Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Change

Elspeth did not dignify the comment with an answer. If anything Gwena was twice as touchy as she was, and both of them knew why. The only way for Elspeth-or Skif-to be able to remain in the lands guarded by the Tayledras was to be made Wingbrothers to the Clan of k'sheyna.

But that required swearing to certain oaths-which none of their informants had yet divulged, saying only that they'd learn what those pledges were when they actually stepped into the circle to make them.

Elspeth had been trained in diplomacy and statecraft from childhood, and undisclosed oaths made her very nervous indeed. It wasn't so bad for Skif-he wasn't the Heir. But for her, well, the things she pledged herself to here could have serious consequences for Valdemar if she wasn't very careful. She carried with her the Crown's authority. The fact that a forgotten oath had made a crucial difference to Valdemar in the recent past only pointed up the necessity of being careful what she swore to here and now.

"Nervous?" Skif asked in a low voice, startling her out of her brooding thoughts.

She grimaced. "Of course I'm nervous. How could I not be? I'm hundreds of leagues away from home, sitting in a cave with you, you thief-"

"Former thief," he grinned.

"Excuse me. Former thief and a bloodthirsty barbarian shaman from the Dhorisha Plains-" Tre'valen cleared his throat delicately. "Pardon," he interrupted, in the Tayledras tongue, "But while I am both shaman and bloodthirsty, I am not, I think, a barbarian. We Shin'a'in have recorded history that predates the Mage Wars. Can you say as much, newcomer.

For a moment, Elspeth was afraid she had offended him, then she saw the twinkle in his eye, and the barely perceptible quirk of one corner of his mouth. Tre'valen had proved to have a healthy sense of humor over the past few days, as they waited out the response of the k'sheyna Council of Elders to their petition to remain. She had heard him refer to himself as bloodthirsty and a barbarian more than once. In point of fact, the shaman seemed to enjoy teasing and challenging her..."I stand rebuked, oh Elder of Elders," she replied formally, bowing as deeply as she could. She was rewarded with his broad grin, which grew broader as she continued, "Of course, the fact that you don't do anything with all that recorded history has no bearing at all on whether or not you're barbarians."

"Of course not," he replied blandly, evidently well-satisfied with her return volley. "Dwelling overmuch upon the past is the mark of the decadent. We aren't that, either."

"Point taken." She conceded defeat, and turned back to Skif. "So I'm here in a cave waiting for some authority to come along and demand that I swear something unspecified, which may or may not bind me to something I'd really rather not have anything to do with-why should I be nervous?" Skif chuckled, and she restrained herself from snarling. "Now think a bit," he told her, fondly, but as if she were thirteen again. "You've read the Chronicles. Both Vanyel and his aunt swore the Wingbrother Oaths. They had to, or they couldn't have gone in and out of the Vales the way they did. If there was nothing in the oaths to bother them, why should you be worried?"

"Do you want that alphabetically or categorically?" She kept herself from reminding him that she was the Heir. After all, she had tried long and hard to make him forget that very thing. Instead she continued,

"Because that was a long time ago, and a different Clan. We don't know if things have changed since then, or whether the oaths differ from Clan to Clan."

"They do not differ," Tre'valen said serenely, "and they have not changed in all of our recorded history. Many shaman of the Shin'a'in swear to Wingsib; and believe me, the oaths our Goddess requires of us bind us to far more than your own oaths to your Crown and country.

And She can move her hand to chastise us at her will. I think you need not be concerned." Well, that was some comfort, anyway. Elspeth had seen for herself how the Shin'a'in Goddess-who was, so Darkwind said, also the Goddess of his people-could and did manifest herself in very tangible fashion.

And she had a sure and certain taste of how seriously the Shin'a'in took their oaths to protect their land from interlopers. Well, if Tre'valen knew all about the oaths and felt comfortable with them, she probably didn't have to worry.

Much.

This would be the first time she and Skif had been permitted inside the Vale of k'sheyna itself The Hawkbrother Mage-or was it Scout?Darkwind had dismissed it with a shrug as "not what it once was" with no indication of what it could be like; and Tre'valen, if he knew what the Vale was like in its prime, was not telling. Descriptions in the Chronicles of Vanyel's time had been sketchy, hinting at wonders without ever revealing what the wonders were.

:Probably because they didn't know,: Gwena said, most of the sarcasm gone from her mind-voice :Vanyel and Sayv-Savil had too much on their minds to give descriptions of where they'd been. Besides, why describe somewhere no one else would be allowed to visit? It might tempt them to try, and that would be fatal. the Tayledras tend to perforate first and apologize after.:

"Are you snooping in my head again?" Elspeth replied, with a bit less venom than before.

"No, you're echoing at me," Gwena told her candidly. "I can't help it if Your surface thoughts echo down our link unless you block them. And I can't help it if you forget to block because you're nervy."

"All right, all right. I stand rebuked. I apologize." Elspeth carefully put up her lightest shields, and went back to her brooding.

There was a fourth party sharing the title of Wingbrother with them, but shaman Kethra had sworn her vows a long time ago. She was considerably older than Tre'valen, though not as old as his superior, Kra'heera, and she had been a Wingsib for at least a dozen years. She was a Healer as well as a shaman, and she was tending to Darkwind's father, Adept Starblade. Darkwind seemed reluctant to discuss what Mornelithe Falconsbane had done to his father, and Elspeth wasn't about to press him for answers. She did want to know, however, and badly; not because of morbid curiosity, but because one day she might need to know just how one Adept could so completely subvert another. One of Weaponmaster Alberich's precepts was that "anyone can be broken." If it was possible she might find herself on the receiving end of an attempt to break her, she'd like to know what she could expect...Elspeth had been a bit surprised that Tre'valen was staying on, though.

He had said only that his own master had asked him to remain with k'sheyna "because it is important." Whatever it was, it couldn't have anything to do with what Falconsbane had done to the Clan-Darkwind and Kethra were tending to that.

Could it be because of what had happened to Dawnfire the memory was so vividly etched in her mind she had only to think of the hawk Dawnfire to relive what she'd seen.

The Shin'a'in stood in a rough circle below Dawnfire's perch. the red shouldered hawk had taken a position just above the door of the gryphons lair, her head up and into the wind, her wings slightly mantled. then one the Shin'a'in, a woman, put her hand up to the hawk.

Dawnfire stared measuringly at her for a moment, then stepped down from her perch onto the proffered wrist. The woman turned to face the rest.

Like all the other Shin'a'in who had come to their rescue, this one was clad entirely in black, from her long black hair to her black armor, to her black boots. But there was something wrong with her eyes. Something odd.

Elspeth had sensed a kind of contained power about her; the stirrings of a kind of deeply-running energy she had never felt before.

The woman raised Dawnfire high above her head and held her there, a Position that should have been a torment after only a few moments, no matter how strong she was. Tayledras hawks were the size and weight of small eagles, and Dawnfire was by no means the smallest of the kind. But as the woman continued to hold Dawnfire aloft, the entire group began to hum softly at first, then as the volume increased, and as the ruins rang with harmonics, Dawnfire started glowing.