Rajanas lifted a shoulder. “I admit I like the idea of someone keeping an eye on him, but I don’t see why it has to be you. I’ve any number of trusty equerries I can send, who will see him straight there and report any double-dealings.”
“He won’t talk to equerries,” Hlanan said. “I think he’ll talk to me.”
“What use is anything he says? We know now what Dhes-Andis promised him, but that plan is clearly in the wind.”
“You forget that for a time Dhes-Andis taught him magic. Geric believes, anyway, that Dhes-Andis considered giving him power and position before he was distracted by his discovery of Lhind’s existence.”
All eyes turned my way and instinctively I ducked. Rajanas’s lip curled, but it was not in contempt so much as his particular kind of dry humor.
“Magic.” He exhaled the word like an expletive. “Forgot that. Right.” As the muffled chuff-chuff of a patrol passed by the door, he paused, then said, “I’ll give you whatever you need. The sooner you get him out of here the better for the Wolves. They’re morose enough.”
Kuraf shook her head slowly. “They just lost their home.”
“Not all,” Rajanas said. “Maybe half, according to Jendo Nath. I don’t see why he’d lie about it. It’s he, on orders, who recruited outside of Thann for the duchess when she began swelling their numbers. The duchess had convinced him that Thann was going to be invaded. By us, actually, through Keprima.” Another of those wry looks as he struck his chest and then pointed at Kuraf. “And some of his Gray Wolfe recruits are Faran.”
“Faran!” Now it was Kuraf’s turn to make a word into an expletive. “Then they’re not better than those rats we dealt with down-mountain. Just better trained.”
Rajanas waved a hand. “Oflan’s mother was Faran, I learned a day or two ago. Oflan spent her early years there, before her mother was murdered. Most of the Faran Gray Wolves are her relations. She doesn’t seem any happier about the corruption in Forfar than we are.”
He lounged to his feet. “Which brings me back to my point.” He tipped his head toward the window. “What to do with them. All that binds them to me is their sense of honor. And a fast-eroding sense of self-worth. They don’t give a spit for Alezand. They need meaningful orders. Oflan wants to take them into Forfar to clean the place up. I can’t think of a better mission.”
Kuraf had been looking sour, but at this she rubbed her jaw. “My task protecting the pass would be worlds easier if I didn’t have to deal with Faran bandits and other scum. But it almost sounds too easy.”
Rajanas laughed. “For us, the easiest way to clean up our back door I ever heard of. For them it won’t be easy at all. No, I want to give her her chance.” His voice was reflective. Then he turned Hlanan’s way. “Order what you want. Get Lendan out of here.”
o0o
I followed Hlanan out, figuring the snow was so heavy we would be no more than two vague figures in the darkness. “What’s to keep Geric from going back to Thann by magic?” I asked. “I know he’s at least a beginning mage.”
“I searched him while getting him bandaged,” Hlanan said. “He was not carrying a transfer token.”
“Couldn’t he transfer without one?”
“Not as weak as he is. Also, he has to suspect that the Destination in Thann has been compromised. If an army really is on the way, that means scouts rode ahead. A mage is bound to be with them.”
“I still think you need to search his stuff.”
We reached the hut that had been assigned to Hlanan. It was empty, a fire built in the center. The ruddy light shone on his grimace. “I hate doing that.”
“I have no problem with it,” I stated. “I’ll do it right now. I don’t care if he watches or not.”
Hlanan scratched his head, making a wild mess of his brown hair. He looked around the ugly hut as if something in those barren slats held hidden meaning, then faced me. “All right, let’s do it together. We need to know if he has any objects with magic on them. But Lhind, don’t rob him. He’s lost enough.”
“Seems to me he was robbing people courtier style, trying to get Alezand and all that, but I won’t,” I said. “I still have some of his gems from the first time I robbed him.”
“You wouldn’t consider returning them?” Hlanan asked as we faced each other across the fire. “He’s lost so much.”
“Because he’s a villain!” I threw my hands out wide. “I might be a thief, but I never joined up with Dhes-Andis to learn evil magic, or plotted against other people, or tried to kill anyone.” When he gazed down at the fire with a troubled expression, I said, “I can’t believe you’re sympathizing with him. It’s like you forgot all the rotten stuff he’s done.”
“I am beginning to believe that half of that was desperation, and a part of the rest was the result of his being lied to. But you’re right about his intent. Well. Let’s get this unpleasantness over with.”
We walked back out, bending into the wind. Geric’s was the next hut over, but it felt like a long trek. The guards let us in, where we found the prince asleep. Really asleep; his face, smoothed in deep slumber, looked younger than he ever had awake. The bitter smell of willow bark lay heavy in the air as I stepped near, looking suspiciously down.
My dream still lay in the back of my mind, stirring up unsettling thoughts, foremost my wondering if he’d had a mother who loved him. His sarcasm and arrogance and angry threats left me utterly unmoved: they were the rantings and actions of a villain. I didn’t have to give villains a second thought beyond avoiding them. But that shock in his face when he leaned in the doorway whispering Thann had revealed emotions I would have thought alien to him.
A soft noise recalled me as Hlanan opened the first of the saddle bags containing the prince’s gear.
I hopped to the second one and got to work.
Where I might have flung things around, Hlanan was methodical, repacking everything exactly as he found it. I copied his movements, though I found it very tempting to help myself to a fine silk sash and a carved comb. Not that I have ever used a comb. One fwoosh and my hair settles into instant order. I just thought it was pretty.
He did have a book of spells. Hlanan looked through it thoroughly then replaced it, which surprised me. Clearly whatever was written in that book wasn’t the sort of magical spells Hlanan thought dangerous.
Otherwise none of the prince’s jewels or brooches bore the revealing tingle of magic. By the time I had finished the last bag (because he had a lot of expensive stuff) Hlanan had already left. As I shoved everything back into the velvet jewelry pouches, I found myself surprised, then gratified, that Hlanan hadn’t waited to watch me replace it. I’d expected him to—I would have stayed behind to watch me! But that was the very first thing I’d realized about him: he expected the best of everyone. Including me.
Geric never stirred during this search. I left empty-handed, and because it was snowing heavily, instead of retreating to a tree to sleep I picked the hut where they’d stored the horse feed to keep it dry
I curled up on a feed bag, slept, and if I dreamed it vanished in memory before I woke.
ELEVEN
It snowed two days before the sun came out. Tir returned with the clear sky, swooping down to sail into the window of Hlanan’s hut.
Before I could take five steps, Tir shot out again and flew off. I watched, my emotions veering between relief and a kind of disappointment that Tir had not even tried to approach me. Relief won out.
I still refused to open my mental wall to anyone while awake. Whatever that was in the dream would stay in the dream. In the light of day the experience evanesced into non-reality. It was merely me wishing to see that smile, to feel those arms, to hear those gentle words.
The fourth morning Tir returned a second time.
Hlanan oversaw the packing of his and Geric’s belongings. I didn’t have any, of course, but the prince made up for it. He had enough baggage for three people.
Nill bounded up with the thri
lling news that Kuraf had assigned him to come with us, to see to Prince Geric’s bandages and manage for him. “My first mission alone, and I’m not yet sixteen,” he said, chortling and rubbing his hands—as if this were to be fun, instead of a slog down the long, treacherous mountain roads with an arrogant, cranky prince.
“Tir will find inns for us,” Hlanan said to me as Nill dashed away to tell his friends among the rangers. “We’re only taking a remount for each of us so there is no room for tents, food, and fodder. Better not risk sleeping outside in winter.”
“I hope the first inn is close by,” I said doubtfully, following Hlanan’s glance at Geric, who stood outside his hut looking awful. “It took us days and days to get up here, and I don’t remember seeing any inns at all.”
“That’s because we came up back roads. And we could not use magic to clear the paths,” Hlanan replied. “Now that we know there are no enemy scouts lurking on cliffs or in trees we can clear the snow with magic. And in any case going downhill is always faster.”
“There’s magic to clear roads?”
“I think you’ll enjoy this spell,” he replied with a flashing smile.
He was right. As soon as Geric was mounted we set off down the southward road so as not to waste daylight. As soon as we reached the untouched snowfall obscuring the road, Hlanan demonstrated, muttering and sliding his open palm in a scooping motion. The spell shot a burst of wind under the snow, sending it flying upward in a spectacular spray of white that bared the road underneath. It was not even muddy, but cold and iron-hard.
“Do it again!” I exclaimed.
Hlanan laughed. “It’ll have to be repeated all the way down the mountain. Would you like to help me? It’s considered a fairly elementary wind spell, one of the first ones we learned as students.”
“Back to magic lessons,” I said, my joy vanishing.
He gave his head a shake. “I’ve been thinking. I’d like to try an experiment, but we’ll wait a bit. Just listen to the spell a few times and watch my hand.”
Geric’s two personal servants had vanished by the second night after the two parties joined. I suspect Rajanas’s people had let them slip through the lines to be well rid of them. So it was only the four of us who began riding slowly down the mountain that morning.
Under a bright blue sky Hlanan repeated the wind spell over and over, causing jets of snow to explode in sparkling white clouds upward to either side. I listened to the words and watched his gesture as it guided the wind drawn from above and sent it scouring along the path under the snow.
I began to perceive that the best jets of air skimmed in a straight line at the level of the ground. It was a bit like skipping stones over water, aiming straight and true. His first few tries were not always consistent; one drove into the ground, kicking up clots of mud in a spectacular explosion, but clearing only the space around the hole his wind dug, and another skimmed too high, furrowing the top of the snow but leaving an icy blanket underneath, treacherous to the horses’ footing.
He soon got it right every time. I wriggled my shoulders, trying to emulate his gesture as I listened to the blurred words.
Gradually we drew ahead of the other two, who proceeded at a slow gait. When we rounded a bend out of earshot of Nill and Prince Geric, Hlanan said, “I think I know why you have trouble with the fundamentals of magic.”
“Because I learned to read so late. Or I’m stupid,” I said, the old resentment back again. After all that effort in the magic classes, sitting among children, I’d still been the worst student. Though everyone had been nice—perhaps because they’d been nice—it still rankled.
“Lhind. You’re not stupid. You know you’re not stupid. One of the first things you ever said to me was that you were not a fool.” His voice dropped a note. “I am no real mage, as you know, but I wonder if the Mage Council made an error insisting on your learning the fundamentals.” He gave me his funny, wistful smile. “I think I’ve figured out why the magic classes frustrated you, and it has nothing to do with when you learned to read.”
Now I was listening.
“You remember being taught that the basic words are not actually magic in themselves?”
“Of course. They are meant to guide the mind in shaping the spell. I did listen,” I said. “It’s just when I tried the simplest spells, the ones those ten-year-olds found so easy, mine went wild,” I finished, bitter again.
“I don’t understand why the instructors didn’t see what I see.” He looked away with a troubled expression and flexed his gloved hands. “But I think your own innate abilities are interfering. What is meant as an aid is more of a hindrance to you.”
“But they said Hrethan learn magic the same way, and don’t we have the same innate abilities? Back in magic school I saw a half-Hrethan in a class ahead of me, though he didn’t talk to me either time.”
“White hair a lighter shade than yours?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Ashah. He’s blind, so if no one introduced you he wouldn’t know you’re Hrethan.”
“Oh.” I frowned, then said, “Nobody older talked to me. I thought it was because I’m a bad student, for whatever reasons.”
“The Mage Council said that Aranu Crown requested them to give you time to adjust to the life in Erev-li-Erval.”
I thought about that, then said, “You mean she wanted to see how the thief was going to behave?”
He gave his head a shake. “You would have to ask her what she meant. The words I was given were those I just spoke to you.”
“All right,” I said, struggling against the impulse to start another argument. He was right. Only Aranu Crown could explain the meaning of her words. I resented a situation I didn’t understand, didn’t trust, that made me feel foolish at times. I did not resent him—so it was not fair to make him the target of my resentment of someone else because he was right here before me. “Back to magic lessons. The nonsense words were a hindrance. Yes, indeed they were. Nothing ever worked. No matter how carefully I tried.”
He brought his chin down in a sharp nod. “Then try this. You heard me repeat the spell. You saw the gestures. Let the words flow through your mind and your hand shape the wind as you draw on your own magic.”
“Oh, like—” Dhes-Andis’s fire spell, I was about to exclaim. But I stopped myself, knowing how much that would upset him.
So I said quickly, to cover the lapse, “Like this?”
His magical spell slipped through my mind as I swooped my hand, scooping wind down and through—and staggered back as an icy blast slashed through the snow in a straight line as if a gigantic hand had loosed an invisible arrow the size of a tree.
I’d pulled far too much magic, my straight arrow of air clearing the straight section of road before us, but then plowing in juddering furrows up the side of the hill beyond where the road had turned.
We stood in silence as the violently churned-up clots of snow dropped down again with soft plops and thuds.
“I keep forgetting,” Hlanan said finally, “how. . . .” He trailed off.
“How what? Can’t all the Hrethan do that? I’m only half Hrethan. They have to be better at magic than I am if it’s inborn, right?” I lifted my hair and swirled it around my head, my tail waving from side to side. “I simply pulled too much magic into the wind, or too much wind into the magic. And it’s not like I can keep doing that. It’s like leaping. I can jump up to a rooftop, but I can’t keep doing it. I get tired like anyone else. Can all Hrethan keep at it endlessly?”
“I don’t really know,” he said quickly, dropping his voice as the others rounded the corner behind us. “They don’t actually talk much about their skills any more than they speak of their own internal, oh, ranks, you might call it. Though they have no titles, at least as we understand them, nor do they claim ownership of land. They say that the color of their . . . their feathers and their skin has no particular meaning—that the blue corresponds to the Summer Islands Hrethan—but there ar
e some who think that color might correspond with inherited potential for magic.”
“But I’m half. My hair’s silver. I don’t even have blue eyes. My skin under my fuzz is almost as brown as yours.” I didn’t want to talk about the Blue Lady.
“But talent can be inherited by all peoples—”
Clop, clop: the others caught up, and we fell silent.
“Wow!” Nill exclaimed. “What happened up that knoll?”
“Practice,” I said, as Geric lifted his head, and surveyed the deep score up the hill with the piles of snow to either side. But he didn’t say anything.
My next try was better controlled, and after that Hlanan and I traded off clearing the road as we descended to a plateau with relatively warmer, drier air, and less snow.
By then the extravagant shadows cast by the mountains against the slopes had seeped upward toward the peaks, pooling the cold blue air of impending dark. I was ready to snap a tongue of mage-fire, but I resisted. I still had trouble controlling the fire spell, and I did not want to recall Hlanan to the subject of learning magic and Dhes-Andis’s spells. He had not only a tenacious memory but a way of connecting things. With all my being I refused any kind of connection to Dhes-Andis—all the stronger because of how very close I had come to letting him beguile me.
I had never told anyone about that.
Hlanan peered anxiously around every bend, relaxing only when we spotted the cheerful golden glow of a village on either side of a river poised above a fall. We found the inn in the center of the loose circle of round-roofed houses. No surprise that during hard winter we found it nearly empty, save for some travelers caught by the blizzard.
Hlanan talked to the innkeeper then turned Geric’s way. One-handed, the prince tossed his coin purse. Hlanan caught it, paid, and we were soon settled in the little parlor of a suite at one corner of the house.
Nill brought in the prince’s bags then ran out to oversee the care of the horses, and to hover around watching the food being prepared. He followed the innkeeper’s son—same age as Nill—with steaming trays.