same limitations you are. Except-: Elspeth counted to ten a second time. 'Except?' Gwena waited a long time, and Elspeth sensed that she was choosing her words very carefully. 'Except that you and I are a special pairing; so special that distance doesn't matter between us. That's all. I'm-different that way. It's like a lifebonded pair working together. Ask Darkwind about that some time, if you like; there are things a pair can do that even two Adepts working together can't do.' A vague memory fluttered at the back of her mind; something about a dark, windy night, the night when Gwena had Chosen her.
But the memory escaped before she could grasp it and she gave up trying to get it back after a fruitless moment of concentrating. 'I won't say I'm unhappy to hear that,' she told Gwena sincerely. 'If things ever go badly for us, you and I might need that edge. I-don't suppose this means you're a mage, too-does it?'
'oh, no!' Gwena replied, her mind-voice bright with relief. 'No, not at all! I can just tap into nodes, energy- lines, and fields. All Companions can, just most of them can't use it for more than-oh, the usual. Healing themselves quickly, extended endurance, and running faster than a horse can.
And they certainly can't feed their Chosen. that's why we're white, you know-ask Darkwind about node- energy and bleaching.' She sat up straighter, and looked up in the tree above her at Darkwind, who was 'taking the tree-road.' Except that right now he was just sitting; letting Vree do his scouting for him before they all moved on to another spot on their patrol. 'Darkwind?' she whispered.
He looked down at her, but did not give her the hand signal that indicated she should be quiet.
'Gwena says I should ask you about node-energy and bleaching. She says that's why Companions are so white, because they use node-power to increase speed and endurance.' She shook her head, still trying to figure it out.
But Darkwind seemed to get the point immediately; his eyes lit up, and he grabbed the branch beneath him. He swung down off his branch perch like a rope dancer, to land lightly beside her. 'So! That is the piece of the puzzle that I have missed!' he said cheerfully. 'I think you need not fear lack of nodes and power in your land, if all your Companions are able to tap them to enhance their physical abilities. That must mean that there is no scarcity of mage-energy.
Well, that was a great weight off her mind. 'About bleaching?' she prompted.
He tugged at his own hair, and she noticed that white roots were starting to show and that the color had faded to a dull tan. 'Use of node-energy gradually bleaches a mage; the color-making dies in skin, hair, and eyes, and the color that is already there is leeched away. I do not lie when I say that magery changes a person. So-your Companions use node-energy, and thus are blue-eyed, silver-coated, gray-hooved.'
'Silver-hooved,' Gwena said with dignity. He chuckled softly, and tapped her nose.
'If you insist, my lady.' He turned back to Elspeth. 'My hair is not white, because as a scout I dye it. Tayledras all live with node-energy, whether we are mages or no, so nonmages bleach as well. Mages are silver- haired usually in their fifth year of practice; any other member of the Clan will have made the change at, oh, thirty summers, or thereabouts.
Even with dye, I must renew the color every few days now that I am a mage again.' Elspeth could only cast her eyes upward. 'It's like continuous sun on them, then? No wonder dye won't take on them,' she said. 'The gods know we've tried often enough-you know, it's damned hard to disguise a big white horse!'
'Sorry,' Gwena put in. 'Can't help it.'
'In a trade-off between endurance and the rest of it, and being unable to disguise them, I think I'll take the endurance,' Elspeth said, as much for Gwena's ears as Darkwind's. And for Gwena's ears only, 'I'll take you just the way you are, oh great sneak,' and felt Gwena's rush of pleasure, much like a pleasantly embarrassed flush.
He shrugged. 'It is the choice I would make. Besides, now that you are a mage, you may make her seem any color you choose, by illusion.' Before she could answer that, he was back up in the tree again, swarming up the trunk like a squirrel, and hooking the branches above him with the peculiar weapon-tool he kept in a sheath on his back. She still didn't see how he could possibly climb that quickly, even with the spikepalmed climbing gloves he wore; humans shouldn't be able to climb like that.
She was about to ask him what was going on, when he gave her the hand signal indicating that she should remain quiet. She and Gwena froze, statue still, trusting to the bushes they sheltered in to keep them from sight.
She didn't dare let down her shields to probe about her. Darkwind had warned her of the danger of that, and after hearing more about Mornelithe Falconsbane and the creatures he had commanded, she was inclined to listen to him and believe. But she was free enough to use every other sense, and she did. At first she couldn't tell that there was anything at all out of the ordinary, but then she realized that the forest was a little too quiet. No birdcalls, no wind stirring the branches, nothing but the little ticks the red and golden leaves made as they fell.
'Els-peth?' came the tentative mental touch, as soft as the caress of a feather. 'Vree has found someone. I sense only a void, which means that there is someone inside a shield where Vree sees a two-legged creature.' Darkwind had told her that he would use Mindspeech only if he had determined that an enemy could not hear it, and had explained that he would test with a quick mental probe of his own, too swift to fix on. She had wanted to object, but it was his land and he was used to scouting it; she had to assume he knew what he was doing. And evidently he did...'We're going to have to work out what I should do if someone ever does catch a probe and lock horns with you,' she interjected, Sending a mental picture of stags in full battle.
A rush of chagrin accompanied his reply 'You are right. But-not now.'
'No,' she agreed. 'Not now.'
'What do you want me to do? Should I try a probe? Are the gryphons going to get in on this?'
'Not unless there is no other choice,' he replied firmly. 'We need to keep their existence as quiet as possible; there are surely others besides Falconsbane who might covet them or the small ones. And you may try a mind- magic probe, but I think you will encounter the same shields as I have. No, you and I will confront and warn him. If he does not heed the warning, we will deal with him-: He broke off his link with her so suddenly that she was afraid that something had locked him in mental battle after all. But then, a heartbeat later, his mind-voice returned. 'there is an additional complication,' he said dryly; she looked up to find him looking down at her with a face full of irony. 'It seems our intruder is a Changechild.'
Her first thought had been: it must be Nyara. Her second thought had been that it couldn't be Nyara, but that it must be another of her father's creatures, running wild with Falconsbane gone. She tried a mental probe and discovered that just as Darkwind had said, the creature had very strong shields, well beyond her ability to counter. So the only way to learn anything about it was to confront it.
