Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

  9

  ~

  A MOTHER’S VENGEANCE

  At first, Sharalind wished that people would just leave her alone. That was the worst of being a Wizard. Everyone in the city had felt her son’s passing. Everyone was shocked, stunned and grieving, and so they all believed that they shared in her own heartbreak, her own horror, her anger, despair and desperation – yet how could they?

  Only she had lost a son.

  Their well-meaning attempts to take care of her, to comfort and cheer her, were as nothing in the face of that bleak and agonising truth, and all Sharalind wanted was to be left alone – but that was not to be. In Cyran’s absence she found she had inherited his mantle as Archwizard, and gained a spurious authority over the inhabitants of Tyrineld. People, anxious and uncertain, kept on coming to her, interrupting her grieving with an endless string of questions. ‘What shall we do about . . . ?’ ‘May we . . . ?’ ‘Should we . . . ?’ She had tried in vain to refer them to the Heads of Luens; they just kept on arriving in an endless stream. Sanction this, forbid that, advise on the other, until she wanted to scream at them to go away.

  Even the mortals wouldn’t leave her in peace. The domestic staff who cared for the Archwizard and his soulmate, and the tower in which they lived, were usually an unobtrusive background fixture, going about their work quietly and efficiently without drawing much attention to themselves. Since yesterday – had this desolate eternity really only lasted such a short time? – they had rallied round Sharalind, showing a care and concern that was surprisingly sincere. Though they still said little – for above all, they knew their place – they had gone out of their way to make everything comfortable for her, trying to anticipate her every need with dogged persistence that defied every scolding and rebuff. Sharalind was very touched by their loyalty, but frankly, they were beginning to drive her crazy.

  She pushed away the tray of food they had left for her, allowing the slices of roast chicken and perfectly cooked vegetables to grow cold on the plate. Even the bowl of freshly picked peaches failed to tempt her. She poured herself a cup of taillin and wandered restlessly across to the window, but there was no pleasure in the dazzling ocean and the golden sunlit day.

  It didn’t seem right. There should be gales, hailstones, thunder and lightning now that Avithan was gone, and she was all alone – for Sharalind did feel alone. Having sent one pathetic message to say that Avithan had been slain by the Phaerie, Cyran had remained away in the forest, desperately trying to find some kind of excuse, or scapegoat, for his own reckless folly in sending those inexperienced young people out into such peril, against the advice and wishes of their mothers. As far as Sharalind was concerned, he was wasting his time. There was not, nor ever could be, any form of mitigation for what he had done, and she would never forgive him as long as she lived.

  Even her best friend Zybina was estranged from her now, though at first, when both Avithan and Iriana appeared to be dead, they had been united in their grief and a great support to one another. But yesterday evening Zybina’s daughter had, by some miracle, been resurrected, and though Sharalind could tell herself until she was blue in the face that she was wrong to begrudge her friend’s good fortune, it did not make her feel any less resentful. Her son, her true-born child, was dead while Zybina’s girl, not even her own but some miserable little foundling brat from who knew where, had survived.

  Why has her child, a mere foster child at that, been saved, and not mine?

  She had found it impossible to forgive her friend’s good fortune. Furthermore Yinze, Zybina’s son, had returned from the lands of the Skyfolk, and was there to comfort her and grieve with her.

  She still has a son, but mine is dead. It isn’t fair!

  Though Sharalind despised herself for such a mean-spirited attitude, the jealousy snarled and gnawed within her like some trapped beast, and would not be denied, and her bitterness had driven an instant wedge between herself and her former friend.

  She had often heard it said that there was no worse grief than to lose a child, that it left an indelible scar upon the heart that could never, ever be healed. She had sympathised with parents in such dreadful straits, had even thought she knew how they must be feeling, but oh, how little she had truly understood!

  She had never expected the anger.

  Sharalind was filled, consumed, ablaze with a fulminating wrath: a rage, a fury that wanted to strike out at the entire world. At every helpful idiot who told her that time was a great healer, all those well-meaning morons who insisted that everything happens for a reason. At Zybina, whose child had been saved, at Iriana, for being the survivor, at Cyran, who had sent her son out to die – but most of all, at the vile, filthy, evil Phaerie, who had taken Avithan’s life.

  They must be made to pay.

  Until this point, the thought of revenge had never crossed Sharalind’s mind. She had been too busy grieving, railing against fate, and trying to adjust to the vacancy that now existed where her beloved son had laughed and loved. Now, suddenly, her mind felt lucid and focused, with a purpose and a clear goal in its sights. She stood, gazing out of the tower window across the city, her eyes fixed on the distant walls of the Luen of Warriors, who’d been exiled and, whenever possible, ignored and slighted by her peace-loving soulmate. Weak Cyran. Stupid Cyran. Well, let him stumble around in the forest, groping desperately for some kind of absolution. What use was that?

  For Sharalind, tears were no longer enough. She wanted to bathe in Phaerie blood. Would the specious authority, unwanted and unasked for, that she had gained in the Archwizard’s absence be enough to get her the revenge she craved?

  First of all, she needed the support of the Heads of the Luens. Though she knew for certain that not all of them would agree – Tinagen of the healers, for example, was bound to be a problem – she hoped to get enough of them on her side to sway the matter. For certain she could count on Omaira, Esmon’s successor as Head of the Warriors, and probably Galiena, the new Head of the Spellweavers. Both of them were fiercely angered by the loss of their leaders, and must be longing for vengeance. Lanrion, Head of the Nurturers, Iriana’s Luen, might be a little more difficult. Though he ought to feel the same as the other two, the wanton destruction of life was utterly abhorrent to his kind, and besides, Iriana had not been killed, though goodness only knew what had happened to her, and whether or not she would be the same after the experience remained to be seen.

  As far as the rest were concerned: well, she would simply have to wait and see . . . But she would be exerting all her considerable powers of persuasion.

  Sharalind sat down by the window and began to send out messages in mindspeech to all the Heads of the Luens. That night, when the day’s work was done and all was quiet, they would meet here in the tower. They all consented with alacrity; some, she knew, out of curiosity, but all of them out of willingness to be of service to the Archwizard’s grieving soulmate. She took that as a good sign.

  By the time everything was settled, the sun was setting and it was growing cool by the window. As she walked across to the fire, Sharalind’s eye fell once again on the tray of discarded food on the table, and suddenly, for the first time since she had felt Avithan’s death the previous morning, she was ravenously hungry. Though the gravy and vegetables had congealed into a greasy, soggy mass and the slices of chicken were stone cold and hardening around the edges, she sat down at the table and fell to, devouring every bite. She had a purpose now: a war to plan. If Cyran tried to put obstacles in her path, he must be dealt with.

  No matter what it took, no matter what the cost, Sharalind wanted vengeance.

  Unfortunately, as the meeting unfolded, it soon became clear that most of the Luen Heads did not agree.

  ‘You must be completely out of your mind, and we’d be out of ours if we went along with this arrant folly.’ Tinagen, never noted for his tact, had been the first to voice what the others were clearly thinking. Sharalind, seated at the head of the long council table, sig
hed wearily and pushed her hair back from her forehead. Persuading these hard-headed idiots had been every bit as difficult as she had expected. Even Galiena had proved to be a disappointment. ‘All the Spellweavers mourn Avithan,’ she had said. ‘He was not only our leader but our friend, and we are grieved and angered by his death. We have discussed it among ourselves, however, and the majority of us cannot believe that he would choose this precipitate path of war. In the end he might fight, but he would not wish to risk our people without a great deal more information and planning than you require, Sharalind. It is with deep regret, therefore, that I must say no.’

  Omaira, however, had come down firmly on her side and, to her surprise, Vaidel of the Bards, the youngest of the Luen Heads now that Avithan had gone. He had turned out to be more of a hothead than she had realised, his head filled with images of glory, heroism and victory from all the old tales and ballads he had studied.

  But it’s the victors who write the history and the songs.

  Sharalind, as an archivist, knew that unfortunate truth all too well, and could not suppress the chill that ran through her at the thought. She was older than Vaidel, and supposedly wiser: should she really be pursuing this dangerous course? Firmly she pushed such uncomfortable notions away. Avithan must be avenged, and she would find a way to accomplish it with or without the aid of these snivelling cowards.

  At length Aldyth, Head of the Academy and the Luen of Academics, her oldest friend – or so she had believed – whose support she’d been counting on, pushed his chair back with a sigh of regret and rose to his feet. ‘Sharalind, I’m sorry, more sorry than I can say, but we must oppose this plan to make war upon the Phaerie. It simply cannot be. Just now you’re grieving, with very good cause. You’ve lost your only child, and that’s a crushing blow to any mother. No one knows better than I what it is to lose a loved one. It has been more than a century since my soulmate died, and I still miss her every single day. But I learned to endure, to live with, and finally to conquer my grief, and believe me, so will you. You are strong, Sharalind. Stronger than you know. You have the deepest sympathy of everyone in this room, and we would all go out of our way to help ease your pain and sorrow – but not through this. Not through war. Especially not a war without planning, preparation, information and forethought. You are acting impulsively now, and not thinking straight. Wait a while, my dear. A little while won’t matter.’

  He spoke gently, coaxingly, as if to a recalcitrant child – an image that was reinforced because he was standing and she was sitting down, so that he towered over her. Sharalind clenched her fists beneath the table and gritted her teeth, then stood up to face him. ‘I think you have said enough,’ she said coldly. ‘More than enough to show me that you are not the friend I thought you were.’

  ‘I am your friend, my dear, as I have always been,’ Aldyth said gently, ‘and that is why I do not wish you to embark on this reckless path. Give us all more time, I beg you. Even in a few days things may seem very different, but once you set this conflict in motion there will be no going back, not for anyone in the city. Would you really wish so many other mothers in Tyrineld to be grieving as you are now? All I ask is that you wait long enough to think, plan, send out scouts and spies, and gather intelligence. Then, if war still seems the wisest course to you – well, we can always reconsider.’

  A rapid glance at the grim, closed faces around the table was enough to tell Sharalind that she would never persuade enough of them. Though they all sympathised with her in her loss, they dismissed her plans as nothing but a rash act stemming from her anger and grief.

  Are they right? Would I know? Could I tell? Am I making a terrible mistake?

  Resolutely, Sharalind shut off the treacherous, invasive inner voice. Could it be right to allow the Phaerie to kill Wizards without any repercussions? Could it be wrong to avenge her son?

  Then she looked across the table and saw the furious glint in Omaira’s eyes, and the bitter twist to Vaidel’s mouth. She had support. There was still hope. She turned to the others with a semblance of regret. She did not have to feign the anger. ‘Very well. If that is your decision, then so it must be. If you will not support me, I cannot proceed without your cooperation. You are all dismissed – but not with my thanks. No – say no more.’ She lifted a forestalling hand as Aldyth was about to speak. ‘I do not wish to hear more of your useless platitudes. Leave me now.’

  As the others trailed from the room, she caught Omaira’s eye, and nodded, almost imperceptibly, towards Vaidel, addressing them in the most private mode of mindspeech. ‘Return at midnight. We have plans to make.’

  In the blackest depths of the night, while the city slept, Sharalind worked out a different strategy with Omaira and Vaidel. By the next day, in the taverns, the marketplaces, the gathering halls and even the street corners, there were Bards singing songs of battle and glory, honour and revenge. By the day after that, Tyrineld was buzzing. When a race could communicate in mindspeech, news and conjecture could spread like wildfire. Since Esmon’s death, thoughts of a possible conflict had been in everyone’s mind and now, as rumours of impending hostilities spread, everyone was talking war.

  Everywhere, opinions were polarising. Debate raged on all sides. The young, the rash and hot-headed; those whose pride had been bruised by the cowardly attack on the Wizardly emissaries and those who were afraid that this would only be the start of Phaerie depredations if they were not stopped now, all came down firmly on the side of Sharalind. Others, more thoughtful or studious, patient or cautious, looked back to the lessons of history. Battle between the wielders of magical power was always a terrible and destructive thing. But their arguments for patience, for diplomacy and for caution fell on deaf ears.

  Conflict grew within the city. Luens were fracturing. Families were sundered and friendships lost or stretched to near-breaking. Soulmates quarrelled bitterly. Some folk, seeing which way the wind was blowing, began buying up quantities of supplies and commodities, and as panic spread, markets, the merchants and the artisans found themselves besieged. Increasing numbers of Wizards, no matter what their Luen affiliations, headed to the once-neglected Luen of Warriors, begging to be trained in offensive and defensive magic, and Omaira, with a fierce grin on her face and a triumphant gleam in her eye, was accepting them all.

  The Heads of the Luens, all excepting Omaira and Vaidel, watched these developments in horror, and vainly tried to stem the groundswell of belligerence among their members, but they found dissenters on every side, even among their own ranks. When they tried to take their complaints and concerns to Sharalind, however, they discovered that she had made herself inaccessible. No one, it seemed, knew exactly where she was, she had blocked off all attempts at mindspeech, and there was no way of getting a message to her. The Luen Heads suspected that she might be hiding in the Warriors’ fortresslike compound, but there was no way, short of the very violence they eschewed, of finding out.

  Then, late that afternoon of the second day since the council, matters took a more sinister turn. Galiena of the Spellweavers and Callia of the Merchants suddenly found themselves voted out of office and replaced with new, pro-war Heads, which meant that now the Luens were equally divided; half of the eight supporting Sharalind and half against. Time was running out for the remaining objectors. How much longer could they last?

  10

  ~

  MASQUERADE

  Chiannala loved the view from her window. Though the older Wizards and senior students at the Academy were given the largest rooms, with stunning views of the bays and ocean, she was more than satisfied with her own tiny cubicle that overlooked the city. Tyrineld, the focus of her dearest dreams and hopes, lay below her, gleaming like a pearl in the sunshine, and Chiannala loved to look out at the flower-decked balconies and the brightly robed Wizards – who could have guessed that there would be so many Wizards in the world? – striding or sauntering along the busy streets.

  She had no wish to look at the cliffs and the
ocean. She wanted no reminder of Brynne, the girl whose appearance she had stolen and whose life she had usurped. She did not want to think of the terrible deed she had done to make her most desperate wish, to train as a Wizard, come true.

  Brynne was dead now. Drowned, or killed by the fall from the cliffs after Chiannala had pushed her. Dwelling on it wouldn’t bring her back. Only in the darkness of her nightmares, night after night, did the ghost of the girl return to haunt her.

  Chiannala turned away from the window and gazed around her cubicle, letting her lasting delight in the tiny room drive away her uncomfortable thoughts. The cramped space allotted to first-year students was spartan and workmanlike, crammed with a narrow bed, a desk with a hard wooden chair, and a chest for belongings. One wall had hooks for hanging robes and cloaks. One was lined with shelves to hold books, scrolls, writing materials, and any other paraphernalia, such as scrying crystals or healing herbs, that a spellcrafter might use in their work. And work they did, their teachers pushing them unmercifully to reach their fullest potential. Even in these first few days, while their tutors had been assessing the direction in which their talents lay and the range and depth of their abilities, the hours had been gruelling. The strain of stretching herself to extend the limit of her powers and work unfamiliar magic was exhausting, but Chiannala had never been so happy. She throve on the challenges, and loved every minute of her training, voraciously devouring every new scrap of knowledge, and practising every new skill far into the night.

  It helped to distract her from the strange and unsettled atmosphere that pervaded the Academy, upsetting and puzzling the older students and the teachers, for the first-year class had come to Tyrineld at a very difficult time for its inhabitants. Several days after she first arrived, everyone had felt the death of Esmon followed, only yesterday, by the passing of Avithan and Iriana. Everyone save Chiannala. Even living in Nexis, there had been the occasional Wizard death, so she already knew that the ability to feel the passing of one of her own kind had not come down to her through her tainted blood. Here at the Academy, however, she had been forced to dissemble as she never had before, for such strong emotions were difficult to feign.