Maggie Furey - Aurian

Harihn’s face was livid. “Silence, dog!” he roared. “Yazour _make certain that all provisions are packed or destroyed! As you slowly starve, Anvar, I will rejoice in the thought of your suffering.”

“If Anvar is to be abandoned, he will not be alone.” Eliizar’s voice rang outWI would rather stay with him, than travel another mile with you!”

“And I!” Nereni strode bristling to her husband’s side. Anvar tried to protest, but he was astonished into silence by a voice that seemed to come from within his own head. “I too will stay.” He stared in amazement as Shia’s face appeared, her eyes blazing into his own. Bohan joined her, nodding his own silent support.

Harihn shrugged. “Very well.”

“At least leave them horses, sire, and some provisions,” Yazour protested.

“No! And if I hear another word from you on the subject, you will die beside them!”

The warrior blanched. “All this time I have served you,” he said tightly, “and I never knew what you were. I look into your face, and I see your father.” Turning his back on the Prince, he walked away to assemble his men.

The friends were guarded by a ring of bowmen while the others made their preparations for leaving. Though Anvar was desperate to continue the search for Aurian, Harihn had left orders that they were to be shot if one of them so much as stirred. While they waited, he tried in vain to persuade his companions not to sacrifice themselves, but Eliizar and Nereni were united in their indignation at such an idea, and Bohan looked hurt at the mere suggestion. Shia, though she did not speak again, snarled at him so fiercely that Anvar would have backed away if he could. She looked so savage that he wondered if he had imagined her voice in his mind. As soon as night fell outside, the Prince’s company departed, and the cavern seemed eerily quiet after they had gone. Anvar, without a word, got up and strode back to the pool. The others fanned out to search the cave once again.

Anvar sat, lost in wretchedness, beside the cavern entrance, his aching head buried in his hands. Reflected dawn light gleamed through the opening. They had searched all night, and still found no sign of Aurian, How long had it been now? He cast his mind back over the hours since their arrival in accursed Dhiammara. They had eaten first—their laughter during that feast seemed like a distant dream now^-and slept in each other’s arms through the remainder, of the day and part of the following night, Then Aurian had gone to bathe in the pool. Oh, Aurian! Why didn’t I just let you sleep? he thought. She had been lost for the rest of that night, the following day, and another night of frantic, fruitless searching. Surely there could be no hope now?

Someone touched his shoulder, and he turned to see Nereni. “Yazour hid some supplies for us at the back of the cave. Come and eat, Anvar. This does you no good.”

“How can you expect me to eat?” Anvar wanted to shout at her to leave him alone, but he knew that she was grieving too, and concerned for him.

She put a maternal arm round his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I koqw how much you loved her.”

“You don’t!” he retorted bitterly. “I didn’t know myself— not until I lost her.’’

Nereni went away sighing. Anvar wished that she and the others had saved themselves, and gone with Harihn. For himself —he didn’t care. What a cruel irony. Until these last weeks, when his discovery of magic had brought them so closely together, he had never admitted the depth of his feelings for Aurian—and now it was too late. It had all started long ago, ever since that wonderful Solstice night when they had celebrated with Forral . . . But Anvar had hidden the truth from himself then.

I knew in my heart that she was not for me, and never could be, he thought despairingly. But Aurian’s love of Forral, my own hatred of the Magefolk, then the return of Sara, all allowed me to run away from the fact that I loved her. How could I have been so blind? Self-protection, he thought ruefully, Aurian’s love for Forral was unswerving while he lived, and has remained that way since his death. I knew she’d never want anyone else. And now I’ll never even see her again. Never again will I feel the comfort of her friendship, the joy of her presence.

She’s gone—

“She is not!” The voice was Shia’s.

Anvar looked up through scalding tears. “What did you say?”

“Frame your thoughts clearly, man. You’re not very good at this. But you are of the same kind as her, so I can talk to you —if I choose to! Put asidcrfhis useless grief and. think! Aurian is my friend, and our minds are linked. If she were dead, I would surely know. But if she lives, why can I nor reach her?”

“Great Gods, you’re right!” Hope flared like a beacon in Anvar’s breast. “She told me that the Magefolk knew when one of their kind died. So if she were—”

“Then you wovAd have known ako,” Shia finished for him.

“But if she’s beyond your reach, where the bloody blazes is she?”

“Clear your mind, man. Listen.” Shia sat, curling her tail neatly around her paws. “When you two were in the tent, doing things—”

“We did not!”

“Not those things, stupid!”

“Oh . . . You mean the magic.”

“It always gives me a most unpleasant prickly feeling in my fur.” Her tail twitched. “I get it in this cave, too.”

“Then it wasn’t a beast? You think Aurian was trapped by magic? But I’ve been all over that wretched pool, and never felt a thing.”

“If Aurian had felt it, would it have trapped her?” Shia asked pointedly.

“So whatever it is, it must still be there!” He scrambled to his feet and ran.

Anvar plunged into the pool. What exactly was he looking for? Some hidden opening, perhaps? He paused, up to his waist in water, looking around wildly. It couldn’t be underwater— the pool had been searched from end to end. Then it came to him. Where was the obvious place to put a door? In a wall, of course. His eyes went automatically to the smooth flat surface where the waterfall trickled down.

“Anvar! What are you doing?” The others had gathered on the brink of the pool. Ignoring them, he waded across to the wall and began feeling along it with both hands.

“I’ve found it!” Anvar’s triumphant shout was drowned in the strident shriek of the alarm. His jubilation became horror as the stone began to melt beneath his hands, turning clinging and viscous, sucking him in like quicksand, drawing his head and shoulders inside. The stuff enveloped him—he couldn’t breathe. Anvar flailed in panic, then his fkce broke through into air, though he could see nothing in the utter darkness beyond,

“Aurian?” he called. There was no reply. But his body was almost through the constricting portal. He felt a glassy surface beneath his fingers and clawed at it frantically, trying to haul himself forward—then his feet were snatched in an iron grip. Something was pulling him back! “No!” he howled. He was so dose—he had to go on! But inch by inch he slid backward, until his cries were drowned once more in the suffocating ooze of the portal. There was a jerk on his ankles—and he shot out into the pool on top of Bohan, who hauled him, struggling, to the water’s edge.

“Imbecile!” Shia’s claws were sheathed, but the swipe from her massive paw knocked him flying.

Anvar sat up groggily. “Damn you!” he snarled at Bohan. “I was almost through.”

“We had no choice,” Eliizar protested. “What good would it do, to have you both trapped?”

“Think!” Shia’s thought was a whiplash across Anvar’s mind. “We need a way to keep the portal from closing, so we can all get in, and more important, out again.”