Winds of Change (63 page)

It was as inventive in its way as anything that Tayledras Adept had tried; he was quite certain of that. He was thoroughly pleased with his own cleverness. Oh, it was dangerous, surely; the mages who had been sacrificed to give the plan life had advised against it even before they knew they were going to be sucked dry of life and power to fuel it.

“You’ll be incinerated by that much power,” Atus had protested.

“If you aren’t incinerated, you’ll go mad. No one can be
part
of a Heartstone!” Renthan had told him.

Preadeth had only shaken his head wordlessly, and cast significant looks at the others.

They thought he was insane even to try it - and at that moment, when he caught them exchanging glances and possibly thoughts, he had known who his sacrificial calves were going to be.

They had doubtless been considering revolt - or at least, escape. Escape would mean they might even consider going to the Tayledras with what they knew.

It was just as well he had another use for them. It would have been a pity to kill them outright and waste all that potential.

Using his subordinates to supply the power instead of himself was the last element he had needed to make the plan reasonable as well as possible. It meant that at the end of the Working, he was still standing and still capable of acting, instead of unconscious and needing days of rest. Even at that, he was exhausted when he was done.

He sank down on his couch and considered calling in a fourth man and draining him as well, but discarded the idea. It would cause enough trouble that he had killed three of his underlings. There were those who might read it as a desperation measure. It was, on the whole, a bad idea to kill anyone other than a slave or one of the lower servants. It made everyone else unhappy - and inclined to think about defection. Unhappy servants were inefficient servants. They should know the taste of the whip - but also know that it was only there in extreme circumstances, and that they could bring that whip onto their own backs by their own actions. He lay back on the soft black velvet of the couch, and considered his next few moves. First - find a reason for the deaths of his underlings that would disturb the others the least. The mages in particular were a touchy lot; they tended to think of themselves as allies rather than underlings. They were given to occasional minor revolt. It would not do to give them a reason for one of those revolts - not now, when he could ill-afford the energy to subdue them.

Should he claim they had died aiding him in some great work? That was a little too close to the truth, and the next time he called for help in magic-working, he might trigger one of those mass defections. He did not, as a rule, lose even one of his assistants, much less three of them. The mages weren’t stupid; they might well guess that “aiding” in a great work meant becoming a sacrifice to it.

The deep red light flooding in from the window was very soothing to his eyes, and eased the pain at his temples, pain caused by nothing more than overstressing himself. Both temples throbbed, there was a place at the base of his skull that felt as if someone was pressing a dull dagger into it, and sharp stabbing pains over each eye whenever he moved his head too quickly. Hard to think, when one was in pain. . .

But he must think of a way to explain those bodies. He wished he could simply burn them to ash and pretend that he did not know where they had gone. But
that
might only make the others think their colleagues had run off, and if those three had done so, there might be a good reason for the others to follow their example.

Complications, complications. Everything he did was so complicated. Not like the old days, when he didn’t have to justify himself to anyone. When he only had to issue orders and know he would be obeyed.

The cowards. If they hadn’t been quite so quick to think of conspiring against him he might not have -

Ah.
That was the answer. He would have the bodies dragged from his study and hung from the exterior walls in cages, as traitors were. That would be enough. The rest of his underlings should assume that the three had attempted to overcome him and had fallen in the attempt. A good explanation for why
he
was so weary.

He would not even have to
say
anything himself; just look angry. No one would dare ask him. The rumors would fly, but there was no reason for anyone to guess the truth.

He rang for a servant, and feigning greater strength than he had, contorted his face into a mask of suppressed rage and ordered the bodies taken away and displayed in the cages. Then he called for stimulants, food and drink, as he always did after a battle. Sometimes habits were useful things. When he demanded rare meat, red wine, and
ke-phira,
with a body-slave to be waiting in his bed, the servants all assumed that a fight had aroused his blood and his lust.

The servant went and came back with several more;
Falconsbane ignored them as they carried the bodies away, lying back on his couch and staring at the shadow-shrouded ceiling. He often did that after a battle of magic, too. When the servant returned at last with the food and drink he had been sent for, he told the man in a flat, expressionless voice to set it down and take himself out. He did his best to look angry, and not tired. The illusion was what mattered right now.

If I were not so pressed, I would manipulate their minds to reinforce the tale that is spreading,
he thought, slowly mustering the strength to reach for a cup of dragged wine.
Perhaps I should do so anyway.

But at that moment, there came a hesitant tap at the door. He started, and cursed his own jangled nerves, then growled, “Yes? What is it?”

If it’s nonsense, I’ll kill him. If it’s a defection, I’ll set the
wyrsa
on the fool who ran and see if he can outrun and outlast a pack of forty!

“Sire,” came the timid voice of the servant, muffled by the door, “I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but I’m following your orders. You said to let you know immediately if one of those riders - ”

He sat up abruptly, exhaustion and pain completely forgotten. “The riders? Open the damned door, you fool! What about the riders?”

The servant edged the door open, nervously. He peered inside, then slid into the room with one eye on his escape route. There was a small box in his hand.

A small box carved of shining black wood.

Falconsbane’s eyes went to it as if drawn there; he stood up and strode over to the man, and stood towering over him, his hands twitching at his sides.

“Sire, one of the riders came right up to the gate just as they were - taking out - ” The man gulped, his face pasty white, and Falconsbane repressed the urge to strangle him. He simply tried to ease some of the anger out of his face so that the servant would be able to continue.

“Go on,” he said, more gently than he wanted to. He cursed his own weakness; if he had been stronger, he could have seized the man’s mind and pulled what he wanted right out of it.

“The rider came up and tossed
this
to the Guard Captain, himself. “Then - he was just gone. The Guard Captain brought this straight to me, like you ordered.”

“By ‘just gone,’ do you mean that he rode away?” Falconsbane asked carefully.
Why didn’t they call me? Or was there no time? Can those riders move that fast? Why isn’t someone chasing them?

“No, sire, I mean he was
gone.
Like smoke. There, and then not there.” The servant seemed convinced, and there was no real reason for him to lie. “The Guard Captain said so. Said he was gone like he’d been conjured and dispersed.“

Falconsbane pondered the box in his hand; this was the first real evidence that the riders were the manifestations of magic. Was his unknown enemy - or friend - showing his hand a little more? They could not have gone through a Gate; he would have sensed that. Therefore they could only have been temporary conjurations, given life and form only so long as the mage needed them, or creatures from another plane. Minor demons, perhaps? Those he might not be able to sense unless he was actually looking for them.

Of the “gifts” that had been sent to him, only one was magical - and it was useless. He cast an eye at the lenticular scrying crystal as the servant waited nervously for his response, and snorted a little.

Scrying crystal, indeed. It was an excellent crystal. The clarity was exceptional, the lenticular form ideal for scrying, the size quite perfect for a detailed image to form. The problem was, no matter how he bent his will upon it, it would show only one thing. The view of some remote mountain peak, and halfway up the side of the mountain, a strange and twisted castle that he did not recognize. A snowstorm swirled about the castle when the crystal was moved.

He dismissed the servant, and reached for the wine, drinking it down in one gulp, before he returned to his couch and contemplated the box. Like the other, it was beautifully carved, and about the same size. There was no sign of magic anywhere about it.

Like the other, this one held something.

Nestled in a nest of black velvet padding was a ring. Not just any ring, either - it held no stone, and was not metal, although it was an intricately carved or molded band. Like a wedding ring, exactly like a wedding ring, it was carved witft tne symbols of harvest, wheat-ears and grapes - except that this ring was made of a shining, cool black substance. He tried, experimentally, to break it, but it was probably of the same stuff as the horse.

In this part of the world, widows sometimes laid aside their wedding bands to wear a black band like this, made of jet, signifying mourning. Was he being warned? But he had no spouse to mourn, and the very last thing he would weep over was the death of his traitorous daughter.

His predilection for black was apparently well known to these riders - or whoever sent them. There had been the rose, the velvet, the horse, and now the ring. And this would certainly gain his attention far quicker than a simple peasants’ gold or silver wedding band.

So, was this an invitation to a “wedding” - an alliance?

Or a funeral?

“I don’t like this,” Darkwind told Firesong unhappily. “I only told you
my
plan because I hoped you’d have another way of handling this, something that wouldn’t put anyone into danger like this. Even if it is my plan, I don’t like it.”

He had intercepted Firesong as soon as the Adept had anchored the proto-Gate for the night. They had walked back to Firesong’s
ekele
together, while Darkwind laid bare his thoughts on Falconsbane and what might be done about him.

To his dismay, Firesong had agreed, completely.

“Nor do I care for your plan,” Firesong replied, wearily sagging back against the cushions of his couch. “I dislike sending Nyara into peril of this sort. She is a frail prop for all our hopes - and yet there is a certain symmetry in it, in sending her to avenge her own hurts upon her father.”

Darkwind snorted. “Symmetry was not what I had in mind,” he said. He would have gone farther than that, but at that same moment, Nyara and Skif arrived, summoned by one of Firesong’s ever-present
hertasi.
Skif was unarmed as far as Darkwind could see, but Nyara, as always, had Need; the sword at her side was so much a part of her that he couldn’t imagine her without it.

He took a moment to examine her with the dispassionate eyes of a stranger and was a little surprised. He’d thought of Nyara as small and slender, maybe even spidery; well, perhaps she was, compared to himself and to Skif. But she certainly carried her sword with authority - and from what he’d seen, she knew how to use it well. And what skill
she
did not possess, the sword could grant to her, if Elspeth was to be believed.

“Sit,” Firesong said, before the other two could say anything. “Please. We have somewhat we need to ask you.” He waved to one of the hovering
hertasi,
who converged upon the two Outlanders with food and drink.

They took seats; Nyara a little apprehensively, Skif reluctantly. Darkwind didn’t blame them. He’d had the feeling that Nyara knew what he’d had in mind all along, from the nebulous ideas that had formed when he asked her to locate Falconsbane’s stronghold, to the crystallized plan that had sent him looking for Firesong. Skif probably didn’t know what was in Darkwind’s mind, but if it required involving Nyara, he was going to be immediately suspicious.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” Darkwind said. “Before we take this to a larger forum, we need to know something from you.” He waited until they had settled a little, then turned to the Changechild. “Nyara, this afternoon I asked you to help me find your father’s stronghold on the map. You thought you located approximately where it is, correct?”

She nodded, slowly, accepting a cup of tea from one of the
hertasi.
It was very hard to read her face; long ago she had probably learned how to control her expressions minutely, and that was a habit that was hard to break.

He hated to ask this of her. He hated to put her back where she might
need
that kind of control. “Well, this is a different question, but related. Could
you
trace your way back to it - and if you found it, get into it?”

Skif yelped and started to rise; she shook her head at him, and placed one hand on his knee to calm him. It didn’t calm him a bit, but he subsided, looking sharply at both Firesong and Darkwind.