Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

The outlaw opened his eyes. One side of his face was a dull, numb ache where it had been pressed into the snow, his head throbbed, and his body was wracked with shivers. The cat, thank the Goddess, was nowhere in sight. Loyal Iscalda stood over him, her nostrils flaring at the stench of blood. The other horse lay where it had fallen, its legs tangled in the pack mule’s tether, but the mule itself had vanished. All that remained was a trailing smear of blood, a rut in the snow where the body had been dragged away—and the animal’s pack, left on the ground nearby!

“It’s very stringy. I would have much preferred the horse!”

Schiannath leapt to his feet and drew his sword—but the voice had come from within his mind, not without!

“Even you would have tasted better than a skinny old mule—but I spared you for a reason. Take good care of the stranger, human, for your life depends on it!.”

Shia spat out the Staff with a grimace, and tore off another mouthful of the mule’s blood-warm flesh to take the taste away. The discovery that she could use the artifact to communicate with this stupid human had been timely and fortunate—but oh, the magic in the wretched thing made her teeth ache! The thought of having to carry it for days on end made her shudder.

The cat peered out from her hiding place—a narrow bay in the cliff where frost had cracked out a great chunk of rock. The stone had fallen outward and shattered, the pile of fragments forming a lair tucked into the base of the escarpment. What was that human doing now? Oh, wonderful—talking to his horse! Shia flexed her claws and snarled with frustration. Stop wasting time on that brainless beast and help Yazour! she thought. She was bracing herself to pick up the Staff and tell him so, when he left the horse and knelt beside the stricken warrior. Ah, good. Once she had seen him staunch Yazour’s wounds and wrap him in a blanket, Shia turned her attention back to the mule, which was not nearly as stringy as she had claimed. Shia would need the sustenance. Now that Yazour would be cared for, she could concentrate on her own journey.

Wild with rage, Harihn dashed up the tower stairs. Ignoring the guards at the top, he flung the door open so hard that it rattled and shook on its hinges, “Accursed sorceress!! he shrieked, “What have you done to my horses?”

Aurian’s blanket-draped form rose from the hearth with surprising grace. Tall and regal, she faced the Prince, “Why, Harihn,” she said “I see you’re back in residence.”

He winced as her barb shot home, and she saw it and smiled. “Can we offer you some liafa, perhaps?”

“Offer me some answers!!” Harihn shouted, slamming the door on his smirking guards, “Why did you bewitch my horses?” As he saw her struggle to suppress a smile, his rage and frustration overcame him, Forgetting Miathan’s orders, he rushed at Aurian, intending to strike the smugness from her face. He discovered his mistake too late. At the last minute, her hand shot out, grabbed his wrist, and twisted. There was a wrenching pain in his arm and Harihn went tumbling head over heels to hit the wall,

“You should be more careful, Prince, Miathan will be displeased if you damage his new body.” Aurian’s cool voice was like a goad. The Prince staggered to his feet, rubbing his wrist, his face contorted with rage. “You’ll suffer for this!” he shouted.

“Your new tenant would not permit it!” Aurian retorted. “I know the Archmage, to my cost! Don’t cross him, I warn you, or he’ll make you sorry—as sorry as he has made me.” Her expression twisted with bitter pain, and something like pity. “What did he offer you? Your father’s throne? And you believed him! You invited him in, you poor fool, and now he controls you. Now he has a foothold, he can invade your body at will, forcing you to do his bidding. Whether you know it or not, you’re as much a prisoner as I am!”

Harihn turned cold at her words. “You’re wrong!” he blustered. “We have an agreement! You are my prisoner, and the days of your high-handed ways are done! By the Reaper, you will learn your place! You will obey me, or ...”

“But of course, Harihn,” Aurian agreed sweetly.

The Prince, staggered by her capitulation, stared at her through narrowed eyes. “You lie,” he snapped. “Do you expect me to believe this pitiful attempt to foil my suspicions, and let you go—”

Aurian laughed in his face. “Harihn, you’re a bigger idiot than I’d thought! The Archmage holds Anvar hostage, and you have Eliizar and Bohan! Do you think I’d let Anvar be killed? Would Nereni endanger Eliizar to help me? If I sacrificed my friends, how far would I get without a horse? You can’t have it both ways! Had I planned to escape, would I have scattered your beasts?”

Harihn scowled. How this wretched woman twisted words! But though it galled him, he had to admire her courage. Could he behave so calmly, in her position? Fleetingly, he regretted the ruin of their early friendship. If only he’d had the courage to seize the throne she had offered him! Why had he flinched from using her sorcery, only to accept it from another, grimmer source? At last, Harihn admitted the truth. It would have humiliated him utterly to receive the crown from the hand of a woman. He looked up to see Aurian watching him, her expression grave and sad. “Then what do you plan to do?” he asked in a gentler voice.

She held out empty hands in a gesture more eloquent than words. “For the moment, there’s nothing I can do.”

Her words struck a chill through the Prince’s heart. “What? You intend to let the Archmage slay your child?”

“Ah;” said Aurian sadly. “I had wondered if you were still present, while Miathan possessed your body.” She shook her head. “Oh, Harihn, this situation grieves me. We were friends, once, and I haven’t forgotten how much I owe you. Why has everything gone so badly wrong?”

To his astonishment, Harihn found himself moved by her sorrow, and as his anger drained away, he was shamed by what he had done. He reached out to Aurian, his lips trying to form some kind of apology—and then he felt it. A slick, hideous probing within his skull, like icy claws sinking into his mind. With a wrench, his consciousness was shouldered aside to become an observer, detached and helpless, sunk without trace within the depths of his soul, as the Archmage returned to claim his body.

“How dare you subvert my puppet!” Miathan’s voice came snarling from the Prince’s lips. Harihn, trapped within, saw Aurian’s eyes stretch wide in dismay.

It wasn’t much of a cave. With two horses inside, plus Schiannath and the man he had rescued, it was hopelessly overcrowded, but at least it boasted good venting for smoke in the crack-starred ceiling, and a large rock just inside the entrance that could be rolled, with a wrenching effort, to partially obscure the opening. Also, no one in their right mind would think of daring the narrow, crumbling ledge that led up here. The surefooted Iscalda could negotiate the crumbling trail, but Schiannath had very nearly killed himself trying to get the wounded man and that bloody-minded bag of bones that the Khazalim called a horse up to the cave. After that, he’d had to go all the way down again, to wipe out their tracks.

The outlaw returned to the cavern, numb-witted with fatigue, and took one last look out from the entrance, set high in the cliff. To his left, the pass opened onto a ridge that dropped to a sweeping valley, with the crowded ranks of snow-clad mountains, awesome in their desolate grandeur, beyond. There, to the north, beyond that jagged barrier of stone, lay the Xandim lands. Schiannath spat into the snow and turned away. To his right lay the dark throat of the pass—and even as he looked, the harsh sound of Khazalim voices floated up to him, cutting across the snow-locked silence. He’d made it just in time! Gasping with the effort, the outlaw quickly rolled the stone across the entrance then sank to his knees, exhausted.