Winds Of Change v(mw-2 Read online

  "I heard that," he protested.

  "I meant you to." Skif grinned, and the grin turned into a yawn. Wintermoon caught it, and pointed an admonishing finger at him.

  "We still have work ahead of us, and that work requires rest. As you both know." He spread out his bedroll by way of making an example, and climbed into it. "Stars light your path, Wingsibs," he said pointedly, and made a show of turning on his side and closing his eyes. "Wyrsa have no respect for crisis of conscience." Well, that about sums the evening up, he thought as he rolled out his own bedroll and crawled into its warmth. And then he thought nothing more, for sleep crept up and ambushed him.

  *Chapter Six - Nyara and Need

  Nyara slicked back her sweat-soaked hair, hardly feeling the cold as the chill breeze dried her scalp. She licked salt from her lips and crouched in the shelter of the bushes for a moment, surveying the open expanse of cracked and crazed pavement that kept the forest from encroaching on the foot of her tower. Though the stones were fragmented, even melted in places, they must have been incredibly thick, for nothing but grass grew in the cracks. It looked similar in construction to the ruins around the gryphons' home, though the tower's age and makers were unknown to her.

  There was no sign of anything waiting for her, but she had learned to leave subtle telltales, things easily disturbed by interlopers. The "random" lines of gravel, for instance; not so random, and placed so that one or more of them would be scuffed by anyone crossing the paving.

  The faint threads of shields that would vanish if breached-or, just as importantly, if even touched by a mage's probing. With her feeble command of magic, she could scarcely hope to build a shield that would hide her presence from a greater mage, so she didn't even try. Instead, she concentrated on things that would let her know if she had been discovered, so that she had the time to run and hide somewhere else.

  But once again, her refuge seemed secure; the threads were still in place, the pavement clear. Nevertheless, she stayed in the shelter of the evergreen bushes, and sent a careful probe up into the heart of her shelter.

  Well?" That was all she Mindsent. Anything more could reveal her location to lurkers. There were creatures-some of them her father's-that were nothing more than compasses for the thoughts of those who could Mindspeak. Normally only the one Spoken to could Hear, but these creatures could Hear everything, and could follow the thoughts of a Mindspeaker from leagues away.

  "All's clear," came the gravelly reply. "Come on up, kitten. I trust you had good hunting." Now she relaxed; nothing got past her teacher. "Quite good," she replied shortly. "No visitors?"

  "None," came the answer :Unless you count our daily cleanup committee.: She would have worried if they hadn't shown up. Anything bad enough to frighten off a vulture was a serious threat indeed. "I'm coming up," she Sent, and only then arose from her shelter, pushing through the bushes and trotting out into the open-as always, with a thrill of fear at leaving her back exposed to the forest, where someone else could be lurking.

  She padded quickly across the paving, taking care to avoid her own traps. The less she had to redo in the morning, the sooner she would be able to get out to hunt. The sooner she got out to hunt, the more practice she would have. She was under no illusions about her hunting successes; the colder the weather grew, the scarcer the game would become, and the harder it would be for her to catch it. She had never truly hunted for her meals before this, and was no expert. She was lucky; lucky that game was so abundant here, and lucky that she was getting practice now, while it was abundant, and a miss was not nearly so serious as it would be later in the winter.

  The wall of her tower loomed up before her, the mellowed gray of weathered granite. The tower had that look about it of something intended to defend against all comers. She took the neck of the pheasant she had caught in her teeth, and set her finger- and toe-claws into the stone, and began climbing. The scent of the fresh-killed bird just under her nose made her mouth water. just as well there had been no blood, or she would have been in a frenzy of hunger.

  As she climbed, it occurred to her that it was not going to be pleasant, if indeed possible, to make the climb in winter. Ice, snow, or sleet would make the rock slippery; cold would numb her hands and feet.

  The prospect daunted her.

  Well, no point in worrying about it now; truly dismal weather was still a few weeks off, and anyway, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment. Not while she was clinging to sheer stone, three stories above the pavement, with another to go.

  Perhaps a ladder, like the Tayledras outside the Vale use for their treehouses.

  True, she did not have a bird to let the ladder down for her, or to hide the line that pulled it up, but she had magic. Not much, but she was learning to use every bit of what she had, and use it cleverly. A bit of magic could take the end of such a ladder up, and drop it down again when she returned.

  So many trips up and down that stone had taught her where all the holds were, and now she didn't even need to think about where she was putting her hands and feet. This was the most vulnerable moment in her day-this, and the opposite trip in the morning. There was a staircase up the inside of the tower, but although it looked sound, appearance was very deceptive. It was, in fact, one more of her traps and defenses, and anyone chancing it would find himself taking a two- or three-story drop to the ground, depending on how far he got before the weakened stone gave way beneath him.

  But then, she privately thought that anyone trusting his weight to an unproven stair-in a ruined tower, no less-probably deserved what he found.

  Her mind wandered off on its own, planning lightweight ladders and imagining what she might use to make them, discarding idea after idea.

  She came to the conclusion that she might be trying to make things a little too elaborate; after all, by virtue of her breeding she was a much better climber than the best of the Tayledras. A simple, knotted rope might serve her better.

  At that point, her hand encountered the open space of her window, and she grasped the sill with both hands, and hauled herself up and over the stone slab. She swung her legs inside and dropped down to the floor, crouching there for a moment. She took the pheasant out of her mouth and grinned, as her teacher and weapon growled in her mind "I hate it when you do that. You look like a cat that's just caught someone's pet bird."

  "But it is not a pet bird, Need," she replied pertly. "It is my dinner."

  "So is the pet bird for the cat," the sword said, "But nobody ever asks the bird how it feels about the situation." She sat down cross-legged on the bare stone of the floor, and began industriously plucking her catch. "If it gets caught, it deserves to get eaten," she told the sword.

  "You stole that from the Hawkbrothers." Need accused.

  She shrugged." So? That does not make it less true. And like all Hawkbrother sayings, it is double-edged. If it gets caught, it deserves to be eaten-to be appreciated, used entirely and with respect, and not robbed of something stupid, like a tail-feather, and discarded as useless.

  I honor my kill, and I am grateful that I caught it. If it has a soul, I hope that soul finds a welcome reward." Need had nothing to say in reply to that. Nyara smiled, knowing that 'no comment" was usually a compliment of sorts.

  She put the best of the feathers aside; the large, well-formed ones she would use to fletch arrows, the rest would go to stuff her carefully-tanned rabbit hides. Need had been teaching her a great deal; she had come to this tower with nothing but a knife she had filched from Skif and the sword. Now she had clothing made from the hides of animals she had caught; a bed of furs from the same source, with pillows of fur stuffed with feathers on a thick pallet of cured grasses. And that was not all; over in the corner were the bow and arrows Need had taught her to make and was teaching her to use. Need had already taught her the skills of the sling she had used to take this pheasant.

  The sword had also unbent enough to conjure-or steal by magic-a few other things for her, things she could
n't make herself. Not many, but they were important possessions; a firestarter, four pots, three waterskins and a bucket, one spoon, a second knife, and a coil of rope.

  The latter was precious and irreplaceable; she had used it only to haul heavy game and her water up the side of her tower.

  "Are you going to eat that raw?" Need demanded. She licked her lips thoughtfully; she was very hungry and had been considering doing just that. But the way the question had been phrased-and the fact that her teacher had asked the question at all-made her pause.

  "Why?" she asked. "Is there something wrong with that?" If the sword could have moved, it would have shrugged. "Not intrinsically," Need replied. "But it gives the impression that you are more beast than human. that is not the impression we are trying to give." Nyara did not trouble to ask just who would be there to observe her.

  True, there was no one except herself and her mentor at the moment, but she sensed that Need did not intend either of them to be hidden away in the wilderness forever.

  She doesn't want me to seem more beast than human. Need had been trying to reverse the physical changes Nyara's father had made to her; now she had an inkling of why. Need wanted to make her look Less like an animal. Perhaps she should have been offended when that thought occurred to her, and she was, in a way, but rather than making her angry with Need, it made her angry at her father. He was the one who had made so many changes to her body and mind that Need had been incoherent with rage for days upon discovering them. He was the "father" that had made her into a warped slave, completely in thrall to him, often unable even to act in her own defense.

  Need had done her best to reverse those changes; some she had, but they were all internal. There was no mistaking her origin; the slitted eyes alone shouted "Changechild." If the world saw a beast-the world would kill the beast. It was not fair, but very little in Nyara's life had ever been fair. At least this was understandable. Predictable.

  Mornelithe Falconsbane had never been that, ever.

  No one was here to see her now except Need, but when she finished plucking the pheasant, instead of tearing off a limb and devouring it raw as her stomach demanded, she gutted and cleaned it as neatly as any Tayledras hunter or hertasi cook, and set it aside.

  She tried not to think about how loud her stomach was complaining as she uncovered the coals in her firepit and fed them twigs until she had a real flame. Once she had a fire, she spitted her catch, and made a token effort to sear it.

  Once the outer skin had been crisped, she lost all patience; she seized the spit and the bird, and began gnawing.

  Need made an odd little mental sound, and Nyara had the impression that she had winced, but the sword said nothing, and Nyara ignored her in favor of satisfying her hunger.

  But when she had finished, sucking each bone clean and neatly licking her fingers dry, the blade sighed. "Tell me how the hunt went," she said.

  And show me."

  "I saw the cock-pheasant break cover beside the stream," she said, Picturing it clearly, as she had been taught. "I knew that the flock would be somewhere behind him.. - ." The stalk had taken some time, but the end of the hunt came as swiftly as even Need could have wanted. She had lost only one of her carefully rounded shot, which splintered on a rock, and took one of the juvenile males with the second. She felt rather proud of herself, actually, for Need was no longer guiding her movements in hunting, or even offering advice. Although the blade could still follow her mentally if she chose, it was no longer necessary for her to be in physical contact with her bearer to remain in mental contact.

  When Nyara had fled from the Tayledras as well as her father, she had no clear notion of where she was going or what she would do. She had only known that too many things were happening at once, and too many people wanted her. Their reasons ran from well-intentioned to darkly sinister, and she had no real way of telling which from which. So she ran, and only after she had slipped out of Darkwind's ken had she discovered herself in possession of Elspeth's sword. She honestly had no memory of taking it; the blade later confessed to having influenced her to bear it off, making her forget she had done so.

  At first she had been angry and afraid, expecting pursuit; the blade was valuable enough that her father had wanted it very badly. But pursuit never came, and she realized that Elspeth was actually going to relinquish the blade to her. Such unexpected generosity left her puzzled.

  It would not be the last time that she was to be confused over matters in which Need was involved.

  Nyara had found the tower after a great deal of searching for a defensible lair. Need had rebuilt the upper story with her magic, strengthening it and making it habitable. It still looked deserted, and both of them had been very careful to leave no signs of occupancy. Any refuse was taken up to the flat roof and left there; vultures carried off bones and anything else edible, and the rest was bleached by the sun and weathered by wind and rain. Eventually the wind would carry it away, and it would be scattered below with the dead leaves.

  "You're doing well," the sword said, finally. "Even if you do eat like a barbarian. I don't suppose table deportment is going to matter anytime soon, though." Nyara was silent for a moment; now that her stomach was full and the little chamber warmed by the fire, she had leisure to consider the blade's remarks, and feel a bit of resentment. Nyara appreciated all that Need had done for her, attempting to counter the effects of twenty years of twisting and abuse, teaching her what she needed to survive. Still, sometimes the sword's thoughtless comments hurt.

  "I'm not a barbarian," she said aloud, a little resentfully. "I've seen Darkwind bolt his meals just like I did."

  "Darkwind is fully human. You are not. You are clever, intelligent, resourceful, but you are not human. Therefore you must appear to be better than humans." Once again, Nyara was struck by the injustice of the situation, but this time she voiced her protest. "That's not fair," she complained.

  "There's no reason why I should have to act like some kind of-of trained beast to prove that I'm just as human as anyone else."

  "You were a trained animal, Nyara," Need replied evenly. "You aren't any longer. And we both know why." Nyara shuddered, but did not reply. Instead, she cleaned up the remains of her meal, saving a few scraps to use as fishing bait on the morrow, and took everything up to the roof. As Need had mentioned, the vultures had been there already; there was little sign of yesterday's meal.

  Although the wind was cold, Nyara lingered to watch the sunset, huddled inside her crude fur tunic with her feet tucked under her. Need was right. She had been little more than a trained animal. Her father had controlled her completely, by such clever use of mingled mindmagic, pain and pleasure that a hint of punishment would throw her into uncontrollable, mindless lust, a state in which she was incapable of thinking.

  Need had freed her from that; Need had worked on her for hours, days, spending her magic recklessly in that single area, to heal her and release her from that pain-pleasure bondage. Need had watched the nomad Healer working on the Tayledras Starblade from afar, studying all that the woman did and applying the knowledge to Nyara.

  In this much, she was free; she would no longer be subject to animal rut. Although Need had not been able to "cure" her tufted ears, pointed canines, or slit-pupiled eyes, the blade had put her in control of her emotional and physical responses.

  Must I really be more than they are to be accepted as an equal? Nothing less would do, according to Need, and as she watched the stars emerge, she came to the reluctant conclusion that the blade was right. She had to be accepted as at least an equal to claim alliance with the Hawkbrothers.

  She needed them, and knew it, although they did not yet know how much they needed her. She had information that would be very useful to them, even if some of it was information they might have to get at using Need's mind-probing tactics. She would gladly submit to that, to have their protection.

  But to earn that, did she have to give up what she was, to take on some kind of mask of what
they considered civilized? That simply wasn't fair, not after everything she had already been through! What Falconsbane had done-she didn't want to think about. And under Needs' tutelage, she had not only undergone the pain that preceded Healing, but nightly-and sometimes daily-vision-quests. She had to admit there was one positive result of that; her real dreams were no longer haunted, and her nightmares had vanished completely. The sword was as hard a teacher as she could have imagined; driving her without allowance for weakness.

  Not only did she take Nyara through trials in her dreams, and teach her the skills that helped her survive on her own, but she launched Nyara like an arrow against whatever target she deemed suitable, giving her lessons in real combat as well as practice. Nyara had already defeated a wandering bandit and a half-mad hedge-wizard. Both had been left for the vultures when they had seen only a female alone, and attempted to take her. In both cases, Need had ultimately taken command of her body, as soon as she reckoned that Nyara had gone to the very edge of her abilities, and moved her with a skill she did not, herself, possess.