The protected reserve of forest land around the lodge held game in plenty, and it was about as quiet an isolated a spot as a monarch seeking a patch of calm after a tempestuous Council session could have asked for. That was good; it would give the King and his closest advisors time to think carefully about Brayahs’ news without the inevitable rumors and panicky speculation which would have flown about Sothofalas within hours of his arrival. And it was also the sort of place which left an impression on those who visited it. That was always a good thing for a wind-walker, and he settled into the proper trance, reaching out to that anchor while the winds of his talent rose about him.
There. Talent, memory, and focus snapped into place, becoming one, and he stepped into the winds no one else could even perceive. They whirled him away like a spray of autumn leaves, sweeping him into the space between worlds. He’d never been able to explain that space to anyone other than another wind-walker. It was shot with the roar of his personal wind, sharp tasting like the aftermath of a lightning bolt, crackling and alive with energy that seemed to seethe and dance on his skin in cascades of sparks. It was Something was wrong!
The winds faltered, then shifted, their steady roar turning suddenly into an insane howl. The energy dancing on his skin changed in a heartbeat from a crackling, comforting cocoon into a furnace, fanned by those berserk winds, hissing and popping as it consumed him. Agony crashed through him-agony such as he’d never felt, the like of which no wind-walker had ever described-and he thought he screamed, although no mage had ever been able to decide if a merely human voice could even function in a place like this, and that hideous shriek of the winds would have drowned it anyway.
A trap.
Somehow, the thought fought its way through the red tides of anguish, forcing itself upon him. He had no idea how it could have been done. Indeed, everything he’d ever learned about his own talent told him it couldn’t be done. Yet even in his torment, he knew, but what could he-?
He reached out. Somehow, without even knowing what he was doing, Brayahs Daggeraxe drew upon what had made him a mage so many years before. He felt himself fraying, dissolving, coming apart in the maw of that furnace fury, and somehow he held on. He clung to what he was, to the duty which made him who he was, and fastened his invisible hands desperately upon the winds. They ripped at his palms- his winds no longer, but demons, lashing him with even more terrible torrents of pain-yet he clenched his teeth, refusing to let go, and then, in a way he would never be able to describe even to himself, he wrenched sideways.
He lost his focus. That had never happened. He’d never imagined it could happen, and panic choked him, more terrible even than the pain, as he felt himself spinning sideways, lurching into a darkness he’d never seen before. It was lashed with lightning-a bottomless night filled with the crash of thunder, his winds a tempest, howling like some ravening beast-and he screamed again as he felt that searing lightning ripping away everything he’d ever known or been.
Blackness claimed him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Boots moved steadily and sweetly, cantering across the parched, golden grass of late summer while Gayrfressa paced him with the peculiar, ground-eating gait of her kind. The gelding was well aware of the courser’s presence. In fact, he had a distinct tendency to act more like a friendly kitten than a warhorse of mature years in her presence, frisking around her as if he were a child’s pony, and she regarded his antics with a fond, sometimes exasperated patience.
‹ Of course I do,› Gayrfressa said now, turning her head slightly to better regard Leeana as she caught her rider’s amused thoughts. ‹ The lesser cousins have great hearts. It’s not their fault no wizards fooled about with their ancestors, now is it?›
“No, it’s not,” Leeana agreed. The coursers were remarkably comfortable with the notion that they-like the halflings-were the product of arcane meddling. Of course, in their case it had been a deliberate manipulation all of whose consequences, including the unintended ones, had been highly beneficial-one wrought by the White Council to make those ancestors stronger, more powerful, and far more intelligent. The halflings hadn’t enjoyed that deliberate design process. They represented an accident, a completely unintended consequence and byproduct of the most destructive war in Orfressa’s history, and neither they nor any of the other Races of Man were quite able to forget that.
‹ I don’t really know why they should, › Gayrfressa said reasonably. ‹ What is, is; trying to “forget it” can’t change it. And it’s not as if the halflings are the only “accident!” What about the magi? Or, for that matter, what about the hradani and the Rage? And if what Wencit once told him and Brandark is true, even the elves a re the result of “arcane meddling.” Although it was deliberate in their case, as well, I suppose.› The courser tossed her head in amusement. ‹ I don’t understand why you two-foots worry about it so much!›
“I didn’t say I do worry about it,” Leeana pointed out. “I think the halflings do mainly because of the way most of the other Races of Man are…prejudiced against them, I suppose. And I have to point out that what was done to the hradani wasn’t exactly ‘accidental.’ Or done by wizards who gave a single solitary damn about what happened to their victims, for that matter.” Her tone had darkened. “And they’ve paid for the Rage they have now with over twelve hundred years of pure, unmitigated hell.”
‹ True.› Gayrfressa sounded more subdued than usual for a moment, although Leeana doubted it would last. ‹ I didn’t mean to make light of what’s happened to other people, Sister.›
“I know you didn’t, dearheart.” Leeana smiled at her. “I think, though, that you coursers probably got the best deal out of all those…tinkered-with species. And I’m glad you did.”
‹ So am I.› Gayrfressa moved closer, the blue star of her restored right eye gleaming as she reached out to touch Leeana’s left shoulder ever so gently with her nose. ‹ If we hadn’t been “tinkered with,” then you and I would never have met, would we?›
“Not something I like to think about, either,” Leeana told her softly.
She looked into Gayrfressa’s glowing eye for a moment, then turned her head, surveying the endless sea of grass about them. The year had turned unexpectedly dry over the last several weeks, almost as if Chemalka had decided to send the normal rain away to somewhere else, and those tall, wind-nodding waves of grass were browner and dryer than was usual, even for this late in the summer. They shimmered and stirred endlessly under the gentle breeze, entrapping and bewildering the unwary eye.
The Wind Plain was always an easy place for the incautious to get lost, but Leeana knew the area about Kalatha even more intimately than she’d known the land around Balthar. She knew the swells of the ground, the scattered, individual colonies of aspens and birch, the greener lines of tiny streams and seasonal watercourses. She knew where the springs were, and where to find the best spots to camp in all that trackless vastness. And she knew her sky, where the sun was at any given time of day and how to find her way about by its guidance or by the clear, sparkling stars that blazed down through the Wind Plain’s thin, crystalline air like Silendros’ own diadem. She didn’t really have to think about it to know where she was in relationship to Kalatha…or to realize it was about time they turned for home.