Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

Luckily, at that moment, Yanis rescued Zanna from her embarrassment. “Have the captains your permission to come ashore, Lady? If we’re to sail at dawn, we don’t have much time to get organized.”

“You’re right,” Aurian agreed. “If you’ll come with me to the settlement, I’ll introduce you to Schiannath, the Xandim Herdlord.” In turning, she paused and laid her hand on the Nightrunner’s arm. “Yanis, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help,” she said softly.

Zanna, watching, saw the young man glow with pride.

There were further wonders in store for Zanna when she reached the low-walled, windswept fishing settlement, and met the handsome Xandim Herdlord and his flaxen-haired sister. The winged man, however, exceeded anything that her imagination might have conjured. Cygnus seemed woven from the stuff of legends. When she first saw the slight, fine-boned young man with the white wings, she clutched Tarnal’s hand tightly, convinced that she must be dreaming. Her mind reeled with incomprehension at the sight of the wolf cub who, the Mage assured her, was Aurian’s own son, cursed by the hated Archmage. But what awed her most was the sight of the two formidable great cats who sat, erect and curious, by Aurian’s side. To actually converse with Shia, with the Mage acting as interpreter, was the most incredible experience of her life.

The ships were to sail on the dawn tide, but no one got any sleep that night. The communal room of the fisherfolk dwelling was filled with talk, as Yanis and his captains conversed with the local Xandim—Zanna had a feeling that the Nightrunner was extending his markets, and that he would soon be back—and the Mages told their own tales, and asked anxiously for news from the north.

This brought Zanna to the moment she had been dreading. So far, Aurian was still unaware of what had happened to Vannor—but the girl knew how close the friendship had been between the Mage and her father. She was aware that the Lady would be extremely upset by the story of Vannor’s maiming, and wanted to break the news to her in private.

“Lady?” Zanna interrupted Aurian’s conversation with Yanis, not caring how rude she sounded. “Will you walk outside with me for a moment? There’s something I have to tell you—alone.” She saw Yanis open his mouth, about to protest, but Tarnal quickly laid a warning hand on the Nightrunner leader’s arm. The Mage exchanged a swift, startled glance with Anvar, then nodded and, to Zanna’s great relief, followed her outside.

During the last hour or so, Aurian had noticed that Zanna seemed to be gravely troubled by something. Curious, and not a little alarmed, she walked with the girl a little way beyond the dwellings, followed at a distance by the ever-watchful Shia. The Mage smiled to herself at her friend’s protective zeal, and hoped that Zanna would not be too alarmed by their uninvited companion.

Zanna, however, seemed too perturbed even to notice the cat. As they walked together in the moonlight toward the point, the girl told Aurian, brutally and without embellishment, exactly what the Weather-Mage had done to Vannor.

As the hammer blows of Zanna’s words fell on her ears, and she visualized—all too clearly—her old friend’s pain and suffering, the world seemed to stand still for the Mage in a single, agonizing instant of grief and rage. When she came back to herself, her hands were shaking and clenched tightly into fists. Noticing that Zanna was cowering away from her, Aurian forced herself to relax. She knew, that as a wielder of the Artifacts, her rage must be terrifying to behold, and didn’t want to scare the girl.

“It’s all right, Zanna.” The Mage spoke softly. “Once more, Eliseth has added to what she owes. But the time of reckoning is approaching fast.”

“Good.” There was a spark of fire behind the young girl’s eyes. “I’m glad to hear it—and I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Aurian smiled, and put her arm around Zanna’s shoulders. “Your father was lucky to have you there to help him through such a horrifying experience. How is he faring now?”

“At first he lost his confidence, and was afraid of being crippled and useless,” Zanna admitted, “but he’s getting better all the time.”

“And how did he react to the news of Sara?” Aurian asked quietly.

Zanna shrugged. “Badly, at first—but all in all, he took the blow better than I would have expected. I would not have come away and left him—except that Parric is helping him far better than I can, at the moment.” She looked up at the Mage with a rueful grin. “In fact, it’ll probably take us about two days to sober them up!”

Aurian laughed. “That sounds more like the Vannor I remember. Come on—let’s go back to the others. It’s only a couple of hours until we sail.”

When at last the ships embarked in the soft blue light of dawn, Anvar stood with Aurian in the bows of Yanis’s vessel. They were talking softly, for many of their fellow voyagers had already taken the opportunity to snatch some sleep. “I know that courtesy demanded that we travel with Yanis,” Aurian was saying as she looked out across the waters at their companion ships, “but I wish we could have gone with Tarnal.”

“Why?” Anvar was surprised. “What’s wrong with Yanis?”

“Nothing—he’s a fine young man…” Aurian had the grace to look abashed. “It’s just that I was curious to see how Zanna and Tarnal were getting along. I like him—and I’m very fond of Zanna. She deserves to be happy.”

Anvar chuckled. “I think that situation definitely doesn’t require your meddling, my love. It looked to me as though they were getting along just fine!”

“It looked that way to me, too,” Aurian mused. “Did you notice—”

“I noticed you noticing him,” Anvar couldn’t resist teasing her.

The Mage lifted her chin and glared at him. “Well—and why not? Tarnal is worth noticing. He reminds me of you, a little—only he’s handsomer, of course!”

“You wretch!”

“That’ll teach you!”

Simultaneously they broke into peals of laughter, and hushed each other hastily, muffling their mirth with a kiss.

“Do you remember the last time we voyaged like this, together?” said Anvar. “Little did we think, when we fled Nexis, that we were heading for the southern lands, where such incredible things would happen to us.”

“I never guessed then that I’d end up falling in love with you—or that we’d meet such wonderful friends.” Aurian looked at the Windeye, who was peering nearsightedly over the stern at the receding Xandim coastline, and at Shia and Khanu, who were curled up asleep on a tarpaulin nearby with Wolf and his foster parents. The Mage noticed, with some amusement, that despite her reassurances, the Nightrunner sailors were giving that particular area a wide berth. “I hope we get the chance to come back some day,” she went on,

“especially to see Hreeza—but right now, I’m looking forward to going home.”

“It’s still not over yet,” Anvar reminded her with a frown.

“No,” agreed Aurian, “but at least it feels as if we’re making progress. And once we find the Sword, who knows what will happen?”

Her words, though spoken in all innocence, sent a premonitory prickle of dread sheeting across Anvar’s skin.

Eliseth shrieked curses, and threw the crystal across the room. “She’s back! I don’t believe it!” But there was no room for doubt. She had seen it in the crystal with her own eyes—and with increasing practice, her scrying was becoming very accurate nowadays. The Weather-Mage began to pace back and forth across her chamber, thinking furiously. It had been humiliating enough when Vannor and his daughter had escaped her. Her face now bore the ravages of an extra ten years—the mark of Miathan’s rage. She intended to pay him back for that—but now that Aurian had returned, her time was running out.