Mercedes Lackey: Winds Of Fate

There would be lingering traces of magic; but that was what the Outlanders would expect. Ancar was a mage, after all.

Once the Outlanders were in place, watching, the rest of his army would take them from behind.

If I cannot have Starblade, I will have Starblade's son. If I cannot take my vengeance upon the Vale, I can take it upon his sweet, young flesh.

There would be that other young man-malleable, possibly of some use as well. Certainly an entertaining bit of amusement. Likely to be a bargaining chip in some way.

And then there was the girl. Her potential as a mage was high. She was curiously naive in some areas; and that left her a wide range of vulnerable points for Falconsbane to exploit. It had been a very long time since he'd broken a female Adept to his will. He was going to take his time with this one; there would be no mistakes that way-and it would, not incidentally, prolong the pleasure as well.

He slid from shadow to shadow beneath the trees, as surefooted and quiet as the lynx he had modeled himself for. As keen of ear, swift of eye, and cunning-Not even the Birdmen, the scouts and their so-clever birds had ever caught him- He had been wandering freely amid their woodlands since k'sheyna first settled here. And they never once guessed at his silent presence.

My fighters will take Starblade and the Outlanders, and kill or catch the gryphons. I hope they can catch them. I want the satisfaction of killing them myself.

The deep hatred that always rose in him at the thought of gryphons choked his throat and made him grind his teeth in frustration. No matter remote the memories of his other lives were, that one was clear, ear.

"-they had foiled his bid for supremacy in the Mage-Wars, ower, ruined his plans, destroyed his kingdomqsts, they were no more than jumped-up k-,of themselves as sentients, equal to dependence? How dared they ow dared they breed at all? d reduce them to the position he would achieve the sweetest

"'~d irything that the wretched beast and worked for. Only then would I ndranon, the Black Gryphon, with snarling, as he slipped through the

CC doyot. qj him ul) ~ % "You a.

"He wants lust make underbrush without leaving so much as a footprint behind. But most importantly, I will have the children. And through them I will not only control the node, but have the downfall of the entire race in my hands. through them I can spread a plague and a poison that will destroy the minds of any gryphon they meet, and turn them into mere carnivorous cattle. My cattle. To use as I wish. And it is time and more than time that I have that pleasure.

He entered the area of the ruins, skirting the edge just within the cover of the forest. The lair lay beneath the shadows of the trees in the morning, though it enjoyed full sunlight in the afternoon. This was the nearest he had been, save for that one quick foray to place his hand and seal on the youngsters, binding them to himself. they can't have left the young ones alone, without some form of protection. there may be shields, or some of the beast-guardians. He paused for a moment, one deeper shadow within the shadows, his spotted pelt blending with the dappled sunlight on the dead leaves beneath the trees, with the mottled bark of the trunk beside him. He wore scouting leathers very similar to what the Birdmen wore; that was one subterfuge that had stood him in good stead in the past. If he was seen, he had only to create a fleeting illusion of Birdman features, and other scouts would assume he was one of their number.

A quick glance upward showed him nothing was aloft-nothing but what he expected. Two tiny specks, hardly large enough to be seen, circling overhead. Waiting. That would do.

He set out a questing finger of Mage-Sight, looking for what might have been left behind with the gryphon young.

A shimmering aura flickered about the lair in a delicate rainbow of protection. But beneath the shimmer-a brighter glow of power. the shields I knew of-yes-and something more-He paused; Looked, and Looked again, hardly able to believe his luck.

They had left the artifact behind to guard the young ones! Its protections were unmistakable, and just the touch of them awoke avarice in his heart. the age-the power-woman's power, but there is little I cannot overcome and turn to my own use-I must have this thing. I must! And they have left it for my taking!

Elation faded, replaced by cold caution. Perhaps the Outlanders would be that foolish, and even the gryphons-but would Darkwind? The boy was a canny player; surely he had left more protections behind than that, for all that he had renounced magic.

Falconsbane Looked farther, deeper into the ruins than he had ever bothered before; looking for traps, for any hint of magic, even old, or apparently inactive magic. It was always possible that some ancient ward or guardian still existed here that Darkwind had left armed against him.

But there were no signs of any such protections.

He Looked farther still. He had assumed that they knew by now what he had done to the young ones. Was it possible, barely possible, that they did not know of his hand on the gryphlets? Had he overestimated their intelligence, their caution? Was it possible after all that they had been so caught up in what he had done to Starblade and Dawnfire that they had missed his sign and seal on their own young? Or could it be that the advent of the Outlanders had distracted them?

No. No, that is why they left the artifact, I am sure of it. To protect the young against me. the shields are too obviously set against my power; even the shields of the artifact itself Then, just when he thought perhaps he was searching in vain for further traps, he caught a hint of magic-energy, a tremor of power. Old magic.

Very old magic.

It was not active, but the presence of magic that ancient attracted his curiosity anyway. He had time to spare; such potentials were worth investigating.

It was probably nothing; perhaps some long-abandoned shrine, or an ancient talisman, buried beneath a mound of rubble. It might be worth retrieving at some point, if only as a curiosity.

He moved in for a closer Look, half-closing his eyes, his talons digging into the bark of the tree beside him as he concentrated.

And he tore an entire section of bark from the tree trunk as his hand closed convulsively.

A Gate!

No. Yes. It couldn't be. Not the site of a temporary Gate, but one of the rare, powerful, permanent Gates-No more than a handful of Adepts at the time of the Mage-Wars had ever constructed permanent Master Gates; they required endless patience, vast expenditures of energy that could have gone into constructing armies and weapons. Those few who had done so had made a network of such Gates, all tied into one another, crisscrossing their little kingdoms.

Urtho had been one of those; that was how the Kaled'a'in had survived the downfall of his kingdom to become the Shin'a'in and Tayledrasthey had fled through the Gate at the heart of his citadel to one on the edge of the area. Possibly even this one. Falconsbane had never built one-not in any of his lifetimes. He'd known of the network Urtho had built, of course, but he had never once entertained the idea that even part of that network could still exist.

A Gate, even a Master Gate, couldn't have survived the Wars, or the years, could it? It simply wasn't possible-Falconsbane could not ignore the proof of his own senses. It was possible.

And the Gate had survived.

The touch of it drove him wild with the desire to have it under his control. The node, the gryphons, the artifact, and now this-He had to have it. He would have it. Then he would excavate it, study it, learn how to set it-and use it, use it to penetrate to the remains of Urtho's stronghold at the heart of the Plains. With a Gate like this one, he could bypass all the protections of the damned horse-lovers, get in, get what he wanted, and get out with no interference. He could go anywhere there was another permanent Gate, whether or not he knew the territory. He could construct temporary Gates no matter where he was and link into this one at any distance, once he keyed it into himself.