Winds Of Fate v(mw-1 Read online

  With one of her Summer swords, no guard would ever be caught by a spell of deception or of sleep. Wealthy mercenaries generally bought her Fall swords-or the noble-born, who did not always trust their Healers. And the younger sons of the noble-born invariably chose Winter blades, trusting to Luck to extract them from anything. the ornamentation meant nothing; anyone could buy a worthless Court-sword with a mild-steel blade that bore more ornament than one of hers. But her contact had assured her, over and over again, that no one would believe her blades held power unless they held a trollop's dower in jewels on their hilts. It seemed fairly silly to her; but then, so did the fact that most mages wore outfits that would make a cat laugh.

  Her forge-leathers were good enough for her, and a nice, divided wool skirt and linen shirt when she wasn't in the forge.

  Once every four years, she made eleven swords instead of twelve, and forged all four of the spells into a single blade. those she never sold; keeping them until one of the Sisterhood attracted her eye, proved herself as not only a superb fighter, but an intelligent and moral fighter. those received the yearswords, given in secret, before they departed into the world to earn a living.

  Never did she tell them what they had received. She simply permitted them to think that it was one of her remarkable, nearly unbreakable, nonrusting blades, with a simple Healing charm built in.

  After all, why allow them to depend on the sword?

  If any of them ever guessed, she had yet to hear about it. there was one of those blades waiting beneath the floor of the forge now.

  She had yet to find someone worthy of it. She would not make another until this one found a home. that's what I was," whispered the sword in the back of Elspeth's mind.

  The scene changed abruptly. A huge building complex, built entirely of wood, looking much like Quenten's mage-school. There were only two differences that Elspeth noticed; no town, and no stockade around the complex. Only a forest, on all four sides, with trees towering all about the cleared area containing the buildings. Those buildings looked very old-and there was another difference that she suddenly noticed.

  Flat roofs: they all had flat roofs and square doorways, with a square-knot pattern of some kind carved above them.

  She was tired; she tired often now, in her old age. A lifetime at the forge had not prevented joints from swelling or bones from beginning to ache-nor could the Healers do much to reverse her condition, not while she continued to work. So she tottered out for a rest, now and then, compromising a little.

  She didn't work as much anymore, and the Healers did their best. While she rested, she watched the youngsters at their practice with a critical eye. there wasn't a single one she would have been willing to give a sword to.

  Not one.

  In fact, the only girl she felt worthy of the blade wasn't a fighter at all, but was an apprentice mage-now working out with the rest of the young mages in the same warm-up exercises the would-be fighters used. All mages in the Sisterhood worked out on a regular basis; it kept them from getting flabby and soft-as mages were all too prone to do-or becoming thin as a reed from using their own internal energies too often. She watched that particular girl with a measuring eye, wondering if she was simply seeing what she wanted to see.

  After all, she had started out a fighter, not a mage. Why shouldn't there be someone else able to master both disciplines? Someone like her own apprentice, Vena, to be precise.

  Vena certainly was the only one who seemed worthy to carry the year-blade.

  This was something that had never occurred in all the years she'd been forging the swords. She wasn't quite certain what to do about it. She watched the girls stretching and bending in their brown linen trews and tunics, hair all neatly bound in knots and braids, and pondered the problem. the Sisterhood was a peculiar group; part temple, part militia, part mage-school.

  Any female was welcome here, provided she was prepared to work and learn some useful life-task at the same time. Worship was given to the Twins; two sets of gods and goddesses, Kerenal and Dina, Karanel and Dara; Healer, Crafter, Fighter, and Hunter. Shirkers were summarily shown the door-and women who had achieved self-sufficiency were encouraged to make their way in the outside world, although they could, of course, remain with the Sisterhood and contribute some or all of their income or skills to the upkeep of the enclave.

  All this information flashed into Elspeth's mind in an eyeblink, as if she had always known it. those girls with Mage-Talent were taught the use of it; those who wished to follow the way of the blade learned all the skills to make them crack mercenaries. those who learned neither supported the group by learning and practicing a craft or in Healing-either herb and knife Healing, or Healing with their Gifts-or, very rarely, taking their place among the few true Priests of the Twins at the temple within the Sisterhood complex. the creations of the crafters in that third group-and those mages who chose to remain with the enclave-supported it, through sales and hire-outs. the Sisters were a diverse group, and that diversity had been allowed for. Only one requirement was absolute. While she was with the Sisterhood, a woman must remain celibate.

  That had never been a problem for the woman whose soul now resided in the blade called "Need."

  Interesting, though-in all her studies, Elspeth had never come across anything about the "Twins" or the "Sisterhood of Sword and Spell." Not that she had covered the lore of every land in the world, but the library in Haven was a good one-there had been information there on any obscure cults.

  On the other hand, there had been nothing in any of those books about the Cold Ones, and Elspeth had pretty direct experience of their existence.

  She'd never found any man whose attractions outweighed the fascination of combining mage-craft with smithery. Of course, she thought humorously, the kind of man attracted to a woman with a face like a horse and biceps rivaling his own was generally not the sort she wanted to waste any time on.

  She sighed and returned to her forge.

  The scene changed again, this time to a roadway running -through thick forest, from a horse-back vantage point. The trees were enormous, much larger than any Elspeth had ever seen before; so large that five or six men could scarcely have circled the trunks with their arms. Of course, she had never seen the Pelagiris Forest; stories picked up from mercs along the way, assuming those weren't exaggerated, had hinted of something like this. the Fair was no longer exciting, merely tiring. She was glad to be going home.

  But suddenly, amid the ever-present pine scent, a whiff of acrid smoke drifted to her nose-causing instant alarm. there shouldn't have been any fires burning with enough smoke to be scented out here. Campfires were not permitted, and none of the fires of the Sisterhood produced much smoke.

  A cold fear filled her. She spurred her old horse which shuffled into a startled canter, rolling its eyes when it scented the smoke. the closer she went, the thicker the smoke became.

  She rode into the clearing holding the Sisterhood to face a scene of carnage.

  Elspeth was all too familiar with scenes of carnage, but this was the equal of anything she'd seen during the conflicts with Hardorn. Bodies, systematically looted bodies, lay everywhere, not all of them female, none of them alive. The buildings were smoking ruins, burned to blackened skeletons.

  Shock made her numb; disbelief froze her in her saddle. Under it all, the single question-why? The Sisterhood wasn't wealthy, everyone knew that-and while no one lives without making a few rivals or enemies, there were none that she knew of that would have wanted to destroy them so completely. they held no secrets, not even the making of the mage-blades was a secret.

  Anyone could do it who was both smith and mage, and willing to spend one month per spell on a single sword.

  Why had this happened? And as importantly, who had done it? that was when Vena came running, weeping, out of the forest; face smudged with ash and smoke, tear-streaked, clothing and hair full of pine needles and bark.

  Again the scene changed, to the forge she
had seen before, but this time there was little in the way of walls or ceiling left. And again, knowledge flooded her.

  Vena had been out in the forest when the attack occurred. She had managed to scale one of the smaller trees and hide among the branches to observe. Now they both knew the answer to her questions.

  "Who" was the Wizard Heshain, a mage-lord who had never before shown any notice of the Sisterhood. Vena had described the badges on shields and livery of the large, well-armed force that had invaded the peaceful enclave, and she had recognized Heshain's device.

  "Why?

  His men had systematically sought out and killed every fighter, every craftswoman, every fighter apprentice. There had been mages with them who had eliminated every adult mage.

  Then they had surrounded and captured every apprentice mage except Vena. They fired the buildings to drive anyone hiding into the open and had eliminated any that were not young and Mage-Talented.

  The entire proceedings had taken place in an atmosphere of cold efficiency.

  There were no excesses, other than slaughter, not even rape-and that had struck Vena as eerily like the dispassionate extermination of vermin.

  Afterward, though, the bodies of both sides had been stripped of everything useful and anything that might identify them. There had still been no rapine, no physical abuse of the apprentices; they had been tied at the wrists and hobbled at the ankles, herded into carts, and taken away. Vena had stayed in the tree for a full night, waiting for the attackers to return, then she had climbed down to wander dazedly through the ruins.

  Vena had no idea why the wizard had done this-but the kidnapping of the apprentices told her all she needed to know.

  He had taken them to use, to augment his own powers. To seduce, subvert, or otherwise bend the girls to his will.

  They had to be rescued. Not only for their own sakes and that of the Sisterhood, but because if he succeeded, his power would be magnified.

  Considerably. Quite enough to make him a major factor in the world.

  A man who sought to increase his power in such a fashion must not be permitted to succeed in his attempt.

  He had to be stopped.

  Right. He had to be stopped.

  By an old, crippled woman, and a half-trained girl. this was a task that would require a fighter of the highest skills, and a mage the equal of Heshain. A healthy mage, one who could ride and climb and run away, if she had to.

  But there was a way. If Vena, a young and healthy girl, could be endowed with all her skills, she might well be able to pull off that rescue. One person could frequently achieve things that an army could not. One person, with all the abilities of both a mage of some strength-perhaps even the superior of Heshain-and a fighter trained by the very best, would have advantages no group could boast. that was their only hope. So she had sent Vena out, ostensibly to hunt for herbs she needed. In actuality, it was to get her out of the way. She was about to attempt something she had only seen done once. And that had not been with one of her bespelled swords.

  She took the hidden sword, the one with the spells of all four seasons sealed to it, out of its hiding place under the floor of the forge. She heated the forge, placed it in the fire while she wrought one last spell-half magic, and half a desperate prayer to the Twain.

  Then, when the blade was white-hot, with fire and magic, she wedged it into a clamp on the side of the forge, point outward-And ran her body onto it.

  Pain seared her with a white-hot agony so great it quickly stopped being "pain" and became something else.

  Then it stopped being even that, and what Elspeth felt in memory was worse than pain, though totally unfamiliar. It was not a sensation like anything Elspeth had ever experienced. It was a sense of wrenching dislocation, disorientation-Then, nothing at all. Literally. No sight, sound, sense of any kind.

  If she hadn't had some feeling that this was all just a memory she was re-experiencing, she'd have panicked. And still, if she had any choice at all, she never. ever wanted to encounter anything like this again.

  It was the most truly, profoundly horrifying experience she had ever had.

  A touch. Connection. Feelings. sensations flooded back, all of them so sharp-edged and clear they seemed half-raw. Grief. Someone was weeping. vena. It was Vena's senses she was sharing. The spell had worked! She was now one with the sword, with all of her abilities as mage and as fighter, and everything she had ever learned, intact.

  Experimentally, she exerted a bit of control, moving Vena's hand as if it had been her own. The girl plucked at her tunic, and it felt to her as if it was her own hand she was controlling. Good; not only was her knowledge intact, but her ability to use it. She need only have the girl release control of her body, and an untrained girl would be a master swordswoman.

  Vena sobbed helplessly, uncontrollably. After the first rush of elation, it occurred to her that she had probably better tell the child she wasn't dead.

  Or not exactly, anyway.

  The sword released its hold on them, and Elspeth sat and shook for a long time.

  It was a small comfort that she recovered from the experience before Skif did. She had never been so intimately one with someone's thoughts before. Especially not someone who had shared an experience like Need's death and rebirth.

  She had never encountered anyone whose thoughts and memories were quite so-unhuman. As intense as those memories were, they had felt old, sounded odd, as if she was listening to someone with a voice roughened by years of breathing forge smoke, and they contained a feeling of difference and distance, as if the emotions Need had felt were so distantor so foreign-that Elspeth couldn't quite grasp them. Perhaps that made a certain amount of sense. There was no way of knowing quite how old Need was. She had gotten the distinct impression that Need herself did not know. She had spent many, many lifetimes in the heart of the sword, imprisoned, though it was by her own will. That was bound to leave its mark on someone.

  To make her, in time, something other than human? It was possible.

  Nevertheless, it was a long time before she was willing to open her mind to the blade again, and to do so required more courage than she had ever mustered up before.

  "I wish you wouldn't do that," the sword said, peevishly, the moment she reestablished contact.

  "What?" she replied, startled.

  "Close me out like that. I thought I made it clear; I can only see through your eyes, hear through your ears. When you close me out, I'm deaf and blind."

  "oh."' She shivered with the recollection of that shared moment of pain, disorientation-and then, nothing. What would it be like for Need, in those times when she was not in contact with her wielder?

  Best not to think about it. "Can you always do that?" she asked instead. "As long as you aren't closed out, I mean." Skif showed some signs of coming out of his stunned state. He shook his head, and looked at her, with a bit more sense in his expression, as if he had begun to follow the conversation.

  "Once I soul-bond, the way I did with Vena, and most of my other wielders, yes. Unless you deliberately close me out, the way you just did. I had forgotten that there were disadvantages to bonding to someone with Mindspeech." Need seemed a little disgruntled. "You know how to shield yourselves, and unless you choose to keep me within those shields with you, that closes me out." Given some of what Kero had told her about her own struggles with the sword, Elspeth was a little less inclined to be sympathetic than she might ordinarily have been. Need had tried, not once, but repeatedly, to get the upper hand and command the Captain's movements when she was young. And she had taken over Kero's grandmother's life from time to time, forcing her into situations that had often threatened not only her life, but the lives of those around her. Granted, it had always been in a good cause, but-But Kero-and Kethry-had occasionally found themselves fighting against women, women or things in a woman's shape. Creatures who were frequently the equal in evil of any man. And when that happened, Need had not only not aided her wielder-she had of
ten fought her wielder.

  More than once, both women had found themselves in acute danger, with Need actually helping the enemy.

  Given that, well-it was harder to be in complete sympathy with the sword.

  Poor Kero, Elspeth thought. I'm beginning to understand what it was she found herself up against, here...

  And that made something occur to her. "Wait a minute-Kero had Mindspeech Why didn't you talk to her before this?"

  "I was asleep." the sword admitted sheepishly. "there was a time when all I could bond to were fighters, with no special abilities whatsoever. During that rather dry spell, there was a long period between partners. I am not certain what happened; I didn't get a chance to bond properly, because she didn't use me for long. Perhaps my wielder put me away, perhaps she sold me--or she might even have lost me. I don't know. But my bond faded and weakened, and I slept, and my wielders came to me only as dreams."