He found that even more amusing; his smile broadened, and his chuckle turned into a hearty laugh.
"Perhaps you won't be a disappointment after all, clever bird-child.
He caressed her with his eyes, and her rage spilled away, leaving her weak and frightened again.
He returned his gaze to something in his lap, and as he shifted a little, she could see that it was a dark crystal scrying-stone. He stared at it, his gaze suddenly going from casual to penetrating-and what he saw in it made him frown.
Chappter Twenty DARKWIND
Starblade turned away from the little knot of Tayledras Adepts and Healers surrounding Dawnfire's ekele in despair, and sought the sanctuary of his own ekele. The fools were trying to thrash out what could have killed Dawnfire, and why-when it was obvious, as obvious a taint on the girl's body as the taint on his own soul, and the contamination that had cracked the Heartstone.
He knew it the moment he saw it. And he could not say a single word.
He felt old, old-burdened with secrets too terrible to hide that he could not confess to anyone, weary with the weight of them, sick to his bones of what he had done. As he had so many times, he climbed the stairs to his ekele, then sought the chamber at the top, and stood looking down on the Vale) wondering if this time he could find the strength to open the window and hurl himself to the ground.
But the crow on his shoulder flapped to its perch as soon as he entered the room, and sat there watching him with cold, derisive eyes. And he knew, even as he fought the compulsion to turn away from the window and suicide, that Mornelithe Falconsbane still had his soul in a fist of steel, and there was nothing he had that he could call his own. Not his thoughts, not his will, not his mind.
He flung himself down on the sleeping pad, hoping to lose himself in that dark oblivion-but sleep eluded him, and Falconsbane evidently decided to remind him of what he was.
The memory-spell seized him Smoke wreathed through the trees as he paused in an area he had thought safe, and the acrid fumes made him cough. The fire was spreading, far faster than it should have. For a moment, Starblade wondered if perhaps he should go back for help. But other emergencies had emptied the Vale of all but apprentices and children, and he had a reputation to maintain. He was an Adept, after all, and a simple thing like a forest fire shouldn't prove too hard to handle. He sought shelter from the smoke down in a little hollow, a cup among some hills, and closed his eyes to concentrate on his first task.
No, you fool, Starblade cried at his younger self. Go back! Get help!
Nothing trivial would frighten that many firebirds!
But this was a vision of the past, and his younger self did not heed the silent screaming in his own mind.
He reached out with his mind, seeking the panic-stricken firebirds first of all.
Until he could get them calmed and sent away, he would never be able to put the flames out. One by one he touched their minds; turned their helpless panic into need for escape instead of defense, and sent them winging back to the Vale. One of the beast-tenders, the Tayledras who spoke easily to the minds of animals, would take care of them. He had a fire to quench. there were more firebirds than he had expected, and they were in a complete state of mindlessness. It took time to calm them.
But while he had stood there like a fool, the fire had jumped the tiny pocket of greenery where he worked, and ringed him. He opened his eyes, weary with the effort of controlling the birds, to find himself surrounded by a wall of flame and heat. the leaves were withering even as he watched, the vegetation wilting beneath the heat of the hungry flames. Fear chilled him, even as the heat made him break into a sweat. That was when he realized, when he reached for the power to quench it, that he had exhausted himself in calming the birdsand that he was cut off from the node and the nearest ley-lines. Something had sprung up while he worked; something had arisen to fence him away from the power he needed, not only to quell the fire, but even to save himself. He was enveloped in a wall of shielding as dangerous as the wall of flame.
Smoke poured into the hollow; something brushed against his leg, and he glanced down to see that a rabbit, blind with panic, had taken shelter behind his ankle. The heat increased with every passing moment; it wouldn't be long before this little valley was afire, like the rest of the forest here. He was not clothed for a fire; he had run out in his ordinary gear, a light vest and breeches. He had nothing to protect him from the flames, nothing to breathe through. There was only one thing he could do-wrap the remains of his power about him in as strong a shield as he could muster, and run-As the nearest flames licked toward him, he sent his bird up into the safety of the skies, and sprinted for what he hoped was the easiest way out. Straight into hell.
On the sleeping pad, his body writhed in remembered agony, his mouth shaping screams of pain he was not permitted to voice.
Flames licked his body, hungry tongues reaching out from burning scrub, a tree trunk. There was no pain at first-just a kind of warm pressure, a caress as he ran past. Then came the pain, after the flame had touched-red heat that blossomed into agony. Sparks fell on him as he dashed under a falling, blazing branch. He wrapped his hair around his mouth, and still the air he breathed scorched his lungs. Within moments, there was nothing but pain-and the fear of a horrible death that drove his legs.
Then-cool, smokeless air. He burst out past the fire-line, into the unburned forest. Freedom.
But not from pain. He fell into a stream, moaning, extinguishing his smoldering leather clothing and hair. the stream cooled him but did nothing for the pain, for the horrible burns where the skin was blackened and crisped on his arm. How long he lay there, he did not know. Smoke wreathed over him, but the flames did not grow nearer. He could not tell if it was the smoke that darkened his sight-or his pain. Only that, after a dark, breathless time of agony, salvation loomed out of the smoke, a spirit of mercy-vague and ghostlike.
NO! he screamed. NO! Don't believe him! Kill yourself, draw your knife, kill yourself while you have the chance!
He reached out toward the mist-wreathed shape, who seemed to be someone he knew, yet could not identify. Hazy with an intimation of power, the stranger's white hair was a beacon that drew his eyes. White hair-a Tayledras Adept, surely. Yes, he knew this one; he must. Rainwing? Frostfire? Both were recluses. No matter-he managed a croak, and the other started and turned his steps in Starblade's direction.
No- he moaned. No" I thought I heard someone Call," said the other, stooping over him in concern. "I see I was right. ~ His lips shaped words he could not speak for lack of breath. "Help meSilver hair wove a web of light that dazzled his eyes. the Adept's own eyes, gilded-silver, held his. "I will have to take you to my home," the other said worriedly. "The fire has cut us off from Tayledras Vale. But I can tend you there, never fear. Will that be all right?" Starblade nodded, giving consent, and as a consequence of that consent, relaxed all of his defenses. And as the other bent closer over him, to lift him in amazingly strong arms, he thought he saw a peculiar gleam in the other's eyes...He awoke again, resting on something soft, his arms thrown over his head, with a tawny silken coverlet swathing him from chest to feet. He still hurt, but he was no longer covered with angry, blackened burns, and he took a deep, experimental breath to find his lungs clear again.