Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

Following somewhat more hesitantly, as though they were still in fear of their traditional foes, came the companions that Aurian had picked up on her southern travels. What were their names? Parric frowned, trying to remember. Eliizar—that was it. The bald, rangy, one-eyed man was the swordmaster Eliizar, and the small, plump woman who followed in his wake was his wife, Nereni, chattering, to Parric’s amusement, nonstop as usual as she voiced her astonishment at the sudden spring. The cavalrymaster didn’t have to understand her language to know just what she was saying!

Behind Eliizar and Nereni came Bohan, towering above the others. Cradled tenderly in the eunuch’s huge arms was the tiny form of Wolf, Aurian’s son, born amid a storm of violence and bloodshed only two days before (could it be only two days? Parric could scarcely believe it). The child had been well named, he reflected with a shudder. The poor infant had been cursed before his birth by the evil Archmage Miathan, so that he would take the shape of the first beast Aurian saw after bearing him. When Aurian had called the wild wolves from the surrounding area to help her escape from the tower, little Wolfs fate had been sealed. Parric looked down sadly at the tiny cub in Bohan’s arms. It was just as well that the child had such a staunch protector. The poor mite had not had much of a start in life. And when was his mother coming back for him? Why had she left so precipitately? What, in short, was Aurian doing in the lands of the Skyfolk?

Spring had come to the city of Nexis. Sunlight washed over the city in a honeyed tide, gilding the tips of towers and spires, pouring its healing warmth over sagging thatch and flaking limewash, mellowing the harsh old fascias of crumbling brick and venerable stone. The trees that screened the merchants’ mansions on the southern bank of the river were misted over with a haze of new leaves that mingled every possible shade of green, and across the river on the northern bank, delicate threads of smoke, soon whisked away by the fragrant breeze, rose from every chimney—a sure sign of coppers aboil in the kitchens below, where the householders were indulging in an orgy of spring cleaning. New-washed clothing, strung up across every inch of space in backyards and on balconies, wreathed the city in a rainbow patchwork of celebration banners.

The air was vibrant with birdsong, and from scores of shutters, flung wide to admit dry air and sunshine, came the rasp of saws and the rhythmic tapping of hammers as the citizens of Nexis set to work with a will to repair the ravages of winter. Women sang as they wielded scrubbing brush, bucket, and broom; children, half-wild with the heady thrill of liberation from endless days spent in dark, damp rooms, ran shrieking with excitement through the drying mud of the alleys.

Only in two hearts was the joy of spring conspicuously absent. Miathan, Archmage of Nexis, stood looking out over the parapet that guarded the lofty, open temple crowning the roof of the Mages’ Tower. Beside him was Eliseth, the Weather-Mage, whose plans had been so cruelly thwarted by the death of the unnatural winter that she had created. The endless, ice-locked season had been her own creation and charge, and now, as she looked out across the city, a sneer of angry disgust distorted her flawless features while her cold gray eyes held the expression of a hawk that had struck at—and missed—its prey. The Archmage suppressed an ironic smile. Though his own plans were currently in tatters, he was old and cunning enough to know that such setbacks could be reversed, given time—and meanwhile he could take some small consolation from this irresistible opportunity to feel smug at Eliseth’s expense, despite the fact that he himself had not emerged unscathed from his latest encounter with his renegade runaway apprentice—Aurian.

But Miathan had either not been paying sufficient attention to the screening of his thoughts, or Eliseth’s mind had been running along a similar track, for turning to the Archmage, she scorched him with a scathing glance. “Well?” she snapped. “Proud of your pupil, are you? Just look at this—and all because you let Aurian and her paramour, Anvar, escape you!” She glared at the sunlit panorama below her as though it were a personal affront. “What in the name of all the gods do we do now?”

“I have no idea.” With an abrupt motion of his hand Miathan quelled the protest that was forming on the Magewoman’s lips. “I have no idea—yet,” he continued, “but rest assured, Eliseth, this battle is not over—not by a long road. Now, of all times, we must stay calm, and think, and plan—and, as a matter of priority, complete our defenses.” Striding across the flat rooftop, he crossed to the other side and turned the glittering gaze of the gems that were his eyes toward the south, as though to pierce the long miles that separated him from Aurian. “One thing is certain,” he muttered. “Even if we do nothing at all, it is only a matter of time now before Aurian comes to us.”

Aurian was cleaning the rust from her sword.

“Must you do that in bed?” Anvar protested sleepily.

“I was waiting for you to wake. Now that you have, I’m sure I can think of a better alternative.” Aurian’s eyes twinkled as she looked across at her fellow Mage. Winning the Harp of Winds had changed him, much as she herself had been altered when she had recreated the Staff of Earth and claimed it as her own. Anvar was more, somehow, than he had been before. His blue eyes sparkled with a greater intensity; his hair was a brighter shade of gold. An aura of vibrant power surrounded him, transforming his entire being into the appearance of something more than merely human. Aurian, however, had undergone a similar transfiguration when she had claimed the Staff of Earth, and knew that appearances could be deceptive. In his heart, where it mattered, her fellow Mage was the same as he had ever been.

Anvar stretched and smothered a yawn. “What time is it?”

Aurian shrugged. “Haven’t a clue.” She glanced out of the window. “It’s dark again, though, so we must have slept all day.” She sighed. “I suppose they’ll be coming to fetch us soon, for Raven’s celebration banquet—not that it’ll be much of a feast. This winter has left the Skyfolk on short rations indeed.”

“It won’t be so bad,” Anvar replied. “While you were talking with Shia this morning, Raven remembered all the food we left cached in the forest on the edge of the Jeweled Desert. She went off at once with a squadron of Winged Folk to collect it. And to try out her newly recovered powers of flight,” he added with a frown.

“Blast her! I just healed those wings of hers, and it was anything but easy,” Aurian said. “She had no business putting such a strain on them so soon!”

Anvar was still frowning. “I don’t understand why you did it at all,” he burst out angrily. “After betraying us as she did, she doesn’t deserve—”

“Hush, love.” Aurian laid a gentle hand on his arm. “You were still in trouble, here in Aerillia, and Shia was trapped here, too, remember? I knew you both were in danger, and I had to get here quickly—I needed Raven’s cooperation.” She looked down at Shia, who was curled up fast asleep, taking up the remaining space in the odd, circular scoop that the Winged Folk called a bed. The great cat was still exhausted from her heroic, near-impossible climb up the sheer cliffs to Aerillia—bringing Anvar the Staff of Earth—not to mention her part in the battle that had taken place in the Temple of Incondor and resulted in the death of Blacktalon, the vile and corrupt High Priest of the Winged Folk. Shia was also worn out by her grief over the fate of Hreeza, the valiant, sharp-tongued old cat who had been her friend, and who had been brutally slain in the temple at the hands of a blood-crazed Skyfolk mob. Aurian sighed. Poor Hreeza’s body still had not been found.