Then, once again, the Harp began to sing in its shimmering voice. “They say the fault is yours, O Mage. They say you abused your guardianship. that you used the Staff for ilclass="underline" for death and slaughter.”
Aurian’s blood turned to pure ice in her veins as she remembered her slaughter of Pendral’s soldiers in the tunnels beneath the Academy. It was as she had suspected then—but somehow hearing the truth spoken aloud by the Harp brought home to her the enormity of what she had done.
“You knew, Mage, that there would come a reckoning,” the Artifact sang on, its notes now as hard and sharp as diamonds. “Firstly, there will be an equal price to pay for your deeds that day. Secondly, to win back the Staff you must prove yourself worthy once more. You must atone. And you must pay back in love and healing all the power you took from the Staff for death and destruction.—Then both you, and my fellow-Artifact, will be renewed.” With one last shimmering note, the Harp fell silent.
It was some time later when Chiamh found the Mage, still sitting in the darkness with the dormant Artifacts laid in front of her on the bed. Gently, he wiped the tears from her face and held her in silence for a long moment.
“Come on,” he said at last. “Let’s get you out of this deep darkness, and back into the open and the light.”
“You must be out of your mind! I can’t do that!” Aurian looked from Chiamh to D’arvan in dismay. These last days had been difficult enough without being asked to usurp the Old Magic—the province of the Phaerie—and use it in night.
“I’m not a bloody Phaerie,” she objected. “I don’t know what makes the Xandim fly and I don’t want to! You know how I feel about heights, D’arvan. Just being here on top of this cliff makes me uneasy, and I’m nowhere near the edge. That business with the Skyfolk nets was bad enough, but there is no way—and I mean no way—you’re getting me up in the air on anything I could fall off!”
D’arvan shrugged. “Suit yourself. Of course this means you’ll take months to get anywhere, with Eliseth up to all sorts of mischief in the meantime.—Furthermore I’ll have to come with you, and abandon Maya to the Gods only know what fate....”
The Mage’s dismay turned into stone-cold horror. “Do we really have to fly?” she asked in a small voice. “Surely it’s not absolutely necessary....”
“Look,” D’arvan told her, with a patient expression that she itched to strike from his face, “Eliseth is a long way ahead of you, Aurian. You told me yourself she’s had time to conquer Aerillia. The longer you delay, the more she can consolidate her position and the more difficult it’ll be for you when you eventually catch up with her.” He patted her gently on the arm. “Come on, Aurian—think how far you’ve come, and all you’ve achieved since the night you fled Nexis. You know you can do it if you have to. You know you will.”
Aurian gritted her teeth. “D’arvan,” she said tightly. “I hate you. You know me far too well for my own good.”
The Windeye held out his hands to her. “It won’t be so bad, my friend. I won’t let you fall—you should know better than that. It won’t be the first time we’ve ridden together.”
Aurian sighed. “That’s all very well, Chiamh, but you’re not exactly an expert at this business yourself. You’ve only done it a couple of times—and with Phaerie to assist you. What if we both mess it up?”
“We’ll stay close to the ground until we’re confident.” He grinned. “Come, Mage. Think what fun we could have with this.”
Aurian held up her hands in defeat. “All right, all right. Let’s get on with it now, before I change my mind.”
D’arvan lifted Hellorin’s talisman, on its glittering chain from around his neck, and laid it in the Mage’s outstretched hand. As it touched her skin the gleaming surface of the stone changed from misty grey to clear silver, and flashed once with blazing white light. Aurian staggered as a fierce, alien power pulsed through her, as bright as suns, as dark as the vault of the universe, as strong as the very bones of the world and as ancient as time itself.
“Seven bloody demons! What in perdition is this?”
“The talisman has been imbued with the Old Magic by my father,” D’arvan told her. “You hold in your hand the power of the Phaerie.”
Aurian shook her head. “Surely it can’t be that easy,” she argued. “I mean, if you were to give this to Zanna, for example, she couldn’t just go flitting about the sky on Chiamh’s back....”
“She certainly could not,” the Windeye put in with a laugh, “because I wouldn’t let her.”
“Don’t be daft, Aurian—obviously you’d have to be a Mage,” D’arvan told her with a touch of irritation. “A Mortal couldn’t possibly manipulate—or even recognize—power like this.”
Aurian was looking doubtfully at the talisman that lay, quiescent now, in the palm of her cupped hand. “I’m not sure that I can, either. It’s so different, this magic.”
“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work,” D’arvan insisted. “After all, the Artifacts give you access to the High Magic—this talisman gives you power of another kind. Just think of it as an Artifact of the Old Magic, Go on—put it on.”
The Mage slipped the talisman around her neck—and gave a cry of astonishment.—She could see the living energies of her companions, cloaking their bodies in auras of shimmering radiance that were in constant flux, renewing themselves with each thought and motion. She saw the green haze of living energy that shone from each blade of grass. The rock below her feet was like a fractured mass of translucent crystal, in shades of amber and red, and the ocean was like a silken cloak thrown over the bones of the earth, glowing softly with opal, moonstone, and pearl, and limned with vibrant lapis, aquamarine, and amethyst to mark the movement of current and swell. The winds that swirled around the exposed clifftop streamed like glistening silver ribbons, and each/gull that was wheeling and diving through the air above the ocean was a spark of silver that trailed a streaking tail of light like a shooting star.
“Aurian! Aurian—come back!” Hands were gripping her shoulders, shaking her violently. Distantly, she felt someone lifting the talisman and pulling it over her head. With a cry of dismay she snatched at it, but was too late.—Aurian’s vision cleared to see D’arvan standing in front of her, with the stone at the end of its silver chain, swinging from his outstretched hands.—Without it the world seemed a dull, flat, colorless place, and Aurian was assailed by a deep sense of loss. “Plague take it, D’arvan,” she said irritably, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“I had to do something,” D’arvan protested. “You stood there for ages, not speaking or moving, just staring into oblivion. You were completely captivated.”
Aurian sighed, trying to grasp at the last elusive memories of the wonder she had witnessed before they slipped away from her entirely. “It was breathtaking, D’arvan. Why didn’t you warn me?”
D’arvan looked puzzled. “Warn you about what?”
“About . . .” With some difficulty, Aurian tried to explain what she had seen.
“Why,” the Windeye cried excitedly, “that’s exactly what I see with Othersight!”
“Well, I certainly don’t see anything like that,” said D’arvan. “So how do you account for it?”
“I think I understand,” the Mage said slowly. “Because your race was so closely connected with the Phaerie, Chiamh, the powers of the Windeye must stem from the Old Magic. But the Phaerie themselves are actually part of that magic—they’re living manifestations of the Old Magic, if you like—and so they don’t discern what we non-Phaerie perceive.”