Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

In that moment, Elster seemed to age so much that the young physician was sorry that he had spoken. “Her body? Yes, it will survive. Her mind? Yinze only knows what will become of that,”

As Shia picked her tortuous way from the Tower of Incondor, climbing up through the ever-rising chain of valleys that led into the heart of the mountains, the going became harder and harder as the snow grew deeper and the biting cold increased. It was a barren, menacing landscape, with its fanged and looming crags and bottomless, shadowed gorges through which the wind came shrieking like the death-wails of a thousand slaughtered cats.

At first, Shia sometimes found shelter in caves and crevices that afforded some protection from the merciless wind and its stinging burden of snow. She gladly stopped to rest in these havens, making the most of a welcome respite from her ceaseless battle with the mountains. Sometimes she found game—lean snow hares or ptarmigan, or a cragfast sheep or goat—to ease her relentless hunger. But as the cat went on, shelter became more scarce and the snow piled ever higher on the stony trails and ledges, slowing her to a snail’s pace, and making each step a greater torture. Shia’s neck and jaws ached from carrying the Staff of Earth. Its magic burned her, sending currents of prickling power swirling through her body to weaken her, and confuse her instinctive sense of direction. Her mouth, where her jaws clenched around the Staff, became a mass of blisters and sores, making it harder to hunt and to eat on the rare occasions when prey could be found. Food was scarce and hard to come by on this freezing roof of the world. Day by day, the great cat grew more gaunt and hollow-eyed, a shaggy black scarecrow all skin and bone. Lacking the energy even to think, she hauled herself upward step by step, dragging the Staff in locked and frozen jaws. At night she made snow nests to conserve her heat, but Shia never stopped shivering, wishing that Bohan and Anvar were curled up beside her, and that Aurian could hold her close to warm her body with her own.

As time went on, Shia’s suffering and wretchedness increased until she thought that she must be dying. Once, as she stumbled along in a kind of waking dream, she thought that Anvar walked by her side—and he was dying. Nonetheless, he still found time to ask her a bunch of senseless human questions that irritated her beyond all bearing. She told him in no uncertain terms to cease his foolishness and get back into his body—and seemingly, he had, or at least she hoped he had.

When Anvar vanished, Shia’s boneless legs collapsed beneath her, and she lay for some time, quivering with shock and wondering if it could be true. Their powers were fey, the Magefolk, and there was no telling what they might do—but one thing was certain. If Anvar had truly been on the brink of death, then she had only been able to see him because she was in a similar easel

Unclenching her jaws with an effort from around the Staff, Shia looked up at the leaden sky. Dying? But I cannot! I promised Aurian . . . Black specks were whirling in front of her eyes. Only when a harsh cry drifted down from above did her befuddled brain tell her they were real. Shia felt her heart kick into life within her. Eagles! And if the eagles were circling . . . The great cat picked up the Staff and tottered forward. Her mouth was watering.

Only their fear of the weirdly glowing Staff permitted her to scatter the gigantic birds so easily. Otherwise, she might have joined the broken, frozen corpse of the sheep as their prey. Shia, wincing at the pain of her blistered jaws, spat out a wisp of oily, draggled wool and worried free a mouthful of icy meat, feeling it melt to a stringy succulence in her mouth. After the first few difficult bites, she felt new energy exploding within her like a fountain of fire, and bent to her meal in earnest, blessing her luck and the stupidity of herbivores who would wander along a narrow ledge in search of a mouthful of greenery and get themselves stuck, unable to either go forward or turn around. Going backward was apparently beyond them, and they would either panic and fall, or starve in place until they toppled—for which Shia, at the moment, was profoundly thankful. When her shrunken belly had been filled, she found a niche in the broken rocks at the foot of the cliff and dragged the Staff and the remains of her prey inside, then settled down,-with enough food inside her to let her withstand the cold, for her first good sleep in days.

As she lost all sensation of where she was, her mind began to drift . . . Back to her kithood; to her first mating; back to the monumental battle that had made her First Female of the Colony , , , Back to the day the Khazalim had attacked with bows and spears, and she had sacrificed herself to save her kits and her people . , , Back to her capture, and the days of frustration, anger, and hatred; the torment of the Arena , . . Back to the fight with Aurian, and the utter relief of finding a mind that could communicate with her own, and the joys of friendship and freedom . . .

It was only the thought of her beleaguered friends that kept Shia going in the days that followed. It was vital that she find a way to rescue Anvar, for otherwise, Aurian would never escape. Her child would be slain by the Evil One, and she would remain in his power forever—or be destroyed by him, when she refused to fall in with his evil plans, as the great cat knew she would.

Shia was torn. She neither knew nor trusted any direct route to the northwest—in that direction, the mountains became higher, steeper, and less and less passable. In truth, that land could only be colonized by Skyfolk, and that was where their population was thickest. For many a long age they had been the bitter enemies of Shia’s people—she did not dare to risk going that way. So that only left the route she knew, the western pass from the ravaged Steelclaw peak; a more roundabout route, and one that led directly through the central territory of the great cats.

In all her travels with Aurian, Shia had dreamed of going home. Much as she loved her friend and Anvar, she missed her own kind—it was lonely being the only cat. Yet here she was, returning from exile at last, and she could not stay. Oh, she could have forgotten her friends, just dropped the Staff down the nearest chasm—there were plenty of them—and gone on her way, but she could never have lived with herself afterward.

The chief problem, the cat thought wryly, as she went on her way, would lie with her own people. Though the route to Aerillia lay through their lands, they guarded their territory jealously, even against the Chuevah—the solitary wanderers of their own species, who did not belong to the Colony.

These pitiful outcasts scraped a lone existence in the mountains—but usually not for long. They were the rejects of the Colony—the weak, the old, and in times of greatest hardship, even the very young. Those who had contested for leadership and been defeated were Chuevah; those who had transgressed against the Law of the Colony; those of the lowest degree who had been expelled when times were hard, and food was in short supply. There would be many of those now, Shia thought. This dire, uncanny winter must have brought hardship on the Colony, even as it had crippled the society of the Skyfolk. The casting out of its burdensome members had originally been intended for the common good—a pruning of the weak and useless so that the Colony remained vigorous and strong to survive its harsh surroundings. But perhaps, Shia reflected, the custom had progressed too far. Why, she thought, with a twinge of unpleasant surprise—I am Chuevah now! I too am one of those poor solitary scavengers—I, who once was First! The great cat knew that according to the custom of her folk, she would be forced to fight the current First Female in order to win her way through to Anvar—and woe betide her if she failed, for even if she should survive the battle, they would not permit her to pass through their lands. And look at me! Shia thought despairingly, Chuevah, indeed! Exhausted, half-starved creature that I am—what chance will I have against such a strong opponent, the most powerful female in the Colony?