Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

  Dedication

  Dedicated with love to my sister, Lin Stockley,

  Canine Behaviourist and Dog Trainer beyond compare.

  May your future hold nothing but happiness.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Dedication

  1. THE MAGIC OF AIR

  2. WINDSINGER

  3. REAP THE WHIRLWIND

  4. FRIENDSHIP

  5. KALDATH

  6. THE SORROW OF THE DWELVEN

  7. FROM ENDINGS TO BEGINNINGS

  8. THE SECRETS IN THE STONE

  9. A MOTHER’S VENGEANCE

  10. MASQUERADE

  11. SEA CHANGE

  12. THE STRANGER

  13. THE RELUCTANT HEALER

  14. TURN AGAIN

  15. DEPARTURE

  16. ON THE BRINK

  17. UNLOOKED-FOR REUNION

  18. MORE THAN ONE SURPRISE

  19. GUARDIAN OF THE PORTAL

  20. MIXED FEELINGS

  21. RETRIBUTION

  22. GOOD INTENTIONS

  23. PARIAHS

  24. LIE DOWN WITH DOGS . . .

  25. RESTORATION

  26. OLD FRIENDS

  27. FLIGHT OF FREEDOM

  28. REVENGE OF THE DWELVEN

  29. THE MIGHTY FALL

  30. DEPART IN SORROW, RETURN IN JOY

  31. A DIFFICULT TRANSITION

  32. SIGNS IN THE SKY

  33. PERILOUS HOMECOMING

  34. VENGEANCE OF THE MOLDAN

  35. CATACLYSM

  36. AFTER THE STORM

  37. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

  38. HOMECOMING

  Also by Maggie Furey

  Copyright

  1

  ~

  THE MAGIC OF AIR

  Many momentous events took place in the winter when the Wild Hunt was ambushed by mortals and the Forest Lord Hellorin was lost to the world, betrayed by the malice of Ferimon. In Eliorand, Tiolani, the Forest Lord’s daughter, was seduced by the same evil traitor as part of his plan to rule the Phaerie, and the grey mare Corisand discovered her responsibilities as Windeye of the Xandim. In Tyrineld, the Archwizard Cyran’s broodings over his dread visions of war and destruction were supported by the premonitions of his fellow Archmages, and the blind Wizard Iriana’s dreams of freedom and adventure were finally realised, though she never could have guessed what would lie in store for her before the summer’s end.

  While in the north the strands of the approaching crisis were spinning out thick and fast upon the web of fate, circumstances were moving towards another crisis elsewhere, in the far lands of the south: in the ocean deeps for the Leviathan; in the glittering glory of the Jewelled Desert for the Dragonfolk; and in beautiful Aerillia, the soaring mountain city of the Skyfolk.

  The Winged Folk of Aerillia were generous to visitors, thought Yinze. The chambers set aside for guests were high up on the pinnacle of the mountain, just below the complex of buildings that formed the Royal Palace, and the view from the landing platform was stunning. To a Wizard’s eye, the city looked utterly alien but very beautiful, with some of its buildings suspended from the precipitous crags and others carved out of the mountain peak itself. He had been here over half a year now and was used to the view, but the slender spires and turrets of pale, almost translucent stone, and the delicately crafted structures that seemed to cling like coral to the steep rock face, still filled him with amazement. There were no angles in Aerillia; no hard corners to form awkward air currents, or hurt an unwary flier who’d been hit by an unexpected gust of wind. Everything looked streamlined, fluid, organic: a miracle wrought, by magic and tremendous labour, from the mountain’s very bones.

  It was spectacular. It was beautiful. It was no place for someone without wings. Though it was possible to access some places by going through a labyrinth of intervening buildings, the routes were tortuous and inconvenient, for the simple reason that the Winged Folk never used those routes except during the worst of the stormy weather, and many places were completely inaccessible except by flight. It was for this very reason that the Skyfolk, unlike the Phaerie, the Wizards and the Dragonfolk, did not possess human slaves – at least, not in Aerillia itself, though they were used down in the valleys to cultivate crops, and to mine the jewels and precious metals with which these mountains abounded.

  To fulfil the domestic functions in the city itself the Skyfolk used instead a special low caste of their own kind, known as the Forsaken, who were barred from any existence other than obedience and drudgery. Yinze had been allocated some of these to be his own staff during his stay here. As well as Kereru, a motherly winged woman to clean and cook for him, he had four sturdy young men whose function it was to transport him wherever he wanted to go, strapped into a carrying sling and suspended below them like a piece of cargo as they soared effortlessly across the gulfs of empty air.

  It was inconvenient, terrifying, and worst of all, utterly humiliating. Though it was sometimes unavoidable, the Wizard used that mode of transport as little as possible, and therefore his movements were circumscribed and he suffered limitations that he had never known before. Always vigorous and active at home, here Yinze ached from lack of exercise. Sometimes he felt so bad that he’d be forced to get his bearers to take him down the mountain to the valleys and terraces where crops were grown and sheep and goats were bred. He would walk and run himself into a state of exhaustion, thinking wistfully of Tyrineld’s olive groves and sparkling blue bays, its warm, herb-scented breezes and the laughter and company of his friends.

  Beyond Aerillia the eye was led across the breathtaking vista of lower, snow-covered peaks beyond, right to the glittering line on the far horizon which marked the beginning of the Jewelled Desert. It was almost worth freezing for. Now, at sunset, the mountains were tinted with amethyst and rose, and shadows darkened the pale stone of the city’s buildings. At this time of year, everyone in the city went to bed early. The temperature plunged after nightfall, and even the hardy Skyfolk found it more pleasant to snuggle beneath the bedclothes. Supper hour had passed, and Yinze was standing on the landing platform of his room, taking his customary last look out before retiring.

  The Wizard shivered, and tried to bury himself deeper into his thick woollen cloak. In Tyrineld, even the winter nights were a great deal warmer than this, but Aerillia, though situated further south, was set high in the mountains, and the season’s chill bit deep. The Winged Folk had a tremendous tolerance of the freezing conditions, but the cold was beginning to wear upon their guest. Though Yinze felt a pang of sadness at the thought of parting from the new friends that he’d made, he was desperately missing the sunlit warmth of his home. Even supposing he stayed here all his life (perish the thought), he would never grow accustomed to this temperature!

  He stamped his freezing feet on the pale stone of the landing platform, and began to walk up and down to try to keep warm. Under his cloak he was wearing layers of clothing: a sleeveless fleece-lined sheepskin tunic, and beneath it a baggy knitted overshirt. Beneath that he had a thick flannel shirt, sturdy woven pants of wool, and finally, under everything else, two pairs of thick socks and long, thick, winter underwear. A knitted cap in knock-your-eyes-out purple, a contribution from his mother Zybina, was crammed over his dark curls and pulled well down to cover his ears, and a matching scarf was wound twice around his neck. Sturdy knee-length leather boots and big leather gauntlets with a secret pair of purple woollen gloves worn beneath them completed the outfit. ‘And I still can’t get warm,’ he muttered to himself through chattering teeth. ‘Guardians preserve us! I’m so glad I’ll be going home soon.’

  And yet . . .

 
How could he bear to go home a failure?

  In four months his time here would be up and he would return to Tyrineld with the shame of being the only one who had not fulfilled his mission. Thanks to the sporadic messages that had reached him in this isolated place, he knew that his friend Chathak had made enormous strides in the Fire magic he was studying with the Dragonfolk, and that good old brainy Ionor had mastered the tricky magic of Water and gained the respect of the Leviathan in the process.

  It was all very well for them. The Dragonfolk Fire magic was a singularly versatile branch of the arcane arts, with a multitude of uses. Water magic, too, could be used in all sorts of practical ways. But the magic of Air – when you came right down to it – was no bloody use at all. Air was an incredibly elusive substance, and Yinze was finding it impossible to find a place where his powers could connect. With other elements Air could be fine: put it together with Water magic, for instance, and you got Weather magic, unite it with Fire and you could heat a building or perform all sorts of clever tricks with light. But like Fire and Water, Earth and Air were opposites; two powers very difficult to combine.

  It was too cold to stay outside any longer. Yinze had been lingering, frustrated after another difficult day, in the hope that he might catch a glimpse of Kea. The winged girl, apprentice to Crombec, the city’s foremost harp maker, was the closest friend he’d made since he’d come to Aerillia, and her pretty face was just what he needed to cheer him . . .

  His thoughts broke off in a scream as a heavy weight cannoned into him from the side, knocking him off the platform. As he fell, arms and legs flailing in panic, the freezing air blasted into his face, snatching his breath away. Terror – pure, mindless terror – squeezed his heart in an iron fist as he plummeted. He saw his purple cap go whirling away on the wind. Sky, city, mountains cartwheeled around him – and the ground, so far away, was hurtling closer every second.

  Something clamped around his ankle, cruelly wrenching his leg but, for a mercy, slowing his fall. As his arms and other leg were caught, he realised that strong hands had him, arresting his terrifying plunge. Relief swept over him, and though his strained muscles hurt like a rotten tooth, Yinze did not care. The drumming of four sets of mighty wings and the purr of wind through feathers made the sweetest music he had ever heard as he was borne upwards, back to safety, back to life.

  ‘Here,’ he heard a voice say. ‘Put him well back from the edge.’ The rescuers set him gently down on his own landing platform. There was a solid surface beneath him and he could no longer see the dizzying fall. Collapsing like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he threw up his recently-finished supper then curled into a shivering ball, his eyes screwed tight shut and his fingers trying to dig into the stone.

  He heard someone swearing, and recognised Kea’s voice, sharp with anxiety. ‘Yinze, are you all right? Come on, we’ll help you indoors.’

  The Wizard was all for that. Though his common sense told him that the platform on which he lay had borne the weight of generations of Skyfolk, it seemed, right now, to be all too fragile a barrier between himself and the abyss. He opened his eyes to see his team of sturdy bearers; Parea, who was Kereru’s brother, Dunlin, Tinamou and Chukar, all clustering around him, and Kea’s anxious face looking down. The winged girl knelt beside him to help him up. He caught the scent of her, warm and spicy, like cinnamon – but before he could move, cruel laughter, harsh and mocking, made him look up at last. There, perched in a row on the edge of the roof like malign gargoyles, were Incondor, a young, black-winged aristocrat who had an evil reputation as a bully, and his friends, Milvus and Torgos.

  Incondor laughed again, his handsome features marred by his usual expression of haughty contempt. ‘What a shame,’ he said. ‘The Wizard didn’t seem to like his flying lesson.’

  Kea was on her feet in a flash. ‘You filthy monster,’ she blazed. ‘You pushed him. I saw you.’

  Incondor shrugged. ‘I gave the earthbound slug a chance to see what it was like to fly,’ he drawled. ‘I knew his minions would catch him before he hit the ground – it’s their function, after all.’

  ‘You tried to kill him! This time you’ve gone too far. I’m reporting this to Ardea.’

  A scowl darkened Incondor’s face, and his eyes grew hard. ‘If you know what’s good for you, Kea, you’ll keep your mouth shut,’ he snarled. ‘It would be my word against yours, and my friends will back me up. Do you think I fear Ardea? A mere teacher? A nobody? My family is closely related to Queen Pandion herself. Who is she going to believe? One of her own blood, or you, a common harp maker’s apprentice whose grandmother was nothing but a lowly drudge?’ He turned away from her with a sneer.

  ‘Blood has nothing to do with it.’ Yinze scrambled up from his prone position. ‘Master Crombec says that Kea is the finest apprentice he has ever trained, and Ardea is the most respected teacher in all Aerillia.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Incondor lifted an eyebrow. ‘She doesn’t seem to be making any progress with you. You’re about as much use at our magic as you are at flying.’ With that he and his friends flew off, leaving an echo of mocking laughter.

  Yinze snarled a curse and drove his fist at the wall, but Kea, with the whip-fast reflexes of her kind, knocked his arm aside before it could hit. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He’s not worth hurting yourself over.’

  ‘I wish I could hurt him.’ Yinze clenched his fists. ‘I’d like to kill him. I’m sick and tired of him making my life a misery. If it wasn’t for the Archwizard, and those accursed restrictions he set on me, I would never have let things get this far.’

  Before he had come to Aerillia, Yinze had been taken aside by Cyran and subjected to a long, tiresome lecture about his responsibilities as the sole representative of the Wizards among another race of Magefolk. ‘You must keep a rein on your temper, Yinze,’ he’d said. ‘Though I am sending you to Aerillia because I feel you are the candidate most likely to succeed, my one misgiving is your occasional tendency to be hot-headed. Make no mistake about the grave responsibility that rests on your shoulders. It has taken me a great deal of time and endless discussions, debates and arguments to persuade the other Magefolk leaders to participate in my plan for disseminating our knowledge more widely. This project is of the utmost importance, both to me personally, and, if my concerns are correct, to the entire future of the Magefolk at large. You must not, under any circumstances, place it in jeopardy by hasty words or inappropriate actions. I am placing all my trust in you, Yinze. Do not let me down by any impetuous, ill-advised behaviour – or I will be most seriously displeased.’

  For light-hearted, sociable Yinze, as quick to laugh as to anger, such sober behaviour did not come easily. For months now, he had been forced to suppress the natural peaks and troughs of his emotions, always striving to stay on an even keel; well-mannered, polite, and circumspect in his speech. As far as Incondor and his friends were concerned, this mild behaviour had made him a very obvious target. During most of his stay in Aerillia, Yinze had been the butt of endless bullying and nasty pranks – and every time he’d failed to defend himself, Incondor had pushed the persecution to a more vicious level, culminating in tonight’s potentially deadly attack.

  Matters were rapidly reaching the point where Yinze would be forced to defend himself, and then what would happen? It was true that Incondor was closely related to Queen Pandion – his grandfather was the brother of her father. She was almost certain to take his word over that of an outsider and a newcomer. What if she sent him home in disgrace? What would Cyran say if Yinze ruined this scheme that was so dear to his heart?

  ‘Yinze?’ Kea’s voice broke into his circling thoughts. ‘Are you all right?’ She looked so concerned that the Wizard forced himself to smile.

  ‘Of course I am. Don’t worry – it would take more than that arrogant pig to bother me.’

  She gave him that odd, wry little smile of hers that told him she saw right through him. ‘You need to work on that lying, my friend, if you mea
n to make a habit of it.’ She clenched her fists in frustration. ‘We should report the brute. Surely Ardea could make Queen Pandion believe us.’ She shuddered. ‘Thank all Creation Parea and your other bearers were there.’

  ‘Yes.’ Yinze smiled at the bearers, who still stood in a protective group nearby. ‘Had it not been for you, I hate to think what might have happened.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure Incondor and his cronies would have caught you before you hit the ground,’ Parea said. ‘Not even a relative of Queen Pandion would dare go so far as the killing of a foreign Mage.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Yinze agreed, glad that Parea had given him an excuse to make light of the situation. The last thing he wanted was for Kea to go tattling to Ardea about the incident. ‘Even Incondor would stop short of actual murder, wouldn’t he? Being related to the Queen wouldn’t help him if he was implicated in the death of a visiting delegate sent by the Archwizard himself. Nonetheless, I’m more grateful to all of you than I can say.’

  Parea grinned. ‘All in a day’s work. Besides, my sister would never have forgiven me if I’d let you fall.’ He glanced up at the darkening sky, and stretched out his wings. ‘Well, if you don’t need us any more Yinze, we’ll be off for the night.’

  ‘Believe me, I don’t feel like going anywhere right now – apart from bed. Thank you, Parea. Thank you, Dunlin, Tinamou and Chukar. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  When the bearers had gone, Kea tucked an arm through his. ‘It’s dreadfully cold tonight, and I’m sure you’ll be feeling it far more than I do. Shall we go inside, and I’ll make you a hot drink?’ Despite the delicacy of her fine-boned features, she looked beautiful and bold, her hair blowing back in the strengthening wind, wearing her extraordinary colours like a banner that said: ‘Here I am, world! Deal with me on my terms, or not at all.’ It had become the fashion among some of the younger generation to augment the traditional shades of their elders, the browns, whites, blacks, greys and golds, and use magic to tint their hair and wings in a rainbow of hues. Most were content with flashes of brilliance, with streaks and splashes of colour, but Kea had gone all the way, changing her hair and the backs of her wings into a medley of greens ranging from silvery sage to the vivid emerald of new leaves. The inner surface of her wings was the glowing, red-gold of fire, so that when she opened them to fly, she looked as if she was bursting into flame. Though the traditionalists in Aerillia’s society regarded her with frowning, purse-lipped dismay, her master Crombec simply smiled, and encouraged her to channel her creativity into the harps she made.