Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

It was a struggle, but the instinct to feed was strong in the wolfling, and Aurian, with her Healing magic, could adapt herself a little. They managed eventually, helped by their unique mind-bond, and the deeper bond of love that lay between them. Aurian looked down at the cub as he fed. Little wolf, she thought, remembering an old childhood tale that Forral had told her; about a Mage-child who had lost his parents in the wildwood, and had been reared by wolves. He had gone on to become a mighty hero, and his name, in the Old Speech, had been Irachann—the Wolf. Aurian smiled wryly to herself at the way the tale had been reversed. Irachann, she decided. I’ll call him Wolf. The cub had fallen asleep in her arms. As the Mage sat, looking down at him, she cast her mind back over the confusing welter of events that had attended his birth. The wolf, she thought, remembering the great gray shape that had leapt, snarling, across her chamber. It was the wolf that saved me from Miathan, when it tore out Harihn’s throat. But surely, before the wolf had come to her aid, she had heard her child’s first cry—the thin, unmistakable wail of a human infant! And she remembered—oh, now she remembered Nereni’s voice crying “A boy!”

The Mage recalled the day of her capture, when Miathan, in Harihn’s body, had revealed that her child was cursed.

“When it is born,” he had said, “you will beg me to kill it.”

Aurian swore viciously as the meaning of those words became all too clear. Her child had been born human—before she’d seen the wolf. Forral’s son had taken the shape of the beast. So that was the nature of Miathan’s curse! There must be a way to change him back. But though Aurian tried and tried, probing the tiny cub with her Healer’s sense, the child remained in the shape of a wolf. I will change him back, though, Aurian thought. When Miathan cursed Wolf, he had the power of the Caldron to draw on. Once I regain the Staff of Earth . . . Her thoughts flew to Anvar and Shia. How could she have forgotten them? Aurian tried to reach out with her mind to her missing friends, but to her dismay she could not find an echo of response, no matter how hard she tried.

She was interrupted in her attempts at communication by the sound of a sudden commotion in the room downstairs. Not more fighting, surely? Carefully placing the cub back in its nest of blankets, Aurian ran to the door—and as she opened it, it suddenly struck her that she was free. Miraculously, unbelievably free! At last she could leave this hated chamber, and never have to look on it again!

Aurian ran to the top of the stairs and looked down into the lower room of the tower. She saw Schiannath in the doorway, arguing with Yazour. And behind the Xandim, sword drawn and cursing impatiently . . . “Parric!” Aurian shrieked. “Yazour, let him in!”

For a moment, Parric simply stood there gaping, taken aback by the subtle changes in the Mage. What a fool he had been! All the time he had been searching, he had entertained a romantic picture of himself as the dauntless hero coming to rescue a lost and frightened young girl. He was completely unprepared for the new maturity in her haggard face: the firm, wry set of her mouth and the grim and steely glint in her eyes.

Suddenly, the years rolled back and the Cavalrymaster remembered returning from his very first campaign. The face that had looked back at him from the mirror then had reflected these same changes. She had been tested, then, by pain and adversity—and by the looks of her expression, had given back as good as she’d got. Flinging wide his arms, Parric gave a whoop of joy, then he was running upstairs and she was running down. They met in the middle with an impact that threatened to send both of them crashing to the bottom, and stood there, hugging the breath from one another.

“Parric! Oh gods—I must be. dreaming!” The Cavalrymaster felt Aurian’s tears soaking his shoulder—and that made him feel better about his own streaming eyes. Before she and Forral had come into his life, the Cavalrymaster had spurned tears as a sign of weakness, but now he knew much more about love—and loss. It was not the only way in which, he had grown, he reflected. He had commanded an army, however unwilling, of his own, and had brought them safely through the perilous mountains to ... What?

Aurian was trying to tell him so much, all at once, that Parric couldn’t comprehend it all. The most startling piece of news was that Anvar also seemed to be one of the Magefolk! Despite the fact that Meiriel had told him about Miathan’s curse on the Mage’s child, he was alarmed at first, thinking she had lost her mind, when she dragged him upstairs and showed him the wolf cub. Dismayed, he was trying to take her arm, to steer her out, when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“The child is there. It is human.” It was the voice of the Windeye. Parric turned to see Chiamh standing behind them, his eyes once more that alarming, reflective silver, as he gazed at the cub with his Othersight.

Aurian’s eyes widened at the sight. “Who’s this?” she asked Parric.

“A very good friend,” the Cavalrymaster told her. “He saved our lives when we were captured by the Xandim.” With that, he introduced Chiamh, whose eyes, by now, had cleared to their normal shade. To Parric’s amusement, the Windeye looked awestruck.

“Lady.” Chiamh bowed deeply. “I am greatly honored to meet, at last, one of the Bright Powers that I saw so long ago.”

“You saw me?” The Mage’s brows creased in a puzzled frown. “Where? When?”

Chiamh told her of his Othersight, and the vision he had beheld that stormy night so long ago. Parric could see that Aurian was fascinated by the Windeye’s brief account of his powers. “I must hear more about this,” she said. “In fact, we all have so much catching up to do . . . But first, I want to try again to contact Anvar.” She bit her lip. “I’m worried, Parric. I thought I’d be able to reach him once my powers returned, but so far, I can’t. If you want to wait downstairs, I’ll join you in a little while.”

“Lady?” Chiamh caught hold of the Mage’s arm. “May I assist you? My Othersight can reach across many miles.”

Aurian smiled at him gratefully. “Why, thank you, Chiamh. Right now, I’m so anxious to find Anvar that I’ll take all the help I can get.”

The wind was gusting fitfully as Aurian and Chiamh climbed up through the trapdoor to the tower roof. The brooding sky in the east was beginning to show the pale glimmer of dawn, and the Mage could feel the hint of moisture in the air that presaged another fall of snow. As she rounded the corner of the chimney stack, Aurian was startled to hear a faint moan, and saw the figure of a winged man, rolling and writhing in a glistening, dark patch of what looked to be his own blood.

“Skyfolk!” Chiamh hissed. Aurian heard the scrape of steel as the Xandim drew his knife.

“No, wait!” She stayed the Windeye’s hand. “We may need him to take a message to Aerillia.” Squatting down beside the Skyman, she reached out with her Healer’s sense to determine the extent of his injuries. He was not hurt as badly as she had feared. The sword cuts from which he had lost the blood were not life-threatening, though he had taken a very hard knock on the back of his head that had left him struggling for consciousness. Quickly, Aurian tore strips from the hem of the blanket that she was using as a cloak to bind him, hand, foot, and wing, before she bent to her work of Healing.

Once she had attended to the winged man’s wounds, the Mage crossed to the parapet with Chiamh, and stood, looking out across the mountains, facing northwest where the sky was darkest. For a time, she tried with all her strength to stretch her will out across the miles to Aerillia, calling and calling to Anvar and Shia, then straining with all her might to hear an answer. But there was nothing. Dismayed, she turned back to the Windeye, who had been waiting patiently beside her all this time. “I can’t hear a thing,” she whispered. “Maybe the distance is just too great for mental communication, but—Chiamh, I think that something has gone terribly wrong.”