Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

What was that? Aurian tensed, hearing a new sound, from somewhere close at hand, above the wind’s thin whine. A scratching and a scrabbling that could only be the scrape of leather boots against stone, followed by the spatter of falling pebbles and a muffled curse. The Mage drew in a sharp, hissing breath. Someone was climbing the outside of the tower!

Dusk was falling fast now, In the last remaining light, Aurian saw a huff of steaming breath rise above the parapet. Hastily, she rose to her feet and edged back toward the trapdoor—then cursed herself for a fool. Whoever was trying to sneak into the tower was hardly likely to be any friend of Harihn’s, or the Archmage, For an instant, Aurian’s heart leapt in an absurd and desperate hope. Anvar! Could he have somehow escaped? “Don’t be ridiculous,” her common sense told her. “Anvar is too valuable as a hostage to have escaped without aid—and it’s too soon for Shia to have reached him!.” Aurian frowned. Could it be Yazour? Her heart leapt at the thought, but nonetheless, the Mage had no weapon to hand, and because of the need to protect her child, hand-to-hand fighting was out of the question. It would pay her to be circumspect. Silent as a ghost, Aurian slunk behind the tottering stack that housed the tower’s crumbling flues. Glad of the comforting warmth of the rough stones beneath her ice-cold hands, she peered out, round the corner, at the deserted stretch of parapet.

Aurian thanked all the Gods that her night vision, along with her Mage’s knowledge of tongues, were the only powers that had not deserted her in her pregnancy. The roof was shrouded in night’s shadow—and then suddenly a darker shadow detached itself from the gloom and dropped lightly down from the parapet. Aurian stiffened. A single glance at the man’s stealthy, skulking movements told her that he was not one of Harihn’s people. Tallish, though not as tall as herself, he had a lithe, wiry body and dark silver-shot hair that fell in curls around his shoulders and glinted in the faint snow-glimmer, for the white drifts that spread across the landscape for miles around the tower prevented the night from evergrowing completely dark.

The Mage watched with increasing curiosity, barely daring to breathe, as he crept toward the trapdoor and knelt to peer down into the chamber that was her prison. He would find it dark and empty, Aurian knew, for she had forgotten to light a torch before coming up here, and Nereni was still below with Eliizar. The man paused, his head cocked, listening for the sound of voices below. “Lady Aurian?” he called softly. “Lady, are you there?” Again, the voice called softly. “Do not fear me—I come from your friend Yazour.”

Swift and silent, the Mage left her hiding place, and approached him from behind. “I’m Aurian. Who the blazes are you?” she hissed.

The man leapt up with a startled oath, and Aurian hushed him hastily. Before he could grope for his sword, she had seized him by the elbow and dragged him into the shadowed lee of the chimney stack. Still firmly holding his arm, she used her night vision to peer closely into his face. It was not a face to inspire trust in a stranger. It was angular, bony, and unshaven, with a jutting nose and crinkled crow’s-feet at the corners of the hooded light gray eyes, which were staring wide with shock as he tried to see her in what to him was darkness.

Absurdly, Aurian found her mouth twitching in its first smile in many days. Dear Gods, she thought—no wonder he looks as though he’d seen a ghost! If someone had crept up on me like that… “I’m sorry,” she told him, surprised to hear the alien sound of yet another language coming out of her mouth, “I didn’t mean to startle you, I am Aurian,”

“Goddess be praised,” the man breathed, “My name . . .” For a moment he hesitated. “My name is Schiannath, Yazour sent me to aid you, if I can.”

“Yazour is all right?” The weight of Aurian’s worries suddenly grew lighter.

“Wounded, but recovering,” Schiannath told her gravely. “The Goddess herself told me to help him, I found him in the pass—he was being attacked by a great cat, and—-”

Aurian was suddenly seized with a delightful notion. “Did the Goddess sound, well… more irascible than you had imagined she would?” she interrupted

The man frowned, “Why, indeed she did! But how did you know? Does she talk to you also, Lady?”

“You might say that,” Aurian said wryly, She swallowed a chuckle, I wonder how Shia managed that? she thought. To the Mage’s astonishment, Schiannath dropped to his knees. “Lady, indeed you are blessed!” he said, “In my land, we revere those who are with child as the special chosen of the Goddess Iscalda. I swear myself to your protection, for this must truly be what the Goddess intended for me, when she made me save Yazour!” He hesitated. “But how may I aid you. Lady? I can scarcely fight a tower full of guards, but maybe if you were able to climb down . . .” He looked doubtfully at Aurian’s rounded shape.

“No, I can’t,” the Mage said quickly. “One of my companions is being held hostage elsewhere, and if I escape just now, he will surely die. But there is one thing you can do, Schiannath, that would help me enormously. Do you have a weapon you could lend me? A knife, maybe? Something that could easily be hidden?”

“Of course!.” Schiannath pulled a long, slender dagger from his belt. As she took it from him, a thrill of excitement passed through Aurian. At last she was no longer unarmed and helpless! When her child was born, she could protect him.

“Schiannath,” she said gravely, “I can’t thank you enough for this. But where is Yazour? Are his wounds too bad to let him climb? Can you give him a message from me?”

“That much I can do.” Schiannath said eagerly. “He was desperate to come to you, to the point of endangering his healing—so I offered to come in his place, and take back news of you, if I could.”

Oh Gods! Aurian thought, I wonder how much of the Xandim language Yazour can speak? I’ll wager this poor man hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s getting himself into!

The Xandim might have been reading her mind, “It still seems a miracle,” he said. “Yazour promised me that you could speak my tongue, but he lacked the words to explain, and I regret to say that I did not believe him! Lady, the likes of you has never been among the Xandim—that much I know! How came you to be fluent in our language?”

The Mage bit her lip, remembering the Khazalim distrust of sorcerers. Were the Xandim the same? If she told him the truth, would she alienate this unexpected benefactor? “Tell the truth,” some inner instinct prompted her. “If you lie, he’s bound to know—and that will damage his trust in you just as much as the other.”

Aurian took a deep breath. “Schiannath . . . Do you remember that you swore to protect me? Does that oath hold good, no matter what I am about to say to you?”

“Lady, you ask a great deal. How can I answer you, on something I have not yet heard?” He hesitated. “Yet I gave my oath—and I do have some shreds of honor left, no matter what some may say! Besides, the Goddess spoke to me. I know she wanted me to help you, one of her chosen! Say on without fear. What dreadful secret can it be, that causes you such hesitation?”

Aurian looked him in the eye. “I know your language because I am a sorcerer.” She stopped speaking abruptly, and frowned. The word that had left her mouth bore little similarity to the Khazalim word “sorcerer,” and had a slightly different meaning. It had come out as something that she could only translate as “Windeye.” What the blazes did that mean?

Schiannath’s face brightened with comprehension-he made a strangled sound deep in his throat, and Aurian, to her dismay, saw his face light up with joy. “A Windeye! Blessed Goddess! Now I comprehend your plan! Oh, thank you! Thank you!”