Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (8 page)

BOOK: Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.)
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Pandion looked grave. ‘Yinze, do you realise how dangerous those creatures are? How big it will grow?’

‘I have no fear for Iriana, Your Majesty,’ Yinze said proudly. ‘Perhaps to compensate for her blindness, she has formed a special, close connection with the minds of beasts,
and has even raised and tamed one of the great eagles of the northern ranges. She would be in no danger.’

Queen Pandion thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Very well. So be it. If the cub survives it will be yours. Such rare creatures are said by my people to bring great fortune, but after the
events of this day, I doubt it greatly. May it bring better fortune to your sister.’

She got to her feet, suddenly looking old and weary. ‘Go now. Rest. As soon as the healers say that Incondor is fit to travel, you will be going home.’

 

 

 

 

4

~

FRIENDSHIP

 

 

 

 

I
t was sunset, and at last the Archwizard Cyran had reached the edge of the forest. He was bone weary after a long day of galloping across the
moors, desperate to discover what disaster had befallen his ill-starred emissaries, and now, at the insistence of his escort, Nara and Baxian, who were anxious about the well-being of their horses,
they had stopped to make camp. The Archwizard did not help them with their chores of setting up tents, lighting a fire and seeing to the poor, exhausted mounts. He sat alone beneath a tree, lost in
dark and wretched thought. He was mourning the lost ones: those whose passing he’d felt this morning, his only son Avithan, poor blind Iriana, who had so longed for adventure, and brave
Esmon, the warrior he had sent to guard them. His heart was rent by grief, remorse and guilt, and the terrible pangs of their ending would haunt him to the end of his days. He dreaded the reaction
of his soulmate Sharalind. He, and no other, had sent them to their deaths. How could she ever forgive him?

He would never forgive himself.

All he could do was bring their bodies home, and try to discover what dreadful fate had befallen them. He clenched his fists. If the Phaerie had been responsible for Avithan’s death, he
would wreak bloody war upon them such as the world had never seen. A shiver went through him as he recalled the terrible visions that had tormented him for so long – but now, instead of
dread, they brought forth a feeling of resolution. If it was his fate to bring about the horrors that he had tried for so long to avoid, if all that ruin and bloodshed must be on his hands, then so
be it. Justice must be done. Avithan must be avenged.

Then, even as his mind wrapped itself in such dreadful darkness, a strange sensation swept over him. It felt like the lift of spirits that accompanied the first day of spring, the approach of
dawn after a long and troubled night, a door opening to let in sunlight. It was as if the missing piece of a puzzle had clicked back into place, and without question, without doubt, he knew that
one of his own had come back.

For one heady instant Cyran thought that Avithan had returned. Then that mysterious blaze of life, that sense of an unknown presence, steadied and clarified, and he knew the truth. Emotions
warred within him: amazement and disbelief that such a miracle could have happened, joy and relief that one of the young Wizards had been saved, followed swiftly by disappointment, black and
bitter.

Why Iriana? Why did
she
have to be the one who had survived?

Why couldn’t it have been Avithan?

The Archwizard hated himself for harbouring such shocking and unworthy thoughts. He had known the girl all her life, because his soulmate Sharalind had been such close friends with
Iriana’s foster mother Zybina. He was very fond of her, and he admired the cleverness and courage with which she had surmounted the disadvantages of her blindness. Yet she was not, and never
could be, his son, and her return could in no way compensate for the loss of Avithan.

Cyran suddenly roused from his thoughts to see Nara and Baxian hovering expectantly, close by. From their expressions, it was plain that they too had sensed Iriana’s impossible return, and
were bursting to ask him about it. He was glad they had been sensitive enough to allow him a moment to get his emotions under control. Even as Baxian opened his mouth to speak, the Archwizard held
up a hand, stilling the words. ‘No, I cannot understand it either,’ he said shortly. ‘It appears that we have been vouchsafed a miracle today – yet how, why and whence has
Iriana returned? Our first step must be to find her quickly, for she may need our help, and there are many questions we must ask her.’

He rose to his feet, brushing leaf litter from his robes. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us eat and sleep, and we will set off at dawn to start our search. There is no time to
lose.’

If the others noticed him frowning, though they had been granted such seeming good fortune, they forbore to mention it. Though Iriana had returned, she had appeared to be alone. Cyran had a
right to grieve.

The group of young Wizards left behind in Tyrineld thought of themselves as the survivors now, a change in circumstances that had left shadows of sorrow on their faces and a
heaviness in their steps. Before Yinze, Chathak and Ionor had gone away, it had been their habit to meet together every evening. In the summer, their favourite place had been at the women’s
house, in Thara’s lovely garden. All seven of them: Chathak, Yinze, Ionor, Iriana, Thara, Melisanda and Avithan, would sit around the long wooden table near the fountain; eating, drinking
cool, sparkling starwine and endlessly talking. Somehow, no matter how many times they met like this, they never ran out of things to say, their words well seasoned with laughter and smiles. While
the stars came out and the moon cast a shining silver track across the ocean they would linger, giddy with the scent of the datura flowers that glowed in the moonlight on the bush beside the wall,
and watching the flickering flights of the bats as they flashed by, feeding on the moths that were attracted by the shimmering globes of magelight that Avithan suspended in the trees.

Tonight they were together again; hopeful, perhaps, that this scene of such good memories would give them some comfort in these dark and sorrowful times, for their happy group had been
fractured, and what should have been joy at their reunion after being separated for so long had been replaced by worry and sorrow. There were two spaces at the table now. Avithan and Iriana had
been snatched away from them without warning, leaving them grieving, anxious and confused.

The first death they had experienced had been that of Esmon. They had all felt it: the brief, wrenching stab of agony that all Wizards experienced at the passing of another. Chathak and his
Dragon counterpart, Atka, had arrived later that same night. Because Chathak had been utterly devastated by the passing of his brother, they had been teleported to Tyrineld by a concerted effort of
the Dragonfolk. Ionor, speeding through the night with the Leviathan, had reached the city the following morning with his fellow Leviathan Mage Lituya, to find out that Cyran had already left at
dawn with a force of warriors to search for his son and Iriana. Then a few days later, only this morning, Yinze had arrived with Kea, in time to feel the passing of Iriana and Avithan. Though the
blow had been faint and muted with distance, they had all known when their friends had left the world, and had mourned them as gone for ever.

They were absolutely stunned when, near sunset, they felt Iriana return from death. This was something that had never happened in the history of the Wizards, and the companions’ joy in her
mysterious regeneration was greatly tempered by concern. Surely no one could go through such an experience unscathed and unchanged. What would they find when they met Iriana again? One thing was
for sure – she would never be the same.

Whatever had become of Iriana, however, one thing was certain. Avithan had not come back with her, and they were grieving for the loss of a beloved brother.

It had always been natural for the group to share their joys and triumphs, and now they did the same with their sorrow. The other Magefolk that Yinze, Chathak and Ionor had brought back with
them from far-off lands all understood and respected this, and had formed a group of their own, gathering together elsewhere in the city, united in their strangeness, though they could not be
physically present in the same location.

Lituya, the Leviathan, had made his home in the quieter northern bay, away from the busy harbour. A special, heated house for Atka of the Dragonfolk had been built nearby, with a flat rooftop
that could be screened from the wind, so that she could go up there to catch the sun and feed. The Skyfolk Mage Kea, having discovered an immediate rapport with Thara and Melisanda, was staying
with the Wizards in Iriana’s house but, respecting her hosts’ grief, she had spent a lot of time that afternoon with Lituya and Atka, sitting on the roof of the Dragon’s new home
while the Leviathan sported in the bay below, and Atka sunned herself during the daylight, and curled up in her heated quarters at sundown.

Their conversations were, of necessity, conducted at a distance, in mindspeech, but the strangers needed such a bond. All three felt a little lonely and out of place here in Tyrineld. There had
been no Archwizard Cyran to welcome them, his soulmate was closeted away, mourning the loss of Avithan, and only a scant handful of people apart from the Heads of the Luens knew of the
visitors’ existence at all. The entire city seemed to be in a state of sorrow, unsettled and confused, and until Cyran came back they were simply marking time, their thoughts with their
Wizard friends across the bay, for they were worried about their counterparts, who had become close friends over the past months while the Wizards had worked with them in Aerillia, in Dhiammara and
beneath the ocean.

‘I wish we could do something to help them.’ Kea glanced down through the glass skylight at the golden dragon, cosily curled up on her bed in her heated building, and picked moodily
at a piece of yellow lichen on the roof.

‘I agree.’ Atka lifted her great head to look up at the winged Mage above her. ‘I hate to see Chathak so devastated. He was always so cheerful and lively back in Dhiammara, but
now he won’t even talk to me. I have never seen this side of him before, and I’m deeply concerned.’

‘His Wizard friends are worried about him too,’ Kea told her. ‘He’s acting the same way with them. It must be hard to lose a brother the way he has lost Esmon. Melisanda
has been trying to get him to open up and talk about his grief, but so far without any luck.’

‘At least he agreed to join them tonight.’ Lituya turned over lazily in the silvery waters of the bay. ‘Maybe the tide of his feelings will turn at last. I hope so, for his
sake. For my part, I could wish that Ionor had never been called back here to face such sorrow.’ He heaved a great, gusting sigh, and a fountain of spray shot up, glittering in the moonlight.
‘He was going to make an excuse, you know, so that he could have stayed with us all summer. We were so looking forward to going north with the rest of the Leviathan. Somehow, in the time he
spent with us, I began to think of him more as one of us, than one of his own kind. I am sorry to lose him back to the Wizards again – and see what has become of it!’

‘It seems that all three of them fitted in with our own respective people,’ Kea said, thrusting away the thought of the one exception, Incondor, who even now was languishing near
death within the halls of the Wizard Luen of Healers. ‘But I suppose they need to be with their own kind, though it fills my heart with sadness to think that I will be parted from Yinze when
I leave here.’

‘Maybe we should never have come,’ Atka said suddenly. ‘Maybe it was all a mistake.’

In mindspeech it was less easy to conceal emotion, and there was an uneasy, troubled edge to her words that set Kea’s instincts on full alert. ‘Atka? What’s wrong? Has
something happened that we don’t know about?’

‘Nothing,’ the Dragon said hastily. ‘Only concern for our friends, that’s all. Nothing else.’

Kea wasn’t having that. ‘Now listen,’ she said sternly, ‘we may not have known each other very long, but I thought the three of us were friends. Don’t tell me
there’s nothing wrong, because I know better. How can we help you, Lituya and I, if you won’t tell us what the problem is? We’ve just been discussing how bad it is for Chathak not
to open up to his friends. Don’t you go making the same mistake. We’re strangers here, and far from home. We have to stick together.’

The Dragon hesitated. Then, through the skylight, Kea saw her lower her head to the floor, a picture of abject misery. ‘Kea, I’m so worried,’ she moaned. ‘I’ve made
a terrible mistake, and I don’t know what to do. I wanted to be here with Chathak so much, but a few months ago I needed to mate, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to travel, bearing an
egg. So I altered one of our healing spells, just a little, so that the mating would not take and I’d be free to come to Tyrineld.’

Her distress was so palpable that the other two had no trouble guessing what had happened. ‘And now you’ve found out that your spell didn’t work, and you are carrying an egg
after all,’ Lituya said softly.

‘Oh, you poor, poor thing.’ Kea scrambled through the open skylight and glided down to settle beside the Dragon’s head, stroking her shining scales in sympathy. ‘I know
it would be a wrench to leave here, especially when Chathak is so unhappy, but is there no way you can get back home before you’re ready to lay your egg? We would be very sorry to lose you,
Atka, but if your people could apport you here, surely they could do the same to get you back?’

‘I can’t go home that way. It took the all the Dragonfolk in Dhiammara, working in concert, to apport us so far, and they only risked such a difficult and dangerous thing because it
was an emergency. Chathak was desperate to get back when his brother died. Esmon was the experienced traveller and warrior in the group that the Archmage had sent out. If he had been slain, then
Chathak knew that his friends Avithan and Iriana must be in desperate straits. He felt that he must be here in Tyrineld, and my people were happy to help. However, it takes a long time to recover
from the working of such powerful and intense magic, and the Dragonfolk will be weak and exhausted for some time, until they can recover their strength. They could not bring me home so soon. By the
time they can, the young one will already be here, and it will be too late, for a hatchling could not withstand the stresses and strains of such a great apport, or even a sea voyage, until it is
older. And if there is no time for an apport, there would certainly be no time to get me back by sea.’

BOOK: Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.)
4.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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