Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

Anvar glanced back at the Windeye, who was in his human form and was riding Iscalda, who had refused to be parted from her brother. “How could he have warned you, when he didn’t know there was a tower here in the first place?” he asked her reasonably. “Hellorin told me, but I forgot,” he added in apology. “It was destroyed when Davorshan came here to kill your mother. The Lady Eilin knows about it,” he added, trying to comfort her. “She didn’t seem upset.”

Aurian made no reply. She was still looking—staring, in fact—at the little isle, denuded of its dwelling. “I don’t see any sign of the Sword,” she muttered worriedly. As they rode closer, however, her eyes widened, her gaze becoming intense. “Anvar,” she whispered, her voice rising with excitement. “It is there… Chiamh was right—the Sword is on the island! Can’t you feel it?”

“I can’t feel anything,” Anvar answered, frowning. “Perhaps only you can sense its presence, because you’re the One for whom it was created.”

While they had talked, they had rounded the lakeshore, and at last the slender wooden bridge came into sight. “I’m glad the bridge survived, at any rate,” Aurian said, suddenly practical again. “We’d have had problems getting across without it—the lake is very deep there…”

Her words were drowned in a thunder of approaching hoofbeats, but—and she looked around wildly—there was no one there! But the hoofbeats kept coming, growing louder and louder… “Ware!” Aurian shouted, pulling the Staff of Earth from her belt—but it was too late. Suddenly Schiannath stumbled, as though pushed aside by some unseen force. Aurian threw her weight back to help him regain his footing—and as he recovered, she heard the sound of screaming: a horse in mortal torment. Esselnath, the Xandim who had carried Anvar, was rolling in agony on the ground, his gleaming chestnut coat dyed with the deeper red of his blood, the loops of his gut bulging out of a long wound in his belly that looked as though it had been ripped open by a sword.

Anvar, who had rolled clear of the thrashing mount, was just picking himself up as the sound of the hoofbeats bore down on them again. “Schiannath!” Aurian screamed, and the great horse wheeled and sped toward her soulmate. She grabbed Anvar’s wrist and yanked him up behind her as some unseen thing whistled past them, blowing her hair back with the wind of its speed.

Aurian glanced over her shoulder, hardly daring to look, but Anvar was safe on Schiannath’s back behind her, gaping at the ragged rent that had appeared in his sleeve. “Gods!” he cried. “What is it?”

Whatever it was, it was heading back toward them. The remaining Xandim scattered in all directions. One of them fell, pierced through the chest, and its rider did not get up again. Shia leapt toward the sound of the hoofbeats and was hurled backward, yowling. Khanu ran to her side, snarling fiercely, as the great cat staggered to her feet. Again, the sound of the hoofbeats veered, heading for Schiannath once more, who now carried both the Mages on his back.

Confused by his own blurred impressions of the battle, Chiamh galloped toward the Magefolk on Iscalda’s back. He had put down his inability to perceive their assailant to his defective vision, but though he could neither see nor understand what was attacking them, he knew that the Magefolk were in deadly peril. He knew he must help them, even at the risk of his own life—and Iscalda was desperate to go to the assistance of her brother. In desperation, the Windeye changed to his Othersight. Maybe it would help him to see more clearly. The blurred shapes took on the form of the glowing phantasms that, to his Othersight, were the shapes of living creatures…

Even as Chiamh approached the battle, Schiannath was attacked once more. Hearing the pounding of hooves grow louder, the Herdlord had waited until the very last second and wrenched himself aside—but the weight of two riders slowed him, and he squealed as a thin red line of blood sprang out of nowhere across his shouder. As Iscalda raced to the side of her stricken brother, the hoofbeats hesitated, and veered toward the Windeye and his mount. Chiamh squinted, putting the whole force of his will behind his Othersight. What in the name of the Goddess was attacking them? And why couldn’t he see it? Yet even as Iscalda turned to run, he was sure he could make out something—a slight ripple in the light, a disturbance in the swirling passage of the wind that, as it came closer, began to take on definition and shape—a shape he had seen once before, in a vision…

“I see it!” Chiamh yelled. “I see it—it’s a unicorn!” Thinking fast, he reached out his mind to link with Aurian, to embrace her in his Othersight that she might see as he did.

“What the bloody blazes—” He caught the Mage’s fleeting, startled thought, and then…

And then suddenly there were no more hoofbeats. Only the slender, leather-clad figure of a dark-haired woman, standing dazed upon the grass.

Chiamh whirled, staggering, as Aurian broke the linkage abruptly. She let out a whoop and hurled herself from Schiannath’s back. “Maya!” she yelled. By the look of delight on the Mage’s face, this must be an old friend.

“Wait!” Anvar reached down to grab her arm. “It might be some kind of trick!”

“It’s not a trick…” To Chiamh, the woman Maya seemed unsure of her own voice. “I was the guardian…” Her brow creased with the effort to remember. “In the shape of the unicorn, I didn’t recognize you.”

“But why a unicorn? What in the name of all perdition happened to you?” Aurian demanded.

Maya looked regretfully at the bodies of the Xandim in the grass, and at Shia, who looked up from licking her bruised side to glare at her. “I’m so very sorry about all this—but I couldn’t help it. I had no choice but to attack you. Hellorin turned me into an invisible unicorn and told me I was to defend the Sword, but if I became visible to anyone save D’arvan, my guardianship would end, and I could return to human form. He said that the One would find a way to see me…” She turned to Chiamh. “Are you the One?”

“Certainly not,” said the Windeye decisively. “Aurian is—the Dragon told her so. I was only the means that she used to see you.”

“But how did you see me?” Maya demanded. “No one could!”

“I’ve been wondering much the same thing,” Aurian put in dryly.

“Oh, I can see all sorts of things with my Othersight,” said the Windeye cheerfully. “If I can perceive the wind itself, then a unicorn made up of light shouldn’t present too much of a problem. If only I wasn’t so nearsighted, I would have seen you sooner, and saved a lot of trouble.” He sighed wistfully. “I’m sorry the others couldn’t see you, though. You were so very beautiful…”

“Meaning that I’m not now, I suppose,” snapped Maya. “Well, things are certainly back to normal.” She held out her hands to Aurian. “I’m so very glad to see you, though.”

And Chiamh smiled, as Aurian ran to embrace her friend.

“Just how far is it to this blasted lake?” Eliseth muttered irritably. Having once gained entry, she seemed to have been wandering around in this benighted forest forever. Her stupid escort seemed to have lost themselves, too—but that didn’t matter now. They had served their purpose, and after her victory over the Wildwood the Weather-Mage felt quite invincible. With the refashioned Caldron she had such power at her command…

Eliseth pulled the tarnished chalice from the pocket of her robe and looked at it thoughtfully, feeling it grow warm and vibrate with resentment against her skin. Who would have thought that so small a thing could hold so much power? And now something was calling it, pulling it toward the lake… Could another of the Artifacts be hidden there? It would certainly explain how that wretched Eilin had gained enough power to murder Davorshan. Eliseth scowled. Well, soon she would see for herself. She had taken one of the Artifacts from its rightful owner—it shouldn’t be difficult to steal another—especially not from Eilin. At least it wouldn’t if she could only find that accursed lake…