“You were lucky,” murmured the Mage. “If you can call it lucky to be almost stoned to death by these stupid, bloodthirsty animals. The fact that they couldn’t see you clearly was probably all that saved your life.”
She glanced up at the rabid crowd that surrounded them now, still trying fruitlessly to break through the silvery, shimmering barrier she had created. Many now had drawn their swords, but most of them recoiled, Chiamh noted with satisfaction, from the savagery of her look, and suddenly began to seem far less enthusiastic about the attack.
“Bastards!” Aurian muttered, scowling. She lifted a hand, and suddenly, briefly, the barrier flared crimson with heat—and the swords followed suit. Galdrus and his supporters fell back, screaming, dropping their glowing weapons and clutching at burned hands.
“That’ll teach them,” he heard Aurian chuckle. Through the gap that their attackers’ retreat had created, Chiamh saw another uncannily glimmering light approaching, and wondered for an instant if the blow to his head was playing tricks with his eyes. Then he heard a wild, unearthly music that was so beautiful it brought tears to his eyes, and with a shock he saw that even to his own poor eyesight the notes were clearly visible, swirling on the air like a mist of stars. And as the starsong fell on Galdrus and his followers, one by one they crumpled and fell to the ground as if asleep.
The eerie effulgence grew brighter, and Parric, Sangra, Iscalda, and Schiannath came striding up to Aurian’s barrier. Anvar was with them, and cradled in his arm he carried the Harp of Winds, still playing it as he walked.
“Anvar! Oh, but you’re a welcome sight!” Aurian dropped her shield and rushed to embrace him, and as Harp and Staff met, the night around them exploded into beams of coruscating light that shot skyward in a crackling aurora of silver-blue and green.
Parric and the others leapt back hastily. “Be careful with those bloody things!” the cavalrymaster yelled. “You’ll blow us all to smithereens!”
The two Mages looked at each other and burst into peals of laughter, and the sound of their mirth followed the Windeye down into darkness at last.
“What did you do to them?” Aurian indicated the unconscious Xandim on the ground.
“Took them out of time, using the Harp.” Anvar grinned. “I didn’t realize how effective it would be. It seems to have a facility for that kind of magic—probably an effect of all those ages spent by the Cailleach’s Timeless Lake. I did the same with the remainder of the mob that didn’t go after Chiamh, but it’s only a temporary solution. The other Xandim—the ones who didn’t join the riot—are far from happy with their companions’ fate. We need to solve the underlying problem—and quickly.”
Parric glared at him. “The underlying problem is my business,” he said coldly. “I am the Herdlord, after all.”
The cavalrymaster’s response was so uncharacteristic that Aurian stared at him in surprise. “What’s got into you?” she asked him. “It’s the business of all of us if we want to retain the help and support of the Xandim. It’ll take all our brains to come up with the best solution—and we’ll especially need Chiamh.” She stooped to check the unconscious Windeye. “Poor man. I’d no idea they hated him so much.”
“The Xandim are like a lot of people: scared out of their senses—or their sense—by the unknown,” Anvar put in, and Aurian noticed that his eyes were on Parric as he said it. She sighed. What had been going on between the two men in her absence? Drat them, she thought resentfully. It seems I can’t let them out of my sight for a single afternoon without something going wrong! With a shrug, she shelved the problem until later. “Are you going to leave poor Chiamh on the damp ground all night?” she said sharply. “Help me get him back to the fastness. Once he’s feeling better, we can deal with this crisis and decide what to do next.”
Anvar grimaced. “That,” he muttered, “will be easier said than done—and it’s not our only worry.” His face grew grave. “Aurian, I was coming to fetch you when all this happened.” With a wide swing of his arm he indicated the unconscious Xandim. “Chiamh is not the only one who needs your Healing tonight. It’s Elewin. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but—oh, never mind.” Abandoning the struggle to explain, he hauled on her arm. “You’d best come quickly, and see for yourself.”
The old steward was dying. Aurian knew it the minute she walked into his chamber. He lay limply on his pallet, his sunken skin aglow with a pale translucence that sent a familiar shiver down the Mage’s spine. The irregular rasp of his shallow breathing scratched at the room’s unnatural, waiting silence. Because of her previous encounters in Death’s realm, Aurian was preternaturally aware of the Specter that lurked in the shadows, biding his time. With an effort, she shook herself free of the eerie, clinging atmosphere. “Build up the fire,” she told Anvar sharply. “Send for some fresh torches.”
“That’s right, boy—and be quick about it. I can’t see my hand in front of my face.” Both Mages swung round at the sound of the cracked old voice, and Aurian heard Anvar gasp. That had always been one of Elewin’s favorite sayings. Unbidden, a memory rose of sharp autumn evenings in the Academy, and the old steward using those very words as he scolded the tardy servants into lighting the lamps. Aurian compressed her lips and shook her head. It boded ill that Elewin’s mind was wandering back into the past.
Parric and Sangra had followed the Mages into the room. “What happened to him?” the cavalrymaster demanded. “He was fine yesterday—at least no worse than he usually is.”
“Since Chiamh healed him last time, he’s been much better,” Sangra put in.
Anvar was flinging fresh wood onto the fire, and the two warriors went to the foot of the pallet, murmuring to one another in worried voices while the Mage knelt down by Elewin’s bedside, looking at his face in the light of the renewed flames. The steward turned his head to look at her. “Lady, tell them to stop whispering,” he said fretfully. “I don’t like it when they whisper.”
“All right, Elewin. They won’t do it again,” Aurian soothed him. As she spoke, she was scanning him with her Healer’s senses, but they told her only what her instincts already knew. Sickness and injury she could counter, but age and despair she could not fight. The steward’s body was failing. She already knew that her patient had fought valiantly, again and again, these last months, against illness and hardship—but something else had laid him low at last. There was a shadow over his spirit that she could not pierce, and she wondered what had caused him to loose his grip upon the reins of life.
“Elewin, why?” she asked him directly. “After you’ve come so far, what made you give up now?”
“Lady, please don’t plague me.” The voice was little more than a petulant whisper. “I am tired now. I’ve had enough of struggle. I want to rest.” He turned his face away from her to stare into the shadows, and Aurian felt a chill creep up her spine as she saw his eyes focus on the Specter that only she, of all the others in the room, could see. She shook her head. It would not be long now.
“Meiriel’s death hit him very hard,” a soft voice murmured in the Mage’s ear. She turned to see Anvar kneeling at her side, his face drawn and haggard with grief. “Aurian, please—is there nothing you can do to help him?” he begged, and she remembered the fondness that had always existed between the young man and the old when Anvar had been a servant at the Academy. Now, his voice was taut with strain—the effort, Aurian knew, of denying the inevitable.
“You were with Elewin this afternoon. Surely he wasn’t like this then? Did anything happen, to explain why he should sink so fast?” she asked her soulmate. No matter that it was hopeless—for his sake, she couldn’t just give up. She saw him take the old man’s hand and hold it tightly.