Winds of Change (38 page)

Gwena tried to look away; Elspeth wouldn’t let her.
:Yes,:
she agreed faintly.

“You
have been withholding information,” Elspeth continued, her voice still dangerously flat and calm. “Information that I -
we
need to have to plan intelligently. What would you do to someone who had deliberately withheld information that vital?”

Gwena shook her head slightly, as much as Elspeth’s hold on her hackamore would permit.

“I
.
Have. Had. Enough.“
Elspeth punctuated each word with a little shake of the halter. “If you haven’t worked
that
into your ‘great plan,’ you’d better start thinking about it. No more holding back. Do you understand?”

Gwena rolled her eyes and started to pull away. Elspeth wouldn’t let her, and Gwena was obviously not going to exert her considerable strength in something that might harm her Herald. But from the look of shock in her bright blue eyes, she had not expected this reaction from Elspeth.

“I said,
do you understand me?”
Elspeth pulled her head down and stared directly into her eyes.

Darkwind stood with his arms crossed, jaw set in a stern expression. He was trying his best to give the impression he supported Elspeth’s actions completely. In fact, he did.

:Yes,:
Gwena managed.

“Are you going to
stop
holding back information?”

Gwena pawed the ground unhappily, but clearly Elspeth was not going to let her go until she got an answer she liked.

:Yes,:
she said, meekly, obviously unable to see any other way out of the confrontation.

“Good.” Elspeth let go of the halter. She straightened, put her hands on her hips, and gave Gwena a look that Darkwind could not read. “Remember. You just gave your word.”

Darkwind did not think that Gwena was going to forget.

A gray sky gave no clue as to the time, but Darkwind thought it was not long after dawn. He had spent a restless night, haunted by the exhausted faces of the k’Sheyna mages. He had not been expecting anyone so early and the first words out of Darkwind’s mouth when Elspeth appeared at his
ekele
were, “We cannot do it here.”

He had been thinking hard about what they were to do; all during his meal, the long soak before bed (in the midst of which he had fallen asleep until a
hertasi
woke him), and into the night before sleep took him. And he had decided on certain provisions as he dressed.
What
they were to do was no problem; thanks to Elspeth and Treyvan he was accustomed now to improvising on existing spells. This would be a variation on the seeking-spell. But
where -
that was different. It could not be done within the confines of the Vale, even outside the shielded Practice ground. He knew that with deep certainty that had only hardened during sleep. Every instinct revolted when he even considered the idea.

Something was happening to the Heartstone, or possibly within it. He had no notion of what was going on, but now he did not want to do anything that affected it while within its reach. It was not just that the Stone had drained k’Sheyna mages, it was the way it had happened. It had waited, or seemed to, until they were certain of success and off their guard.

Perhaps that had been accident, but what it it was not. He did not know. It didn’t seem likely, but less likely things had been happening with dismaying regularity. These’were strange times indeed.

He realized as soon as he said the words that Elspeth would have no idea what had been going through his mind since the meeting. He felt like a fool as soon as he closed his mouth.

She’s going to think I’ve gone crazy, that I’m babbling.

But instead of confusion, Elspeth met the statement with a nod of understanding. “Absolutely,” she replied, as if she had been talking to him about the problems all along. “Too much interference from shields and set-spells, plus the Heartstone’s proximity itself. I’ve been thinking about that since last night. That Heartstone of yours is acting altogether too clever for
my
comfort. I don’t want to do something it might not like when I’m anywhere around it. It might decide that since I’m an Outlander, it’ll do more than just drain me.”

“It is not a thinking being,” he protested, but without conviction.

“Maybe not, but it acts like it is.” She glanced back over her shoulder, in the direction of the Stone. “Maybe it’s all coincidence, or maybe it’s something that Falconsbane set up a long time ago. But when it acts like it can think, I’m I going to assume that it
is
thinking and act accordingly.” She grinned crookedly. “As my Shin’a’in-trained teacher would say, ‘Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn’t follow that you are wrong.’”

Shin‘a‘in proverbs from an Outlander. God help me.
But he couldn’t help but smile ruefully in reply. “The trouble with proverbs is that they’re truisms,” he agreed. “You make me think that you are reading my thoughts, though.”

It was a half-serious accusation, although he made it with a smile. It was no secret that these Heralds had mind-magic - but did they use it without warning?

She laughed. “Not a chance. I don’t eavesdrop, I promise. No Herald would. It was just a case of parallel worries. So, where are we going to go to work?”

No Herald would. Perhaps the Companion might. . . but I suspect she knows that.
He wasn’t worried about her Companion reading his thoughts. It was not likely that there was anything he would think that a Guardian Spirit had not seen before.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked instead. When she shook her head, he went back into his
ekele
and rummaged about in his belongings and what the
hertasi
had left him. He brought out two coats draped over his arm, and fruit and bread, handing her a share of the food. She took it with a nod of thanks. “I thought,” he said after she had settled beside him on the steps, “that we might work from the ruins.”

“The gryphon’s lair?” She tipped her head to one side. “There
is
a node underneath it. And we’re likely to need one. But what about - well - attracting things when we do the magic?”

“We won’t have the shields of the Vale, and that’s a problem,” he admitted, biting into a ripe
pomera.
“I don’t know how to get around that.”

She considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “We’ll deal with it, I suppose,” she replied. “Gwena can’t think of any way around it either, but she’s in agreement with both of us on not working near the Heartstone.” She finished the last of her bread and stood up, dusting her hands off. “So, what, exactly, are we doing?”

He licked juice from his fingers and followed her example, handed her a coat, then led the way down the stairs to the path below. “Well, we can’t do a wide open Mindcall,” he began.

“Obviously,” she said dryly. “Since we don’t want every nasty thing in the area to know that k’Sheyna is in trouble. I wouldn’t imagine we’d want to do a focused Mindcall either; something still might pick it up, even though we meant it only for Tayledras. There might even be something
watching
for a Mindcall like that, for all we know.”

“And what’s the point in wasting all the energy needed for a focused Mindcall to all the Clans when there may not be more than one or two Adepts that can help us?” he concluded. “No, what I’d thought that we should do is to send a specific message-spell; that is a complicated message that can be carried by a single bird.” He smiled to himself; she wouldn’t believe what kind of bird would carry the incorporeal message, but it was the most logical.

“To whom?” she asked in surprise, as Gwena joined them, following a polite ten paces behind. “I thought - ” she stopped in confusion.

“I don’t know
who
to send it to, but I know
what,”
he explained, brushing aside a branch that overhung the path. “Somewhere in the Clans is a Healing Adept of a high enough level that he either knows or can figure out what we need to do. Now I know that no one here can, so I send out a message to the nearest Clan, aimed at any Adept that’s of our ability or higher. In this case, the nearest Clan is k’Treva. And I’m pretty sure they have someone better equipped to deal with this than we are. They offered their help a while back, and Father refused it.”

“And if no one there can help us after all?” she asked, darkly.

He shrugged. “Then I ask them to pass on the word to the others.
They
don’t have a flawed Heartstone in their midst.
They
can send out to any Clan Council. To tell you the truth, our biggest problem with getting the Stone taken care of has been isolation. Solve that, and we can solve the rest.”

The Vale was unusually silent, with all the mages abed and recovering. Their steps were the only sounds besides the faint stirring of leaves in the breeze and the bird songs that always circulated through the Vale. She was quiet all the way to the entrance and the Veil that guarded it. Beyond the protections, another winter snowstorm dropped fat flakes through the bare branches of the trees.

They shared a look of resignation; wrapped themselves in their coats and crossed the invisible barrier between summer and winter. The first sound outside was of their boots splashing into the puddles of water made by snow melted from the ambient heat of the Vale’s entrance.

There was no wind, and snow buried their feet to the calf with every step they took. Flakes drifted down slowly through air that felt humid on Darkwind’s face, and not as cold as he had expected. Above the gray branches, a white sky stretched featurelessly from horizon to horizon; Darkwind got the oddest impression, as if the snowflakes were bits of the sky, chipped off and slowly falling. Beneath the branches, the gray columns of the tree trunks loomed through the curtaining snow, and more snow carpeted the forest floor and mounded in the twigs of every bush. There were no evergreens in this part of the woods, so there was nothing to break the landscape of gray and white.

Snow creaked under their feet, and the cold crept into his boots. Their feet would be half frozen by the time they reached the ruins.

Darkwind didn’t mind the lack of color. After the riot of colors and verdant greens within the Vale, the subdued grays and gray-browns were restful, refreshing. He wished, though, that he had time and the proper surroundings to enjoy them.

This is a good day for bundling up beside afire, watching the snowfall and not thinking of anything in particular.

“This is the kind of day when I used to curl up in a blanket in a window and read,” Elspeth said quietly, barely breaking the silence. “When I’d just sit, listen to the fire, watch the snow pile up on the window ledge, and think about how nice it was to be warm and inside.”

He chuckled, and she glanced at him. Gwena moved around them to walk in front, breaking the trail for them.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he explained. “If we only had the time. I used to do much the same.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “I’d forgotten you used to live outside that glorified greenhouse. I like it, the Vale, I mean - but sometimes I miss weather when I’m in there. It’s hard to tell what time of day it is, much less what season.”

“Well, I imagine Wintermoon and Skif would be willing to trade places with us right now,” he replied thoughtfully. “This is good weather to be inside - but not for camping. Snow this damp is heavy when it collects on a tent. Oh, if you’re wondering, I sent Vree on ahead with a message about what we want to do; I expect Treyvan and Hydona will be waiting for us.”

“I was wondering.” She glanced at him again, but this time she half-smiled as she tucked her hair more securely inside the hood of her coat. “Not that I expected them to object, but it is considered good manners to let people know that you are planning on setting off fireworks from the roof of their house - and you plan to have their help in doing it.”

He laughed; this was a very pleasant change from the Elspeth of several weeks ago. Reasonable, communicative. And showing a good sense of humor. “Yes it is,” he agreed. “My message to them was that if they objected to the idea, to let me know immediately. That was when I first woke; since Vree didn’t come back, I assume they don’t mind.”

“Either that, or he forgot his promise and made a snatch at a crestfeather again,” she said with mock solemnity. “In that case, you’ll have to find yourself another bondbird.”

Elspeth enjoyed the walk, for with Gwena breaking the trail for them, the trip to the lair was something like a pleasant morning’s hike. They had to keep a watch for unexpected trouble, of course, but nothing more threatening appeared than a crow scolding them for being in his part of the forest.

This is the most relaxed I’ve been since I got here,
she thought. Perhaps it was because the waiting was finally over. She’d had the feeling all along that the mages of k’Sheyna would never be able to solve the problem by themselves. Darkwind felt the same, she knew, but he never discussed it. He was relieved, too - but too conscientious to feel pleased with the failure of his Clan’s mages, even though it proved that he was right. He wasn’t a shallow man.

The ruins were cloaked in snow, which gave some portions an air of utter desolation, and others an uncanny resemblance to complete buildings. Passage of the gryphons in and around their territory kept the pathways they used relatively free of snow. It was easier to move here, but with the last of the trees out of sight, the place felt like a desert.