Winds of Change (44 page)

“Yes, I think so,” Darkwind replied, and as Kethra placed a gentle hand on the hawk-eagle’s breast-feathers, she leaned in to whisper in Darkwind’s ear.

“You just gave him the best medicine he could have had,” she said softly, “Something to think about beside himself. Something stronger and prouder than he was, that is hurt as badly and needs as much help. Thank you.”

He flushed, and was glad that it wasn’t visible in the darkness of the room.

“He has a cracked keel and wishbone,
ke’chara,”
Kethra said to Starblade, who had taken spare cushions from beneath the sand pan all Tayledras kept under their birds’ perches, and in the case of Starblade’s
ekele,
for guests’ bondbirds. “He must be in tremendous pain. It will take a great deal of care for him to fly again.”

“He’ll have it, never fear,” Starblade said, with some of his old strength. “You brought him to the right place, son.”

His eyes met Darkwind’s and once again Darkwind flushed, but this time with pleasure. Starblade actually
smiled
with no signs of pain, age, or fatigue. Darkwind’s heart leapt.
That
was his father!

Before he could say anything, the
hertasi
returned, with two of his fellows. Two of them bore bags of sand for the tray; the third had an enormous block-perch, as tall as the lizard, and very nearly as heavy. The perch went into the tray, and the other two
hertasi
poured their bags of clean sand all around it, filling it and covering the base of the perch for added stability. Kethra stood aside and watched it all, a calculating but caring expression on her face, curling a length of hair between her fingers.

Darkwind took Hyllarr over to his new perch; the bird made a great show of stepping painfully onto it, but once there, settled in with a sigh; a sigh that Darkwind echoed, as the weight left him. He put a hand to his shoulder and massaged it as he headed toward the exit; Kethra nodded to him with approval.

Starblade took his place beside the perch. The look of rapt attention on his father’s face was all Darkwind could have hoped for, and the look of bliss in the bird’s eyes as Starblade gently stroked under his breast-feathers was very nearly its match.

His partner and her Companion had waited below while he presented Starblade with
his
new partner. “Well?” Elspeth asked as soon as he got within whispering distance, her face full of pent-up inquiry.

“It worked beautifully,” Darkwind told her. He permitted himself a moment of self-congratulation and a brief embrace, then gestured for her to follow so that there would be no chance of Starblade overhearing them. “He’s already up out of bed and fussing around Hyllarr - it’s a definite match. I don’t think either of them have any idea how well they mesh, but I’ve seen a hundred bondings and this is one of the best.”

“Is Hyllarr going to heal up all right?” she asked, dubiously.

He shrugged. “As long as he isn’t in pain, it doesn’t really matter how completely he heals. Even if the bird never flies again, it won’t make any real difference to Father. Starblade isn’t a scout; he doesn’t need a particularly mobile bondbird. Hyllarr will be able to get by quite well with the kind of short flights a permanently injured bird can manage.”

Elspeth considered that. Gwena nodded.
:I see. Injuries that would doom a free bird wouldn‘t matter to one that is never likely to leave the Vale. It is relief of pain that matters, not mobility.:

He chuckled his agreement. “In fact, I remember one of the mages from my childhood who had a broken-winged crow that couldn’t fly at all, and
walked
all over the Vale. If it came to it, Hyllarr could do the same. And be just as pampered.”

Gwena snorted delicately.
:That makes an amusing picture; Starblade with the bird following him afoot or, more likely, carried by a
hertasi.
Well, Hyllarr isn‘t going to get fat if he finds himself walking. I doubt that anyone as frail as your father is right now
could
carry that great hulk.:

“I
couldn’t carry him for long,” Darkwind admitted. “I have no idea how scouts bonded to hawk-eagles manage. I thought my shoulders were going to collapse.”

“The important thing is Starblade,” Elspeth pointed out, “and it sounds like having Hyllarr around is going to make the difference for him.”

Darkwind nodded, and then the insistent demands of his stomach reminded him that they were both long overdue for a meal.

Both? No, all. Surely Gwena was just as ravenous.

Unless she and Elspeth, too, were suffering from something that often happened with young mages; where the body was so unused to carrying the energies of magic that basic needs like hunger and thirst were ignored until the mage collapsed. Just as the impetus of fear or anger made the body override hunger and thirst, so did the use of magic - at least until the mage learned to compensate and the body grew used to the energies and no longer confused them.

“If you two aren’t hungry, you should be,” he told them. “Elspeth, I warned you about that happening, but I don’t think I told Gwena; it never occurred to me that she might be susceptible.”

Gwena paused, her eyes soft and thoughtful for a moment.
:I should be starving. Hmm. I
think I shall find a
hertasi,
and have a good grain ration. If you‘II excuse me?:

With a bow of her head, she trotted up the trail, leaving them alone.

“A wise lady,” he observed. “Let’s drop by Iceshadow’s
ekele
long enough to give him the good news from k’Treva, and then take this conversation to somewhere there’s food for us.’

Elspeth grinned. “I think I’m used to magic enough now because my stomach is wrapping around my backbone and complaining bitterly. Let’s go!”

Iceshadow was overjoyed at the good news from k’Treva and almost as pleased with the news about Starblade. They left him full of plans to inform the rest of the mages, and with unspoken agreement, reversed their course, back to the mouth of the Vale.

There were “kitchens” on the way, but somehow, that “somewhere” wound up being Darkwind’s
ekele,
where his
hertasi
had left a warm meal waiting. The
hertasi
information network was amazing; word must have gotten around the moment they’d crossed into the Vale. Before them were crisp finger vegetables and small, broiled gamehens; bread and cheese, fruit, and hot
chava
with beaten cream for two for desert. Darkwind dearly loved
chava,
a hot, sweet drink with a rich taste like nothing else in the world. Sometimes the
hertasi
could be coaxed into making a kind of thick cookie with
chava,
and the two together were enough to put any sweet lover into spasms of ecstasy.

And while he had a moment of suspicion over the fact that the
hertasi
had left food and drink for two, he had to admit that they had done so before. And given his past, perhaps the preparation was not unwarranted. Until Elspeth had entered his life, he had certainly eaten and slept in company more often than not. This was a lovers’ meal, though. And they knew very well that he had not had any lovers since they had begun serving him. Was this an expression of hope on their part? Or something else?

Well, the
chava
could be used as bait to tempt Elspeth into his bed, that was certain. He knew any number of folk who would do astonishing things for - even with - the reward of
chava.

It was Elspeth’s first encounter with
chava,
and Darkwind took great glee in her expression of bliss the moment she tasted it. Once again, another devotee was created. They took their mugs over to the pile of cushions in the corner that served as seating and lounging area.

“You look just like Hyllarr when Starblade started scratching him,” he told her, chuckling. “All half-closed eyes and about to fall over with pleasure.”

“No doubt,” she replied, easing back against the cushions with the mug cradled carefully in her hand, so as not to spill a single drop. “Complete with raptorial beak, predator’s eyes, and unruly crest.”

She spoke lightly, but Darkwind sensed hurt beneath the words. That was the same hurt he had sensed when she spoke of being afraid that most men were interested only in her rank, not in her. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

She snorted, and shook her head. “Darkwind, I thought we were going to be honest with each other. I’ve mentioned this before, I know I have. Can you honestly say that I am
not
as plain as a board?”

He studied her carefully before he answered; the spare, sculptured face, the expressive eyes, the athletic figure, none of which were set off to advantage by unadorned, white, plain-edged clothing - or, for that matter, the drab scout gear she wore now. The thick, dark hair - which he had never see styled into anything other than an untamed tumble or pulled back into a tail. “I think,” he replied, after a moment, “that you have been doing yourself a disservice in the way you dress. With your white uniform washing out your color and no ornaments, you look
very functional,
certainly quite competent and efficient, but severe.”

“What I said: plain as a board.” She sipped her
chava,
hiding her face in her cup. “I like the colored things the
hertasi
have been leaving out for me, but they don’t make much difference that I can see.”

“No,” he corrected. “Not ‘plain as a board.’ Improperly adorned. Scout gear is still too severe to display you properly. You should try mage-robes. Mages need not consider impediments such as strolls through bramble tangles.”

Many Tayledras costumes were suited to either sex; Elspeth, with her lean figure, would not distort the lines of some of his own clothing. There were a number of costumes he had designed and made, long ago, that he had never worn, or worn only once or twice. When Songwind became Darkwind, and the mage became the scout, those outfits had been put away in storage as inappropriate to the scout’s life. They were memories that could be hidden.

And, truthfully, he had not wanted to see them again. They belonged to someone else, another life, another time. Their cheerful colors had been ill-suited to his grief and his anger. He had not, in fact, even worn them now that he was a mage again and in the Vale, though he had brought them out of storage, with the vague notion that he might want them.

They were here, now, in this new
ekele,
in chests in one of the upper rooms. He studied her for a moment, considering which of those half-remembered robes would suit her best.

The ruby-firebird first,
he decided.
The amber silk, the peacock-blue, the sapphire, and the emerald. Perhaps the tawny shirt and fawn breeches
-
no, too light, they will wash her out. Hmm. I should go and see what is there; I can’t recall the half of them.

“Wait here,” he said, and before she could answer, ran up the ladderlike stair to the storage room at the top of the
ekele.

Maybe the tawny with a black high-necked undergarment for contrast. . . .

He returned with his arms full of clothing; robes and half-robes, shirts and flowing breeches in the Shin’a’in style, vests and wrap-shirts, all in jewel-bright colors, made of soft silks and supple leathers, and scented with the cedar of the chests. Light clothing, all of it, made for the gentle warmth of the Vale. There were other mage-robes, heavier, made to be worn outside the Vale, but none of those were as extravagant as these outfits. Tayledras mages did not advertise their powers in outrageous costumes when outside the confines of their homes, unless meeting someone they knew, or knew would be impressed.

“Here - ” he said, shaking out the ruby-colored silk half-robe and matching Shin’a’in breeches, cut as full as a skirt, and bound at the ankles with ribbon ties. The half-robe had huge, winglike sleeves with scalloped edges, and an asymmetric hem. “Try this one on, while I find some hair ornaments.”

She stared at him, at the clothing, and back again, as if he had gone quite mad. “But - ”

He grinned at her. “Indulge me. This is my art, if you will, and it has been long since I was able to spare a moment for it. Go on, go on - if you’re modest, there’s a screen over there you can stand behind to dress.”

He turned to his collection of feathers and beads, crystals and silver chains, all hung like the works of art they were, on the walls. By the
hertasi, of
course; when he’d lived outside the Vale he’d had no time to sort through the things and hang them up properly. They winked and gleamed in the light from his lamps and candles as he considered them. Some of them he had made, but most had been created by other Tayledras. Most of them, sadly, were either dead or with the exiles. But the delicate works of their hands remained, to remind him that not every hour need be spent in war and defense.

After a moment he heard Elspeth rise and take the clothing behind the screen; heard cloth sliding against cloth and flesh as she undressed, then the softer, hissing sounds of silk against that same flesh. He closed his eyes for a moment, reflecting on how good it felt to be doing this again-after all that had happened, that there was still a skill he could use without thought of what it meant tactically.

A moment later, she slipped from behind the screen, and he heard her bare footfalls against the boards of the
ekele
floor. “I hope I have this stuif on right,” she said dubiously, as he selected three strands of hair ornaments from among those on the wall.