Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Change

The Chronicles said that he spent quite a lot of time there, in k'treva Vale, especially when he was young, and that Starwind taught him most of what he knew about magic."

"That is quite true, young one," Starblade replied, his voice warming a little with what sounded to her like approval. "Or at least, that is what our records told me. Iceshadow, my friend, would it be possible for us to move to somewhere a little less formal for the rest of this?" He gestured apologetically to her, and to Skif and Tre'valen, ' , I am sorry, but I fear I must beg your indulgence and find a place to sit."

"What about the fishpond over there?" Darkwind asked, pointing with his chin somewhere behind Iceshadow's shoulder. "It's quiet enough, and there shouldn't be anyone there after the sun sets."

"Good enough," his father replied-gratefully, Elspeth thought.

"There should be room for your large friends, and seating enough for all of us." Iceshadow gestured to the younger Hawkbrother to lead the way; Elspeth followed him, and the rest trailed behind her. By now it was becoming quite dark, and she was grateful for the mage-lights Iceshadow and Starblade produced. She found that distances were deceptive in the Vale; the ornamental fishpond Darkwind spoke of was actually hardly more than a stone's throw away from the Heartstone circle, and yet it might easily have been halfway across the Vale. Once they had arranged themselves around it, there was no way of telling that the Heartstone was anywhere nearby.

"Well," Starblade said, once he had settled himself in a comfortable "chair" formed of the roots of a tree with moss cupped where a cushion would be. Elspeth took a second, similar seat, and found it incredibly comfortable. "Iceshadow has asked me to explain to you just what sort of a-ah-situation you have unwittingly involved yourselves in. And since I am the partial cause of that situation, I think it only fair that I make the attempt." Elspeth met his eyes and recognized what she saw there. Pain, mental and physical This conversation was going to cost him something-but she had seen some of that same pain in Darkwind's eyes whenever he had spoken of his father, and she knew that Starblade had put that pain there. The man was right. It was only fair.

She settled herself and nodded to him, decisively. "Go ahead," she said. "I don't think anything you say is going to make us change our minds, but I was trained as a tactician; I like to know what I can expect." She smiled, slightly. "Good or bad." Starblade nodded gravely, and leaned forward. He cradled his right hand around his bandaged left hand-surely there must be a story behind that as well. This was either going to be very short, or very long. Whichever it was, it was going to be interesting.

She had told the truth about not changing her mind; she only hoped what she learned wasn't going to make her regret her own decisions. It was a little too late for regret now.

It was not, however, too early for strategy. It was never too early, or too late, for that.

"I know you are an Outlander... but I know not how much my son has told you of our troubles here," Starblade began, with a sober glance at Darkwind, "so I shall tell my tale from the outset, and beg your patience if I repeat what you know." He glanced down at the pond, with its patient, colorful carp skimming just below the surface of the water.

"I shall be as brief as I can." He paused for a moment, clearly organizing his thoughts. "Mornelithe Falconsbane," he said at last. "It all comes down to him." Darkwind nodded grimly, but said nothing.

"The Heartstone-" Starblade closed his eyes, but not before Elspeth had seen another shadow of pain pass across them. "Its shattering is his doing, but by my hand. I was foolish and vain; I thought myself clever, and I found out differently. He caught me through my foolishness, and my pride. He broke me, and he used me." Terse speech, but obviously each word cost him dearly. "Through me, he set his darkness upon the Heartstone, disrupted our magics, broke it from the inside, and in so doing, caused the deaths of many of our mages. Because of me, three-fourths of the Clan are lost somewhere in the wilderness."

"How?" Elspeth asked, puzzled. "I mean how could you lose that many people?" Starblade toyed with a glass-beaded feather braided into his hair.

"When a Clan moves, it is our way to establish the children, the lesser mages, the weak and the old, with the bulk of our scouts and warriors to protect them, at a new site. We send them by means of a Gate, we drain the Stone of its power and send it to the new Stone, then we follow.

But when we filled the Stone with all the Clan's power in preparation for diverting the power to the new site, the Heartstone shattered, and the Adept holding the Gate open died with the shattering. We had no one among us who could use the Heartstone, damaged as it was, to go to them by Gate. We barely know the true location of the rest of the Clan, for the scouts who had found the new place were with them."

"And they couldn't reach you without sending badly-needed fighters," Elspeth supplied. "I take it none of the lesser mages were able to build these Gate things?"

"Only an Adept can master the Gate Spell," Iceshadow replied. "And

we fear that even if they had one who could cast it, the Stone is too unstable and there may be no way of bringing a Gate near to it."

"All the scouts that knew the overland way to the new Vale are at that Vale," Darkwind repeated. "Our number would be decimated trying to get to them by foot-leagues traveled are hard-won going North-and they cannot come to us, burdened with the old, the young, the sick." His father nodded. "Indeed. So-to make the bad much the worse, Falconsbane continued to work through me, keeping the Clan from reaching for help, keeping the Adepts still remaining from stabilizing the Stone, and keeping those who knew me well at a distance." Starblade averted his eyes from Darkwind, but the reference was plain enough. "He hoped, I think, to wear us down until he could penetrate our defenses at his leisure and usurp the Stone and the power it still

held. But he had not reckoned on our clever allies, the gryphons-and he had not reckoned on the courage and good sense of my son."

"He couldn't have guessed Nyara would turn against him, either," Skif put in, with a hint of pride.

"No-nor the appearance of you and all that you represented," Tre'valen told him, his eyes showing a hint of sardonic humor. "To tell you true, there was an unexpected marshaling of powers from all sides.

Falconsbane certainly did not plan on that, nor the involvement of the Shin'a'in. That was his downfall."

"If he lives still, he cannot be prospering," Iceshadow put in.

"Shin'a'in arrows found a mark in him; that much we know. And he has lost much in the way of power and creatures."

"I wonder at that; Shin'a'in do not often miss in such attacks, their Goddess oft assists the arrow to the mark. But, despite that, I doubt that he lives," Starblade sighed. "I think that the arrows of the Shin'a'in found their mark; that he fled only to die. There has been no sign of him or his creatures, and his escape was by blood-magic... with his own blood. That is an act of finality among mages." Elspeth shrugged. "I don't know one way or the other about him, but the point, it seems to me, is that he has left the Vale in one snarled mess." Starblade nodded, and smoothed his braided hair back behind his ears. "My son has said he will teach you in the use of your Mage-Gift; that is a good thing, I think-but he will need to relearn much as he teaches you. It would be hazardous for you to do much practice of that learning within the Vale itself; though you would be protected from threats that are outside the Vale, the Stone is yet dangerous." Gwena stamped a hoof and snorted agreement, bobbing her head vigorously.