Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (34 page)

Crombec nodded. ‘I will help you with all my heart, as long as you can find a scryer who can give us at least a rough idea of her location. We have no time to comb hundreds of miles of
forest, for every moment that we waste in futile searching, the risk to Iriana will increase.’

Yinze’s face fell. ‘Don’t you think I’ve already asked our best scryers? I’ve been harassing them until they’re sick of the sight of me, but none of them have
any idea of where Iriana might be.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Kea demanded.

‘What difference would that have made?’

‘I would have suggested you ask Atka.’

‘What, the Dragon?’ Yinze shrugged. ‘Why should she be any better than our own scryers?

‘Atka was telling me that the Dragon scryers have had great success using fire, and that she had done some training with them before she came here. You should ask her to search for Iriana,
Yinze. It couldn’t hurt to try.’

The Wizard leapt to his feet. ‘Thank you, Kea. I’ll go at once.’

‘Wait.’ Crombec held up a hand. ‘If I help you, there is one condition, Yinze. If and when we find Iriana, I’m asking you to forget about avenging your friend Avithan. To
put aside your thoughts of vengeance, come back to Tyrineld, and work with us. Are you prepared to do that?’

Yinze didn’t hesitate. ‘For Iriana? I’d do anything.’

~

T
hough it was evening, those who lurked upon the clifftop, opposite the cave, were very much awake. This small troop were the most accomplished of
the Phaerie warriors, led by Nychan, who was tall, dark-haired and fair of face; renowned for his prowess with sword and bow and a skilled tactician in the games and contests of war which Hellorin
held on a regular basis to keep his fighters sharp. They had been sent by Cordain to watch the cavern mouth, and had been camped out among the trees for the last two days, waiting for the intruders
to arrive. While they waited in ambush here, the Chief Counsellor was gathering together all of the Phaerie steeds so that they could be guarded from any further depredations.

According to intelligence provided by the Lady Tiolani, there should be two groups of thieves and traitors: firstly, the Wizard who had been assigned to steal the Phaerie steeds, accompanied by
a human slave, and secondly, the former Horsemistress and her lover, who had arrived at Eliorand with Tiolani, but escaped Cordain’s clutches by means of an incredibly daring apport.

The first pair, the Wizard and her human companion, had arrived at the cavern earlier that day riding two of the Wild Hunt’s stolen steeds, and Nychan and his warriors had been absolutely
stunned to see them come flying – flying! – down the canyon. How had they done it? It looked as though the Wizardfolk had already managed to master a version of Hellorin’s flying
spell. If they succeeded in their vile plan to steal the Phaerie horses, the threat to the Forest Lord’s subjects would be incalculable.

Also astounding was the fact that their stolen mounts had included – the sheer temerity of it! – Hellorin’s own prized and precious grey mare. Since the creature was purported
to be unrideable by anyone save the Forest Lord, the Wizard must be either an extremely skilled horsewoman, or capable of some very advanced magic. Nychan could see why she had been chosen by the
Archwizard to be the thief. Watching the way she handled herself and her horse, he found it impossible to believe Tiolani’s tale that she was blind. What other unknown powers could she
wield?

Without being aware of what he was doing, he gripped the hilt of his sword. He must make sure of the Wizard first. Though he had no idea of the extent of her abilities, he could tell from what
he had already seen that she’d be a force to be reckoned with. He must disable her and take her out of the fight as soon as possible, though he needed to fall short of killing her.
Cordain’s orders had been specific – she must be kept alive at all costs and brought back for questioning. The extent of the Archwizard Cyran’s plots must be discovered. What else
might he be planning?

It did not matter so much to Nychan whether the other conspirators lived or died, but he would prefer to take them prisoner if possible. That way he could take them back to Eliorand, where
Cordain would make them all pay a thousandfold for their plots against the Phaerie.

Cordain had ordered him to hold fast until both groups had arrived, and all the rats could be caught together in one trap but, as Nychan waited with scant patience while the sun sank towards the
horizon and vanished behind the trees, he began to doubt the wisdom of that plan. He already had the Archwizard Cyran’s agent exactly where he wanted her, and though his orders had been
clear, he preferred to trust his experience as a warrior over that of Cordain who, when all was said and done, was nothing but a politician.

Here was the Wizard, an unknown quantity but certainly very powerful, all alone with only a human slave to help her. It made far more sense to attack her at once, to overwhelm her with numbers
before her fellow conspirators could get there to help her. Once she had been taken prisoner and rendered helpless, Nychan could conceal warriors inside the cave itself to await the arrival of the
others, for the warrior mistrusted Aelwen’s extraordinary apport skills, though these freak abilities did turn up in Hemifae from time to time. Though it would be exceptionally difficult and
dangerous to make a blind jump into a small cave, who could say for sure that such a thing would be beyond her, or that she wouldn’t try it?

Even at this moment, he and his men could be out here sitting on their hands like a bunch of idiots, while the conspirators were meeting in the cave across the gorge. And if Aelwen could apport
herself and her lover in there, it would be a lot easier for her to jump everyone out, one at a time, to some other location. Why, they might already have come and gone without anyone being any the
wiser!

Though the odds against such a scenario were, admittedly, long, Nychan wasn’t about to risk letting a couple of lowborn half-breed Hemifae and a meddling Wizard make a fool out of him.
Beneath the dappled shadows of the leaves, the warrior smiled grimly to himself. There was no way his plan could fail. When Aelwen and Taine arrived they would walk – or apport – right
into his hands.

He used mindspeech to give his troops their orders. It was essential, at this point, to be as stealthy as possible. Quietly, they fetched their mounts from the horse lines hidden deep beneath
the trees, and at his command they mounted the well-trained animals, who glimmered faintly in the sunlight from the flying spell, the most powerful that Tiolani had been able to lay on them before
they left the city. There were twenty of them in all: a large number to capture such a small group of fugitives, but Cordain had decided to take no chances.

Silently, in small troops of five, they drifted across the ravine on their airborne steeds. Landing one group at a time on the narrow ledge in front of the cavern, four riders dismounted and
moved into the cave while the fifth took all the reins and led the horses back across to the camp to make room for the next troop, until they were all across except for one horse keeper who waited
on the far side of the gorge. Issuing orders in the most private form of mindspeech, Nychan led his troops into the cave, surprised to find no one on guard to raise the alarm. How could they be so
careless? Well, their negligence would cost them dearly. The Wizard and her slave were about to receive an unwelcome surprise.

Dael found himself in the most astonishing place. ‘How did I get here?’ flashed into his mind, then was gone just as quickly. It didn’t seem important –
his surroundings were just too incredible. He was in the midst of a forest carved from stone. The leaves of the trees seemed carved from thin, translucent jade, so real that it felt as if they
should flutter as he passed. Stone birds could be seen amid the branches, some poised as if to flutter away in the next heartbeat; others with their heads raised and their throats swelling in a
song that seemed just beyond the range of human hearing. Tiny jewelled insects fed from exquisite blossoms with petals of translucent quartz, so real that again and again he just had to lower his
face to them, in hope of catching some faint scent.

How long Dael wandered he did not know, enthralled as he was by the marvels around him, but presently he came to the edge of the magical woodland and looked out across the floor of a cavern to
the biggest tree he had ever seen. Was it formed of some wood and bark so ancient that they seemed petrified, or was it made of stone like the forest he had just left? Dael had no idea, but he felt
no sense of danger: more a feeling of gladness and homecoming. The great tree seemed to draw him towards it, and he walked across the glittering sandy floor of the cave like a sleepwalker, his eyes
fixed on his goal. As he drew closer, he noticed a staircase curving around the trunk that led to a door, about halfway up the vast shaft and high above the cavern floor.

Standing in the doorway, looking out, stood the dearest, most familiar figure . . .

‘Athina!’ Suddenly Dael was charging towards the tree and the Lady was hurtling down the steps at breakneck speed. They met at the bottom, hugging rapturously, lost in the miracle of
a reunion that neither of them had ever hoped to see.

It couldn’t possibly be real. After a time, Dael pulled back from the embrace a little. ‘I’m dreaming, aren’t I? This has got to be a dream. A lovely, wonderful dream,
but in a little while I’ll wake up back in my world, and you’ll still be exiled here.’

Slowly, Athina shook her head. ‘It seems perfectly real to me. Tell me, Dael, do you usually
know
when you’re dreaming?’

He thought about it. ‘I can’t say I do – not usually. And if I do suddenly realise that I’m dreaming, it makes me wake up.’

‘So you’re not dreaming, then, but having no magic you can’t be here in actuality. Yet somehow, a part of you has managed to find a way through . . . Tell me, Dael, are you
sleeping very close to the Fialan right now?’

He nodded. ‘I’m with Corisand and Iriana, resting in that small cave that Taine told us about, on the borders of the Phaerie realm.’

‘That explains it, then. I don’t know how, but your proximity to the stone in such a confined space has somehow created some sort of doorway that your mind, or spirit, has passed
through while you sleep. And in order for the Stone to be free to work like that, I suspect that Corisand must be sleeping too.’

‘A doorway? There’s a way through?’ The voice, taut with excitement, came from above them, and Dael looked up to see the young Wizard Avithan standing on the staircase above
them. The last time Dael had seen him, he had been pale and still as a corpse, his features partly obscured by the eldritch glimmer of the tangled time spell that Taine and Iriana had produced in
haste in order to save his life, but this was certainly Iriana’s beloved, whom the Lady had brought with her into her timeless realm in the hope of saving his life.

Clearly, she had succeeded. Now he was bounding down the staircase, his face alight with a terrible, yearning hope. ‘If he can get through, then maybe—’

‘No.’ Athina held up a hand, her eyes so flat and implacable that Avithan came to a dead stop at the bottom of the staircase. ‘I am sorry to destroy your hopes, Avithan, but it
just doesn’t work like that. The Stone of Fate is in the other world, on Dael’s side of the barrier that separates that reality from this. There is no way that we can access it from
this side. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. As it is, Dael will only remain here until Corisand awakens. Then the portal will be gone.’

Avithan shook his head and held up his hands as though to push her unwelcome words away. ‘But if a portal exists, surely there must be some way—’

Dael flinched as a horrible, banshee wail stabbed into his hearing. He awakened abruptly, with a naked blade at his throat. In the blue radiance of Iriana’s magelight, which was now
flickering wildly like a fearfully beating heart, he saw a tall warrior standing over him with menace in his cold grey eyes. The Phaerie had come!

It was Melik who gave the alarm. The senses of the small predator were far more finely honed than those of his clumsy, two-legged companions. The sounds, the smells of the
alien Phaerie, the
feel
of their magic, assaulted all his senses the moment they entered, jolting him out of sleep. His piercing wail of alarm woke the others as the intruders rushed into
the cavern. One of the Phaerie struck at the cat with his sword, but his aim was hampered in the cramped and crowded area. Melik streaked across the cave towards the exit, found it blocked, and
dodged behind Dael instead, where a narrow crevice in the rock provided him with a sanctuary, out of harm’s way.

Iriana, roused by his cry and the flash of bright panic from his mind, leapt to her feet but could see nothing but a forest of legs and booted feet, poised to kick and trample, followed by a
glimpse of the small fissure, then darkness as the cat squeezed inside. Blinded, she hesitated to loose her magic lest she injure her companions. In that instant’s pause, she felt the sharp
pain of a stunning blow to the side of her head, and crumpled into oblivion.

As Corisand woke, all the instincts of her other, equine shape overwhelmed her human body, bringing her to her feet almost before her eyes had opened and poising her to flee – or fight.
The first thing she saw, amid the crowd of stinking, fierce-eyed Phaerie, was the fist, holding the hilt of a sword, that clubbed Iriana to the ground. The second was the sword at Dael’s
throat. Then the intruders’ attention turned upon her. Corisand could sense their puzzlement; even pick up some of the muttering between them.

‘Who’s
that
?’

‘But we counted them in – just the Wizard and her human slave.’

‘Where did
she
come from?’

‘What’s that glowing thing around her neck?’