Maggie Furey - Dhiammara

“It was the wine cellar,” the winged lad explained. “It was ventilated. There was air coming in from the outside all the time.”

Aurian was scarcely listening. She was remembering Tiercel’s father, Petrel, and wondering whether he had survived the attack.

“We had an awful time getting food, though,” Amahli added. “We could only go out at night and forage in the woods....”

“I’m glad you came.” Abruptly Tiercel’s cloak of assumed maturity fell away from him. “We couldn’t have stayed there forever, but I just didn’t know what else to do or where to go.”

The Mage wished that she could so easily hand on the responsibility for everyone. Sadly, that had never happened for years, and probably never would again.

“Lady,” Linnet reminded her urgently. “They’re bound to miss me soon, down at the settlement. We should go now, before they start combing the forest. And we can’t leave these two here to be caught.”

“You’d rather take them into the midst of a battle?” Aurian asked her waspishly—but she knew that the winged girl was right. “Very well,” she said.

“It’s dark enough to take on the desert now, so let’s get moving. Amahli—you ride behind Forral on Schiannath’s back. Tiercel—can you manage to fly the distance?”

The dark-haired lad grinned. “Don’t worry, Lady. After these last cramped days of hiding, I’m looking forward to stretching my wings.”

When everyone was mounted and assembled with all their burdens, Aurian leapt up on Chiamh’s back and helped Grince up behind her. “Right, my friend,” she murmured to the Wind-eye. “Let’s do it—now!”

The Mage felt Chiamh’s mind join with hers as together they meshed their shields into an amalgam of two different types of magic. Aurian was using the High Magic of the Staff to protect them from magical view through scrying, and also to shield them so that the spy, whoever he was, could not pass on any messages to Eliseth as to their whereabouts and progress. Chiamh, on the other hand, was protecting the companions from physical view by a variation of his illusion spell. He was simply projecting an illusion, in fact, that there was no one there at all. It took a great deal of concentration to keep it up, but it certainly seemed to work very well, as Aurian had discovered that day in the forest.

As they took off into the darkening sky and headed for the desert, the Mage realized that talisman or no talisman, she was now feeling the pressure of their additional burdens of water, food, and Amahli, plus the different kind of strain involving the maintenance of her magical shield. She knew that Chiamh too must be in a similar predicament, and only hoped that their strength would hold out long enough for them to get to Dhiammara and do what they had to do. The next few days would be crucial.

“Hey—two of the horses have got loose!” The Khazalim sentry on watch at the cavern mouth could not believe his eyes, though he was glad of a diversion to break the monotony of this pointless duty. “Come and help me,” he yelled at his fellow-guard. Between them they managed to round up the horses, which were milling about near the entrance to the cavern. The creatures, quite docile, allowed themselves to be led back inside to the picket lines. The guards, preoccupied, had their backs turned toward the opening, and did not notice the lithe, shadowy figures of the two great cats who slipped on silent feet into the vast, sparsely torchlit cave.

“Reaper’s curse on these troopers,” the sentry grumbled as he fastened the animals up again. “Some of them are so careless. Why, these poor creatures might still have been wandering about outside when the sun came up, and that would have been the end of them—and such handsome animals, too,” he added, smoothing the neck of the white mare as she nosed in his pocket for tidbits.

“Why, if I had such a beast as this, I’d take better care of her.”

“Hurry up,” grumbled his partner, clearly less of a lover of horseflesh.

“We’ll be skinned alive if the captain finds us away from our posts.”

“I can’t for the life of me think why. The prisoners are all locked up, and who’s going to risk their life crossing that accursed desert to get to this place? The arse-end of nowhere—that’s where we are . . .” The men’s voices faced into the distance as they walked away. Once they were safely gone, the white mare spat out a bunch of keys onto the sand. Then the outlines of both beasts blurred and shimmered, and Iscalda and Schiannath stood in their place.—Using the lines of genuine horses as cover, they picked up the keys that Iscalda had lifted from the guard’s pocket and melted into the shadows at the far end of the cavern, keeping well away from the soldiers bivouacked around the upper pool. Near the slave stockade, built around the pool on the lower level, they were joined by two great cats.

Eliizar didn’t sleep any more. No matter how hard the slaves were worked through the day, either clearing and repairing it the jeweled buildings in the city above or exploring and opening up the chambers that honeycombed the mountain, he would return to the stockade at night, pick at his supper, and spend what should have been his hours of rest leaning against the bars that caged him, staring into space and thinking about his daughter. He scarcely even talked to Nereni these days. At first she had been sympathetic, then she had grown worried, and finally angry, but nothing she said made any difference to Eliizar any more. The present was so unbearable to him that he preferred to spend all his time walking in the sunlit afternoons of the past.

“Eliizar? Eliizar!” The swordmaster came out of his reverie to hear someone calling his name in a hissing whisper. As his vision came back into focus, the blurred patter of light and shade on the other side of the bars resolved itself into a familiar face.

“Schiannath?”

“Shhh! Listen, Eliizar—and for the sake of the goddess, keep quiet! Aurian is here. We need to free you folk and create a diversion in these lower caverns.—Here are the keys—” He passed the bunch, warm from his hand and for some reason somewhat wet and sticky, to Eliizar. “Now,” he went on, “I want you to creep around and unlock all the shackles on the Skyfolk before we do anything else. And whatever you do, keep them from getting excited. If we wake the guards at this point, we’re lost.”

Eliizar nodded, his heart beating fast with excitement. Just as he was turning to go, the Xandim warrior reached through the bars and caught his sleeve.

“Oh—and I almost forgot,” he whispered. “We found your daughter in the settlement. She’s alive!” He faded back into the shadows, leaving the speechless swordmaster alone. As the import of Schiannath’s words gradually came home to him, Eliizar felt his heart, which had been closed and clenched so long in grief, opening up like a flower. Tears of joy and gratitude blurred the sight in his one good eye. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Oh, thank you!” In that moment, he had no idea to whom he was speaking; but the words were no less heartfelt for that.

Raven sat with her son on her lap and her little daughter in her arms, rocking both children absently as they slept. She was glad of them now, just as she was glad of the support and companionship of Nereni, who stayed with her constantly. Aguila, by some miracle, still lived, but as he had sunk deeper and deeper into a torpid state, Raven had gradually given up hope that he would ever wake again. Now he seemed to exist between two worlds: barely clinging to life, but somehow, with a stubborn determination that was so much a part of his waking nature, refusing to accept the finality of death.—As she kept vigil, Raven found herself thinking more and more often of their early days—of how he had cheered her first lonely days as Queen, and how, when they had first met, she had treated him as a coarse and common soldier until dear Elster had put her right, and told her to marry him. Raven recalled the ridiculous look of shocked incredulity on his face when she had asked him to wed her, and smiled fondly through a glimmer of tears. “Oh, Aguila—get well, you idiot. Come back to me, please. . . .” So lost was she in her prayers and memories that she did not notice the stealthy movement and the buzz of subdued excitement that was taking place around her. The first thing she saw was Eliizar, with an enormous smile on his face, holding out a bunch of keys. He was looking right through her, however—he only had eyes for his wife. “Nereni, Nereni,” he whispered joyously. “Amahli is alive!”