Chapter 7 – Night Walker
The evening breeze blew coolly off the water and up the cliff toward him as Darian raised his hand in a silent signal. He felt the soundless assent which answered his signal, as noiseless wings cast a shadow between him and the moon. Kuari circled above him, scanning the treetops with keen eyes as he swept down over the forest toward the open plain atop the city cliffs. Borrowing the owl's eyes Darian observed the changing landscape below in a way human eyes could have never appreciated, assuming they could have had a similar aerial view.
Their hunting was not for food but as Kuari noted the series of creatures that scurried away beneath his gaze it was with an echo of regret. :Easy catch,: he thought.
:You'll get fat,: Darian warned, more than a touch of humor in his voice, :and I won't carry you with me anymore.:
Kuari's response was derisive and Darian smiled to himself as he made his own way over the rough ground. It wasn't particularly hard going, but it was practice, keeping his mind on Kuari and on his own feet at the same time. He came to the edge of the cliff, near where they had started late this afternoon, and looked down over the city, Kuari's silent shadow casting over it. The wind was cool on his face; it was a quiet, peaceful evening not unlike one he would have spent with a certain someone.
Keisha...
He slammed down on that thought, forced it behind his guard. He couldn't think about that. He needed to be here, now. He couldn't let his mind wander to other thoughts.
Kuari hovered over him, then dropped, Darian catching the bird's weight on his arm and falling into a crouch as the owl settled on his shoulder. Kuari's wings spread over him as the bird lovingly combed his beak through Darian's hair. :Hurts,: he hurred softly. :Hurts, but not alone.:
Darian sighed, his eyes closed. :I can't let it,: he told Kuari, receiving only a questioning thought in response. :I can't let it hurt. It's too important that we fix this.: Darian sighed again. :Don't worry about it, bird.: He continued aloud, "I'll deal with it later, when I have time. Now, we need to get back." He stood, tossing Kuari back into the air before making his way to the steps down the cliff side.
The city was quiet, even in the early evening, as Darian wound through the streets. He kept his eyes and his mind from the families around him by riding his mind with Kuari. Practice... He was going to need all he could get to be able to carry off the thought in his mind. Working with Firesong wasn't going to be like he was used to; heck, it was probably going to be closer to impossible than to easy. For all the time they're been here Darian had spent very little time with the other mage. He did get the feeling that Firesong didn't like him; which amused him, in a way that wasn't really amusing– that his teacher's younger self and his own mature self did not get along... and, though it was hard to tell behind the ageless Tayledras eyes, he was almost certain he was older than Firesong, and maybe older than Moondance as well. It made everything feel wrong, as if the chance to come back in time and warn his teacher about the future wasn't worth the wrongness of it. Keisha would have appreciated the strangeness of it, he thought, would have examined with him the possible actions he could take...
He slammed the thought back. He had to concentrate if he was going to get Firesong to believe him. He knew Firesong had always had a reputation for revolutionary magical theories, but he wasn't sure just how radical the man's younger self was. Such as, if he was into believing things that were supposed to be impossible when they were being told to him by someone he didn't like. How to begin...
He found Firesong in the garden with Nightsinger. He was familiar enough with Sunwolf's son to know his name but, narrowing his eyes at the pair in the dimly lit garden, he suddenly realized just how much like Silverfox the other man looked, and he felt oddly jealous on Silverfox's behalf- jealous for something that didn't truly exist yet for Firesong either, and so there was no reason for it.
And yet... would it exist? Would they change the past here, rewrite history? What happened when what they did altered the past just enough to nudge everything out of line- and all of the events of his life seemed suddenly balanced over a sharp precipice, ready to tumble away: that he never met Snowfire to become one of the Tayledras, that he was never taught by Firesong, that he never returned to Errold's Grove to find a young healer living in Justyn's old cottage.
But, as he watched, Firesong shrugged off Nightsinger's hand and stepped away from the other man. Darian took a deep breath as his grip on reality settled back from the edge of the precipice, but the headiness of it left him a bit giddy.
As he walked toward them he overheard Firesong say, "We have discussed this before. My opinion on the matter has not changed." He sounded tired, and far more patient than Darian would have given him credit for, having felt the short end of Firesong's temper on more than one occasion. But since the other mage seemed eager to be done with the conversation, Darian felt even less guilty about interrupting them.
"Firesong," he called as he walked toward them. "I"m sorry to interrupt," he leveled a steady-eyed stare at Nightsinger until the other man took a step backward. Darian shifted his gaze to Firesong. "But we need to talk."
Firesong rolled his eyes but made no sign that he wanted Darian to leave. "Oh really? What about?" He glanced away from Nightsinger significantly.
Darian took the lead and locked eyes with Nightsinger, holding the younger man's gaze until Nightsinger bowed slightly, mumbled an excuse, and walked away. "About how we're going to go to where Krawlven is," Darian answered evenly, turning to meet Firesong's incredulous gaze with a grin. "Come. We should find Moondance, and probably Amberdrake."
"Why stop there?" Firesong grumbled under his breath. "Why not invite the whole council? And in case the supposed traitor is not among them tonight, why don't we issue a citywide announcement of what we're doing, hmm?"
Darian laughed and walked off toward Moondance's room.
-o-
"It requires an even number of mages to work, to balance the power." Darian looked around at the group he and Firesong had gathered, spread around the large room they had ended up in; candlelight valiantly strove against the night but the cavernous space was hardly filled with light. By some coincidence, or other twist of fate, it was the same room in which the three future mages had first arrived in White Gryphon. Darian hoped it would now see them take the next step.
He leaned back, crouched on his heels. "We'd never tested it with so many people, or under circumstances like this." He met the eyes of Amberdrake, Moondance, Arek, Thyer, Sunwolf, and, lastly, Firesong.
Firesong leaned forward, his own expression eager as he worked through the idea Darian had just outlined. "But it does require very little actual magic unlike Gating, which is why you were able to make it work as you," he stumbled, "as we did, after the Mage Storms."
Darian grinned. "Yes. That is true. But," he glanced over at Amberdrake then around at the rest of the circle, "what I'm saying is I'm not sure it'll work here, in this place, and now," he paused for a moment, "without half the knowledge it took to make it work in the first place."
"Oh I don't know." Firesong frowned thoughtfully as he began absently sketching shapes on the floor in front of himself, examining them carefully as if they held great answers, and trying to fight the grin that pulled at the corner of his mouth. "I think it's less than half we're missing." Darian's own grin spread into a smirk which he tried to hide as well, given the solemnity of the situation. "And while I like the odds of having six of us to face whatever we find at the other end of our journey, I also would like to leave behind someone capable of formulating an alternate plan in case this doesn't go well."
Thyer frowned from where he was leaning on Sunwolf's chair, arms folded over the chair's back. "I thought that was why we were not involving Snowstar in this discussion."
"That is one reason, true," Sunwolf glanced back at Thyer. "But I agree with Firesong." His gaze returned to his fellow mages. "I would volunteer to remain behind if one of us must stay."
"That leaves you with an odd number,"Amberdrake observed, wondering why he had been chosen to be a part of this discussion.
:Does it? I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you boy.:
Darian saw Amberdrake jump, as he always did when Need spoke. Not that he could fault the man; the sword was damn uncanny. "You have something to add, Need?" The sword's presence and abilities had been revealed to the other mages, much to Need's exasperation.
Her response was more caustic than usual. :You need another mage to make it even? Well, I'm a mage. All I need is a body to carry me.:
Darian traded a glance with Firesong; Firesong did not seem adverse to the idea of Need getting as far away from him as possible. Darian let his eyes, along with those of others in the room, drift toward the sole non-mage present. Amberdrake looked hesitant but thoughtful. Darian frowned; the success of this mission was seriously up for debate. He wasn't sure he wanted to rob the city of one of its leaders in a time preceding a crisis, not to mention Amberdrake's family. Though he wasn't going to deny the man if he wanted to be a part of the experiment, and there was also the matter of Amberdrake being male- it was likely he would not be able to make full use of the sword's abilities, but... Need had made the offer and Darian wondered how picky she would be about the probable lack of candidates they would have. It was far more likely they would have to leave behind another mage to make it even.
:I do like shaking that boy up,: Need murmured with humor in Darian's head and he could tell that these words were only for him. :He's far too serious. I'm guessing he, for one, doesn't take me up on the offer; magic like this is not his arena. And I think he's a little scared of me. I don't suppose there are any other likely candidates you can think of? If you've a better one, I'm all ears.:
Darian snorted at that final mental image. :I'm sure you are Need.:
"I wonder if I am not the best candidate for such an undertaking," Amberdrake was saying to the eyes that were on him when Darian returned his mind to the conversation.
Firesong was about to answer him when the door was thrust open. Skandranon and Zhaneel entered, the Black Gryphon looking slightly chagrined while his mate held her head high with a certain stubbornness. She cast her eyes around the room. "I am going with you," she said, her voice clear and firm.
The room was silent for a moment. "Not that we won't welcome your company," Firesong managed to edge in first, his voice deceptively silken, "but why the sudden interest? And how do you know we're going anywhere, for that matter?"
Skandranon leaned back to groom his beak through the feathers on her neck in encouragement as Zhaneel spoke. "I had a dream. A vision." She shifted her feet. "Though I have never before seen her, the Star-Eyed appeared to me in all her glory." The room's silence took on an awed air as Zhaneel ducked her head humbly. "She told me that I was to bear the mage-sword Need into battle with Ma'ar."
Darian thought many of the same objections that he would have raised for Amberdrake applied to Zhaneel as well... Also, Skandranon himself was a mage and might round out their company even better than Need. But it was hard to argue with a direct summons from the Star-Eyed. Darian exchanged glances with Arek, who looked surprised but not altogether shocked. "Ma'ar?"
Skan grumbled. "Yes Ma'ar. Is there anyone who doesn't know by now?"
:Gryphons are inherently magical creatures,: Need said; as always, she ignored everything that was going on to cut straight to the root of the issue. :That should make our association fairly pleasurable. As long as you watch your claws, girly.:
Unable to pinpoint a source toward which to direct her glare, Zhaneel shot it toward the whole group, mantling slightly. "As soon as you watch your tongue, old woman."
:Oh, I like her,: Need said to Darian again, and Darian wondered why the sword was singling him out. His gaze rested briefly on Firesong, and Need answered him herself. :Your little revelation has certainly stirred him up a bit. There's enough talking going on his head, he doesn't need to hear anything else from me.: Was it just Darian or did she sound... regretful? :Lucky you, the bearer of bad news gets stuck with the voice of reason in his head. Still glad you said something?:
Her tone was jocular, but Darian sensed some real bite behind her attempt at humor. :Yes,: he responded truthfully. :It was something I had to say. I'm sorry though if it has strained things between you.:
:Oh don't give yourself too much credit.: He felt a sensation similar to someone shuffling their feet. :He's been out of sorts since we got here.: There was a pause. :You know, there is no greater energy for salvation than that of a mother.: It took Darian a moment to realize that Need had switched conversation topics.
:Zhaneel? You think she will be that integral to what we need to do?:
Need seemed to shrug. :I'm not sure; that kind of sight is not one of my gifts. But your Goddess seems to think so and if this crack team you've put together can't do it, no one can.: She paused. :If that damned traitor doesn't get us first.:
Darian sighed, rubbing his temples. :Always the optimist, aren't we?:
:Got that right.:
-o-
Moondance settled the hastily adapted sword-harness across Zhaneel's shoulders, Need's scabbard falling between her shoulder blades and down the middle of her back. Zhaneel had designed the harness herself, in the days of the war, to help her carry useful instruments; it was simple enough to add a few ties to hold the length of the sword's scabbard. She spread her wings and reared up, testing the range of motion of all her limbs and finding them not hampered. She reached her forearm back and drew the sword, her hand-like claws grasping the hilt easily. She chuckled at something Need said to her before she returned the sword to its place, fixing the flap that would hold the sword safely in its scabbard during whatever aerial maneuvers Zhaneel felt needed to be undertaken. She nodded and turned to Moondance. "I am ready."
He nodded in response. "Darian and Firesong are still talking, but we will be leaving as soon as they are done." For most of those going on this trip there was little to gather to bring with them, since they had brought so little with them to this city in the first place. A hertasi was feeding the birds, and small but compact packs of weapons and supplies had been put together for each human to carry. Only Thyer, Zhaneel, and Arek were leaving anything behind in White Gryphon, and neither Thyer nor Arek had any close family.
Three days... Was that how long it had been since they arrived? They had been days too full to be so few, Moondance thought to himself. And for all that he ached for his own home, and the things he had left in it, this city was not a bad place to risk himself to defend.
Zhaneel, beside him, butted her head gently against Moondance. "You seem well enough for one headed into possible death."
He grinned wryly. "I have lost enough of late that the potential to lose more is acceptable, if it comes with the chance to gain something back. And you? You seem anxious, for the tried and tested soldier which I know that you are."
She turned her head away and made a small, indecisive sound in her throat. "It has been many years since the war. I wonder if I have grown rusty in my skills and I am... jumping at shadows. I am not sure of why I must come with you, only that I must."
Moondance put his arms around her neck comfortingly. "That the Star-Eyed has taken such an interest is a favorable sign, I believe, for the mission's success. As for why it must be you," he murmured in her ear, smiling easily, "that is because you are a warrior without peer and without you we would be lost."
She snorted disbelievingly, then head-butted him again in good humor. "Why thank you, mage. Now, I must go bid my mate farewell. I do not know how he will manage without my peerless self."
Moondance laughed. "Go on then, off with you."
Zhaneel picked her way across the room to where Skandranon stood beside Sunwolf, listening to Firesong and Darian. He looked up from the conversation as soon as she approached and the pair of them slipped out past the restless mages, down the hall to a wide window and out into the night sky. Zhaneel leapt into the air, spreading her wings and catching a thermal, rising up over the city. She glanced down coyly at her mate; he had followed her into the sky but was content for the moment to continue following her and admiring the view. She chuckled, wheeling through the air, relishing in the feel of it against her feathers. She felt the touch of Need in the back of her mind as the sword enjoyed the experience of flying for the first time, first hand through the mind connection with Zhaneel.
Wheeling above the cliff, Zhaneel landed lightly, Skan landing neatly beside her. He turned to her and lay his head across her shoulder, sighing. "I know you must go; we have already discussed it. Just know that there will be nothing left of me when you return- after putting up with those two scoundrels you call our children."
She huffed good-naturedly, but did not retort. As light as they would try to make of it, neither of them wanted this parting. "I will return," she said firmly, "and you will be here."
He leaned back, looking at her. "Yes," he replied simply. "Come. I found what you were looking for earlier." He lead the way back to their cave. The children were gone, at Kechara's nursery being watched over by Cafri, and the dwelling was dark, but Skandranon moved surely through the darkness to a trunk by the wall. He pulled out something and brought it to Zhaneel as she waited near the door. In the moonlight she saw what it was.
"You found my claws." The old giddiness was rising in her as she fit the fighting claws over the backs of her hands, fisting her own claws so that the razor sharp lengths of steel curved outward, even longer than the claws of the broadwings.
"If I send my mate into battle without me at her side," Skandranon groused, "it will be with every weapon the makaar learned to fear."
Zhaneel felt her own history and present come together: she could almost feel dead makaar falling from her grip as she flew the patrols and missions Urtho had trusted to her during the war, and she could see her sons' shed feathers dancing in a swirl of wind in the dark room behind her; she was filled with the heat of the first rush of infatuation she had felt for Skandranon, and she felt it subside to the constant, comfortable burn that was the years they had shared together. She preened her mate's crest. "I wish you were coming, too."
He sighed. "That makes two of us."
They lay together on the ridge looking down over the sleeping city for awhile longer, relishing each moment.
-o-
Darian looked up to see Firesong standing by the window, looking out over the darkened city. Their discussion had ended but Darian walked over to him now, seeing the other mage shiver as a cool wind blew over him. Firesong glanced at Darian, murmuring, "Does time stop everywhere when one has been drawn out of it? If not, the Mage Storms have torn apart my time by now."
Darian shivered in his own turn. "I wonder," he whispered, looking out at the dark night. He paused for a long moment. "Keisha will be worried for me." His hands curled tightly into fists and he bit back a sob. "I... have fought to keep myself from thinking of her." His eyes closed. "Because to think of her, of her not being here, makes it real." He could see her now, her hair flying about her face, her smile as she welcomed him home, the warm glow of her skin as she lay beside him.
"How does that make it any more or less real than anything else?" Firesong's sardonic voice shocked Darian out of his reverie. "To speak her name changes nothing about the world." His expression was shadowed as he leaned out of the window, a breeze catching and rippling through the length of his hair. "She is still as absent from you as Starwind is from Moondance, and you feel it just as deeply though the wound does not cut you to your soul."
Darian breathed in, slowly. "True enough."
Firesong turned toward him, silver eyes glinting in the light from the room behind Darian. He turned away abruptly, turning back to the night sky. "It was a good thought of yours, to remember this idea we had. I wonder, now that I already know of it will I still remember it when I meet you again for the first time? Perhaps this was none of mine to begin with, hmm? Perhaps the invention is yours solely."
Darian shook his head; pulling his mind away from Keisha was difficult and he was angry that Firesong didn't seem to understand how much being without her affected him. Over the years of being a diplomatic figure between so many groups of people, he had grown used to being calm, especially in tense situations, but in many ways Firesong had been a steady presence in his life and he found suddenly that he was pushed beyond his limit by the man's deliberate irritation. "If you want to give me all the credit I am too wearied of arguing at this point to debate yet something else with you, never mind this supremely un-Firesong-like behavior." He turned away, back to the room, but the sound of laughter made him stop.
"Come now," Firesong admonished him. "You know as well as I we needed to discuss the relative points of comparison between the scouts' accounts of the geography, not to mention dividing the process equally between all participants." He turned away from the window finally, completely- as if leaving more than the window- and looked at Darian searchingly. "I was simply musing on the paradox of time, and attempting to divert your attention from your absent lady."
Darian sighed, feeling tension wash out of him with the exhaled breath. "Perhaps," he said after a moment, "we will find that time is indeed no paradox at all and it is only created now that we are drawn out of it." His voice was light, musing as well, but after a moment his facade crumbled and he buried his face in his hands. "Of us all, I alone have no future reference, no assurance that there is something in the world beyond what I have already lived. No promise at all that this will work. What if this is the end of... of everything?"
Firesong touched his arm reassuringly, then reached up and smacked him across the back of the head.
"Ow, dammit!" Darian glared at him. "What purpose did that serve?!"
"Purpose?" Firesong questioned with mock innocence. "Why I should think it obvious." He walked away, laughing.
-o-
Arek felt a strange sensation of peace wash over him as he watched Darian drawing out the diagram and arranging the six players in their places with occasional comments from Firesong. Peace like as he had not felt since before his first vision of this coming evil, and, while his recent vision was still an echo in the back of his mind, it was more of a possibility rather than a certainty. To him the future appeared in ways like this, ways of likelihood and probability, of strong implausibility and near undeniability.
He glanced to where Sunwolf stood to the side, talking softly with Amberdrake and the newly arrived Snowstar, the three of them outside the form Darian was drawing. Curiously enough- or perhaps not so- they were in the same room that had been the setting of the original spell, when Arek's vision, along with Thyer's and Sunwolf's, had called the future mages to White Gryphon's need. The location made Arek's mind drift, reflecting on things past, and the mutability of the future. The past... held darkness and sorrow for so many already; his eyes again drifted to Sunwolf before darting over to rest on Thyer. But if their future was another's past, what did that say for its mutability? He sighed; these thoughts were too deep and Darian had taken his place in the form. It was time.
-o-
Darian stood at the apex of the hexagram and looked across to Firesong. Nodding his readiness, Darian closed his eyes and dove into himself. Kuari hurred quietly from his shoulder.
He walked the dark half roads of the world between worlds. He was the night walker, slipping along the edge of the void between all things, and he focused his mind. He remembered what he had learned from the Northern mages, their intrinsically different approach to magic than what he had been taught. He reached out around the circle they made and found the brightness that was Firesong, brushing against it. Firesong recognized him, opened to him, and shared the fruit of his own walkings; the Firecats moved as though Gating but without Gates, when there could be no Gates. The truth of the method was divine but the ability needed merely the knowledge that it could be so. The knowledge... and the power. Slowly they reached out to the other four in the circle, bringing them in to the knowledge. Each shared some of his- her, he felt the sting of Need- own power, feeding the form, from the tattered ley lines of the world, and so together they wove a net around the group, a web of connecting strands.
Darian took a deep breath and reached out to the dark half road between here and there and pulled himself toward it.
-o-
One moment five men and a gryphon stood equidistant around a rough circle. The next moment, they were gone.
Amberdrake blinked. Skan ground his beak softly.
"Not like Gating at all," Sunwolf murmured appreciatively as he stepped forward to examine where the others had stood. "Rather ingenious."
Snowstar chuckled. "I expect no less from those the Star-Eyed entrusted with our survival."
Amberdrake sighed. "Far be it for me to doubt the divine, but let us hope that Her trust was well placed."
-o-
