“Please, Lady, do not judge me by last time,” Schiannath told her firmly, wishing that that interfering Windeye would learn to keep his mouth shut. “I have suffered much in the interim, but I have learned a very great deal since then. This time things will be different. Last time I fought through hatred, but this time I will fight through love.”
To the Xandim’s relief, Aurian nodded slowly. “I understand, Schiannath—and I believe you. Forral told me once, when he was teaching me to fight, that other factors being fairly even, a warrior who fights for a true cause that he believes in will always win over one whose motives are destructive. His passion will give him the intensity of focus he needs to prevail. Very well, then—it’s agreed.” She took his hand, “I wish you the best of good fortune, my friend.”
Schiannath smiled at her gratefully. Aurian’s words helped to stiffen his courage—which was just as well, for when he came to tell Iscalda of his decision, he was completely unprepared for her anger and dismay.
“Schiannath—no! How could you let them persuade you into this folly?” Iscalda’s eyes blazed with anger, and Schiannath flinched from the look of hurt and betrayal on her face. “My dear Iscalda—only listen…” He tried to soothe her, putting an arm around her shoulders, but she tore herself away from him with an oath.
“How could you do this—to yourself—to me! Did you learn nothing at all from what happened last time? Phalihas will not exile you again, you fool! This time, he will take your life!”
“He will not!” Schiannath fought for calm. “This time will be different, Iscalda. This time he will not prevail.”
“How can you know that?” Iscalda blazed at him. “You put your life at stake—”
“Yes—for greater gain, in the end.”
“What greater gain?” Iscalda snapped. “For power? For glory?” She spat contemptuously on the ground. “How like a man, to—”
“Will you be still and listen?” Schiannath caught hold of his sister’s shoulders, gripping hard enough to stem her torrent of angry words. “Listen to me now,” he repeated, and took a deep breath. “I confess that the first time I Challenged, I did it for all the reasons that you so rightly decry. I was young, rebellious and foolish—and in truth, I was lucky to escape with my life. I care far more about the fact that I almost lost you yours, and put you through such suffering for my sake. Now, against all odds, Parric has given me another chance to defeat Phalihas—but power and glory are my last considerations.”
He paused, and looked deep into her eyes. “The last time I Challenged for myself, Iscalda. This time I do it for you. If Phalihas is not stopped—and stopped for good—he has every right to make good his claim of betrothal upon you.”
Iscalda gasped, and turned pale.
“Yes.” Schiannath nodded. “And he will make you suffer for his enmity with me. I will not—I cannot—allow that to happen. And so I must fight him, this one last time—for your safety, and your future.”
Tears flooded Iscalda’s eyes, but the stubborn set of her jaw remained unaltered. “I don’t care,” she whispered. “I would rather Phalihas subjected me to all manner of indignities than see him take your life.”
Schiannath put his arms around her. “With luck,” he assured her, “Phalihas will do neither. I intend to see to that.”
“Do we have to go up there?” Aurian groaned. “Couldn’t you just perform your Seeing down in the vale?” She was standing at the bottom of the cliff path (if you could dignify that narrow, treacherous lip of rock—barely a slanting fault where the layers of stone had slipped and overlapped—with the name of “path”, that led up to the top of the spire and Chiamh’s Chamber of Winds.
The Windeye shook his head. “There is not enough wind down here in the valley—and besides, for a Seeing, highest is best. I can See much farther, and with greater accuracy, up there at the top of the spire, where the air is so much clearer and free to move.”
Aurian looked up at the cliff and shuddered. Unbidden, the horrific vision of Bohan’s lethal plunge came into her mind. The world around her tilted dizzily, and she found herself trembling. In panic, she grabbed hold of Anvar’s hand. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’ll never get up there…”
“Surely it can’t be the height that’s bothering you,” Anvar encouraged her. “Why, the cliff at Taibeth was far higher than this, and so was the tower of the Dragonfolk at Dhiammara. You managed both of those all right.” He put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Is it the manner of Bohan’s death that’s upset you so?”
The Mage nodded reluctantly, glad to look at her soul mate instead of the crumbling cliff, and even more grateful that he should be so in tune with her thoughts. “You’re right—it’s the ascent itself,” she told him. “We’ve never climbed anything as precarious or as difficult as that—and coupled with the fear is the memory of what happened to Bohan last night—” Suddenly she stopped, gasped, and hugged him, laughing with relief. “Of course!” she cried. “Thank you, Anvar—you’ve just found me the solution. We don’t have to climb!” Fishing in the pocket of her tunic, she brought out the slender whistle of carved bone that summoned the Skyfolk.
There came a shrill cry of acknowledgment from high above the Mages, followed by the drumming thunder of wings. From their lofty perches high among the crags of the spire, the Winged Folk came spiraling down, to land in a swirling windstorm at Aurian’s feet. They were a mated pair, Aurian had discovered on her previous night’s adventure, when they had transported herself and her companions from peril in their beleagured tower of the fastness. Ibis, the male, was tall and gangling for a Skyman, with white plumage trimmed and edged in black, and a serious, considered mien. Kestrel, his mate, was small, bright-eyed, and quick, with speckled plumage in blending shades of brown. Though she smiled more often than her mate and seemed to have a greater sense of playfulness and fun, the fierce intensity of her manner could be somewhat daunting. As they landed, the two Skyfolk spoke simultaneously:
“Not trouble again!” said Ibis, with a worried frown.
“You need help?” Kestrel asked.
“It’s not a crisis, but I’d be only too glad of your help,” the Mage told them. She pointed to the top of the spire. “Can you take me up there?”
They could and did, grasping her arms as they had done the night before and lifting her, with little effort over such a short distance, to the top of the spire and Chiamh’s Chamber of Winds, where they set her down as delicately as a feather on the flat, wide, windswept platform of stone. The Windeye, following his normal route with the ease of long practice, was already partway up the cliff, and would soon be joining her. While the Winged Folk went down to pick up Anvar—who had also elected to come up by the easier method—Aurian, making sure to keep as close as possible to the center of the floor, away from the perilous brink, looked curiously around at the peculiar structure.
The first thing that she noticed—because it was impossible to ignore—was the wind, which was so much stronger up here on this platform between earth and sky. It wailed and whistled shrilly as it poured from the north like a swift-moving river, blowing her hair back from her face and making her jaws and ears ache with its chill as it coursed around her swaying body and ripped her flapping cloak back from her shoulders, gnawing into her very bones. It buffeted and worried at her as though she were being attacked by a living creature. Aurian felt its merciless, inexorable force, and shuddered. Who was Chiamh, that he could tame and harness such elemental wildness?
Annoyed that she had allowed herself to be so disquieted by nothing more than moving air, Aurian took herself to task very sharply. “Fancy a Mage succumbing to an attack of the vapors,” she muttered to herself, and chuckled dourly at her own poor joke. To distract herself from such foolishness, she forced herself to concentrate on her surroundings. In typical Moldan style, the edifice looked as though it had been grown organically rather than constructed. The circular floor was flat and smooth, with a lustrous polish, and four sturdy pillars grew up at regular intervals around the periphery, supporting the arching roof that was the apex of the spire. The view was staggering, blocked only to the south by the cliffs and upper summit of the Wyndveil. To the west and east were the long, wooded spurs that formed the cradling arms of Chiamh’s vale, with the snowy heads of other mountains beyond. Aurian, facing west, turned away with a shudder from the shattered peak of Steelclaw and looked north, down the length of the valley and the plateau beyond. The view there gave her even less comfort. A scattering of colored dots were strewn about the sward beyond the mouth of the vale: the Xandim had arrived in force. Aurian shuddered, suddenly gripped by a formless fear for Schiannath and Chiamh, who would have to deal with these, their own people, on the morrow. She was so wrapped up in her worries that she did not hear the flurry of wings behind her until she felt the reassuring touch of Anvar’s hand. She gripped it tightly, and turned to face him with a rueful grimace as she saw her concerns mirrored on the face of her lover. “I know,” she sighed. “It looks bad down there—but we’ll cope with it somehow.”