispassionately, that there was no choice. He
must
learn to master his magics. Falconsbane never possessed a descendant who was anything less than Adept potential. That potential did not go away; it probably could not even be forced into going dormant.

In other words, An‘desha was still possessed of all the scorching power-potential of Mornelithe Falconsbane, an Adept that even
Firesong
would not willingly face without the help of other mages. The power remained quiescent within the Shin’a’in, but if An’desha were ever faced with a crisis, he might react instinctively, with only such training as he vaguely recalled from rummaging through Falconsbane’s memories.

On the whole, that was not a good idea. Especially if the objective was to keep anything in the area alive.

To wield the greater magics successfully, the mage must be confident in himself and sure of his own abilities, else the magic could turn on him and eat him alive. Falconsbane had no lack of self-confidence; unfortunately, that was precisely the quality that An’desha lacked.

I cannot even bear to meet all the strangers here, and it is their land we dwell in!
Stupid of course; they would not eat him, nor would they hold Falconsbane’s actions against
him.
But the very idea of leaving this sheltered place and walking the relatively short distance to the Palace, crowded with curious strangers, made him want to crawl under the waterfall and not come out again.

So he remained here, protected, but cowering within that protection.

He found it difficult to believe that no one here would hold against him the evil Falconsbane had done. He had such difficulty facing those stored memories that he could not imagine how people could look at him and not be reminded of the things “he” had done.

And I don’t even know the half of them ... the most I know are the things he did to Nyara.
The truth was, he didn’t want to know what Falconsbane had done—never mind that Firesong kept insisting that he must face every scrap of memory eventually. Firesong told him, over and over again, that he
needed
to deal with every act, however vile, and mine it for its worth.

He decided that he had stewed enough in the hot water; any more, and he was going to look like cooked meat. There were no helpful little
hertasi
here in Valdemar to attend to one’s every need—a fact Firesong complained of bitterly—but An‘desha had grown up in an ordinary Shin’a’in Clan on the Plains. That was a place where if a person did not do things for himself—unless he was incapacitated and needed help—they did not get done. He had brought his own towels and robes to leave beside the pool, with extras for Firesong when he should reappear, and made use of those now.

This hot pool was the mirror image of a cold one on the other side of the garden. It had a smooth backrest of sculptured rock, taller than the user’s head; hot water welled up from a place in the center of the pool, and a waterfall showered cooler water down from above, from an opening at the top of the backrest. The whole was surrounded by screening “trees” and curtains of vines; Firesong did not particularly care if someone wandered by and got an eyeful, but An’desha was not so uninhibited.

Firesong’s white firebird flew gracefully across the garden room as he climbed out of the pool and dried himself off. It landed beside the smaller, cooler pool that supplied the waterfall, in a bowl Firesong had built for it to bathe in. It plunged in with the same enthusiasm as the hum-blest sparrow, sending water splashing in all directions as it flapped and rolled in the shallow rock basin. When it finally emerged from its bath, it looked terrible, as if it had some horrible feather disease, and its wings were so soaked it could scarcely fly. It didn’t even bother to try; it just hopped up onto a higher perch to preen itself dry with single-minded concentration. Hawkbrothers usually had specially-bred raptors as bondbirds, but in this, as in all else, Firesong was an exception.

An’desha got along quite well with the bird, whose name was Aya; especially after he had coaxed some berrybushes the bird particularly craved to grow, blossom, and bear fruit out of season in this garden. Aya was happy here; he did not seem to miss the Vales at all.

Even the firebird felt more at home here than he did. He recognized the fact that he was feeling sorry for himself, and he didn’t much care. The firebird paused in its preening, as if it had read his thoughts, and gave him a look of complete disgust before shaking out its wet tail and turning its back on him.

Well, let it. The firebird had never had its body taken over by a near-immortal entity of pure filth, had it?

He dried his hair and wrapped himself up in his thick robe, then went off to one part of the garden he considered his very own.

In the southwestern corner of the garden, near the window, he had planted a row of trees screening a mound of grass off from the rest of the garden. In that tiny patch of lawn he had pitched a very small tent, tall enough to stand in, but no wider than the spread of his arms. It wasn’t quite a Shin’a’in tent, and it certainly wasn’t weatherproof, but that hardly mattered since it was always summer in this garden. Here, at least, he could fling himself down on a pallet, look up at a roof of canvas, and see something that resembled home. And as long as he made no sound, there was no way to know whether or not the tent was occupied. Firesong had made no comment about the tent, perhaps understanding that he
needed
it, even as Firesong needed some semblance of a Vale.

A strand of his own damp white hair tangled itself up in his fingers as he pushed open the tent flap, and he shook it loose impatiently. White hair—he looked Tayledras. Just as Tayledras as Firesong or Darkwind. There was no way that anyone would know he was Shin’a’in unless he told them. Was there a reason for that? Firesong had told him it was because of the magic, but if the Star-Eyed had chosen, She
could
have given him back his native coloring. For a little time, at least.

He sat down on the pallet; it was covered with a blanket of Shin’a’in weaving—a gift from a Herald, who’d bought it while on her far-away rounds—and it still smelled faintly of horse, wood smoke, and dried grasses. The scent was enough, if he closed his eyes, to make him believe he was home again.

If the Star-Eyed could remake my body, couldn’t She have taken
away
the magic, too?

Magic. For a long time, he’d wanted to be a mage. Now he wished She had taken his magic away, but there was always a reason why She did or did not do something.

He stared at the canvas walls, glowing in the late afternoon sun coming through the windows, and chewed his lower lip.

If She left me with magic, it is because She wants me to use it for some reason that only She knows. Firesong keeps saying it’s my duty to do this, to Her as well as to myself.
He felt a flash of hot resentment at that. Hadn’t he risked everything to defeat Falconsbane—not just the pain and death of his body, but the destruction of his soul and his self? Wasn’t that
enough?
How much more was he going to have to do?

Then he flushed with shame and a little apprehension, for he was not the only one to have risked all on a single toss of the dice. What of those who had dared penetrate to Ancar’s own land to rid the world of Ancar, Hulda, and Falconsbane? If Elspeth had been captured, she would have been taken by Ancar for his own private tortures and pleasures. Ancar had hated the princess with a passion that amounted to obsession and, given the depravities that Falconsbane had overheard the servants whispering about, Elspeth would have endured worse than anything An’desha had faced.

Then there was Darkwind. Falconsbane hated Darkwind k’Sheyna more than any human on the face of the world, and only a little less than the gryphons. If Darkwind had been captured, his fate would have been similar to the one Elspeth would have suffered. And as for Nyara—

Nyara’s disposition would have depended on whether or not King Ancar had recognized her as Falconsbane’s daughter. If he had, he would have known she represented yet another way to control the Dark Adept, and she might have been kept carefully to that end. But if not—if Ancar had given her back to her father—

She would have been wise to kill herself before that happened.
In her case, it would not have been hate that motivated atrocity, but the rage engendered by having a “possession” revolt and turn traitor. Motivation aside, the result would have been the same.

As for Skif and Firesong, the former would have been recognized as one of the hated Heralds and killed out of hand; the latter? Who knew? Certainly Falconsbane
and
Ancar would have been pleased to get their hands on an Adept, and given enough time, anyone could be broken and used, even an Adept of the quality of Firesong.

No, he was not the only person who had risked everything to bring Falconsbane down, so he might as well stop feeling sorry for himself. Still, it hurt.

That was precisely what Firesong would likely tell him, if Firesong had been there, instead of teaching young Herald-Mages the very basics of their Gift.

Firesong....
Once again, a wave of mingled embarrassment and desire traveled outward in an uncomfortable flush of heat. Somehow Firesong had gone from comforter to lover, and An’desha was not quite certain how the transition had come about. For that matter, he didn’t think Firesong was quite sure how it had happened. It certainly made a complicated situation even more so.

He flung himself down on his back and stared at the peak of the tent roof. How did a person sort out a new life, a new home, a new identity, and a new lover, all at once?

It only made the situation more strained that the new lover was trying to be part of the solution.

Would it be easier if Firesong had been nothing more than a concerned stranger, perhaps even a tentative friend, as Darkwind or the two gryphons were?

He’s being awfully patient, I suppose. Anyone else would have given up on me by now.
Surely a stranger would have blown up at him more than once, have cursed him for his timidity, and consigned him to the ranks of those that could not be helped because they would not help themselves.

On the other hand, sooner or later Firesong’s frustration was going to overcome his patience. He
wouldn’t
be able to be impartial; he made no secret of the fact that he wanted, badly, for An’desha to reach his potential as a mage so that the two of them could enjoy a relationship of two equal partners, the kind that the gryphons had.

But is that what I want?
Part of him longed for it with all his heart. Part of him shied away from the very idea. Firesong frightened him sometimes; the Healing Adept was so very certain of himself and what he wanted.
Sometimes I don’t think he’s had a single doubt in his life.
How
could I ever have anything in common with someone like him?
Powerful, charismatic, blindingly intelligent, and handsome enough to be a young god, Firesong was everything An’desha had imagined he
could
be, back in that long-ago day when he had run away from his Clan. No longer; he had endured too much, and he could never be that naive or hopeful again.

But Firesong was all those things. He would never lack for bed partners. An‘desha could not imagine someone like Firesong being willing to wait around on the mere chance that a frail Shin’a’n half-breed
might,
one day, regain some of the spirit he had lost. Why should he? Why should he waste precious time that way?

And yet—

He’s kind, he’s patient.
In fact, Firesong had been coaxing, courting, and cajoling him with a gentle awkwardness that seemed to bespeak a distinct lack of practice in those three skills.
Then again, why would he ever need to coax or court anyone? He could have anyone he wanted, I’d think. They must be throwing themselves at his feet, over there in the Palace.
So it was all the more confusing that Firesong was willing to take the time to lead An’desha along like a spooked and frightened colt, time he could, without a doubt, spend more pleasurably elsewhere, with other people.

His thoughts muddled together at that point. He didn’t
want
to consider all the ramifications of this. He didn’t
want
to think that Firesong meant everything he had said in the dark of the night. He certainly didn’t want that kind of devotion.

Did he?

This was getting him nowhere. Rather than face further uncomfortable thoughts, he rose from his pallet and took himself back out into the garden.

The firebird had preened all the water from its feathers, and busily fluffed them, holding its wings away from its body in order to make certain that they dried fully. The bird paid no attention to him as he passed it and went to the far side of the garden, and the wrought-iron staircase that led to the second floor and the
ekele
he shared with Firesong.