“Yazour, I don’t have to do anything drastic. Your wounds would be enough.” Seeing the grave expression on his face, Aurian stopped teasing him. “Now that I have my powers back, however, I can Heal those for you in no time.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “I want you to come with me, Yazour. Apart from Anvar, there’s no one else I’d rather have at my side. As for the others—” She sighed. “Well, I’ll certainly take Chiamh, but I don’t know about anyone else. Not Eliizar and Nereni, for certain. After what they’ve been through I can’t part them, and I need Nereni to stay here and take care of Wolf.”
The Mage heard Yazour’s sharply indrawn breath. “Lady, you may have trouble there,” he said.
“Tell me.” Aurian appreciated the warning. Since her return, she had been puzzled, and not a little hurt, by the reticence of Eliizar and his wife. Though he had clearly been genuinely pleased to see her, the former Swordmaster said little, and seemed to shrink away from her touch, while Nereni had managed to avoid the Mage by pretending to busy herself with the supplies that their guards had left behind.
With a light touch on her arm, Yazour drew Aurian to one side to look back through the doorway into the firelit tower room. “Have patience with them, Lady. They are troubled by the wolfling.” He indicated the sleeping cub, now snuggled in a blanket and cradled in the arms of the beaming eunuch, who was delighted with the tiny creature. A slight frown creased the young warrior’s forehead. “I must admit, Aurian, when you told me—” He broke off his words and the Mage felt a shiver pass through his lithe frame.
“It’ll be all right, Yazour,” Aurian reassured him. “Once I get the Staff back from Anvar, it should be possible to revoke Miathan’s curse.”
“I hope so.” Yazour looked sadly at the wolf cub, and put an arm around the Mage’s shoulders. “Poor Aurian! After all your long waiting, and losing your powers, to be faced with this, instead of the child you longed for . . .”
In the face of his sympathy, Aurian felt a tightness in her throat. “There’s nothing wrong with Wolf!” she said fiercely. Yazour recoiled in surprise at her vehemence, and she shot him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “How could I expect you to understand? And worse still, how can I reassure Eliizar and Nereni with their fear of magic?”
That was only one of Aurian’s problems. Before the Skyfolk returned, as she prayed they would, to bear her to Aerillia, she had to somehow reassure the Swordmaster and his wife, find some form of sustenance for her child in her absence, and make some provision for Harihn’s surviving guards, who, thanks to the Cavalrymaster and his peculiar army, were now locked safely away in the dungeon below. And where would Parric and the Xandim fit into her plans? With a wry smile, Aurian remembered Forral’s advice from long ago:
“Take things one step at a time, and deal with the first thing first. Then you’ll find, more often than not, that the rest will fall into place.”
Unconsciously, the Mage resumed the burden of command that had slipped from her while she had lost her powers.
“Right!” she said decisively. “Yazour, I want you to go now, and talk to Harihn’s troops. You commanded them once—they should still trust you. According to Parric, it’s more than even he can do, as Herdlord, to persuade the Xandim to give sanctuary to their foes, but all is not lost. Many of the Prince’s soldiers left loved ones behind in the forest, and it’s a rich and sheltered land between the desert and the mountains. Say that we’ll set them free when we depart, and tell them to return to the forest and settle there.” For an instant, her face lit up in a mischievous grin, “Who knows—we may eventually be responsible for founding a whole new kingdom!”
“Lady, thank you!” Relief was plain on Yazour’s face. Aurian knew he had been worrying about those of his people who had remained in Harihn’s service. With alacrity, he left her, heading for the dungeons.
As for her son . . . Aurian walked out alone into the thicket that surrounded the tower, and sent forth her will to summon the wolves once more.
The pack had not strayed far from the tower, and were back with the Mage in a very short time. After a brief conference with the dominant pair, Aurian found another couple (for wolves, like hawks, had a life bond and stayed together) who would be willing to leave their brethren and tolerate humans, in order to help her rear her son. Though the wolves were between litters, Aurian’s Healing powers soon made it possible for the female to produce the milk that the tiny cub needed. Leaving the pack leaders with her heartfelt thanks, Aurian returned to the tower, with Wolfs new foster parents gliding like silent shadows at her heels.
Unfortunately, persuading Eliizar and Nereni proved to be more difficult. Only by threatening to leave the little one here in the wilds with the wolf pack did Aurian finally succeed. Nereni’s doubts helped solve the problem of Bohan, however, Aurian did not want to take him to Aerillia with her, yet she had envisioned having difficulty in persuading him to leave her side again, and was reluctant to hurt his feelings. As it was, the eunuch had already become fiercely protective of the wolfling, and readily agreed to stay as bodyguard to the cub.
By the time she had also dealt with Parric, who was fuming because as Herdlord, he was forced to remain with the Xandim and could not come to Aerillia with her, Aurian was heartily sick of all the wrangling, and in a fever of anxiety over the fate of Anvar. To distract herself, she Healed Yazour, and did the same for Eliizar (despite his obvious reluctance), Bohan, and Elewin, who was suffering from the effects of the long, swift journey through the mountains with the Xandim, Parric had wanted to leave the old steward behind at the Fastness, but Chiamh and Sangra had persuaded him other-wise. Not all of the Xandim had come with Parric’s force, and not all were convinced of his right to the Herdlord’s title. Had Elewin been left at the Fastness, he would probably not have survived to see his friends return, As it was, he insisted, just seeing Aurian again had rejuvenated him beyond belief, Aurian knew, however, that he was deeply disappointed at not seeing Anvar, and shared her concern over the fate of the missing Mage. Nereni had prepared a meal, and while they all ate, crowded into the tower room and halfway up the stairs, the companions had a chance to catch up on what had happened to one another during their long separation. But though Aurian was glad to be reunited with her long-lost friends, her relief, when she heard the thunder of wings that presaged the returning Winged Folk, knew no bounds.
The bridge of singing stars was a scintillating lacework rainbow that leapt the dark waters of the Timeless Lake from shore to island. As Anvar had expected, the stars were as solid as stone beneath him. What he had not expected, was their response to the touch of his feet. With each step that Anvar took across the bridge, the starstones rang with their unearthly music. Each footfall struck a different chord, until he found himself stepping deliberately, here and there, with varying rhythm, creating from this magic bridge his own song: his own soul-signature.
The nearer Anvar drew to the island, the more he felt a Presence, great and powerful, brooding on the other side. The closer he came, the more his own self-song developed, and the more the Presence seemed to hear, awaken, and approve of the music he created.
The bridge grounded on the island, on a ledge of obsidian stone. With a wrenching pang as profound as grief, the Mage stepped off the arch of song. At once, the music was cut off. Silence fell like a hammer blow. Before Anvar’s horrified eyes, the bridge shimmered, shivered, and disintegrated with a gentle sigh. A shower of stars spattered hissing down into the mere, filming its surface with coils of misty steam, and leaving nothing behind but an aching absence in the depths of Anvar’s soul. Turning sadly away from the destruction, he saw a curving path that sloped up from the ledge and vanished from view around the flank of the island. The Mage sighed, and leaning heavily upon the Staff of Earth, he began to climb.