made a little grimace. 'That was k'treva, though. They always were-hmm-unconventional.'
'I would say,, innovative, Starblade,' Iceshadow chided gently. 'The experience certainly did them no harm and much good, from all I have heard out of the tales.' At his naming the stranger, Elspeth took a moment for a second, closer, but covert examination of him. So this was Darkwind's father?
They didn't look all that much alike, but that could be illness and the differences in their hair as much as anything. Starblade was wearing a more-conservative costume than the rest of his fellows; in fact, there was something about it that seemed very similar to the one Darkwind was wearing; something that invoked birds and their wings, without actually imitating feathers. As if they had been designed by the same mind. Interesting.
'The k'treva Tayledras that welcomed the Heralds back then-that would have been Moondance and Starwind k'treva, wouldn't it?' she replied, obviously startling all three of the Hawkbrothers, and earning a covert grin of approval from Tre'valen. 'That was in the Chronicles of Herald Vanyel's time; I read them, and that was why I came here, to try and find more Tayledras, if I could. The Heralds were Vanyel Ashkevron and his aunt, Savil-Vanyel was the last of the Herald-Mages.
The Chronicles said that he spent quite a lot of time there, in k'treva Vale, especially when he was young, and that Starwind taught him most of what he knew about magic.'
'That is quite true, young one,' Starblade replied, his voice warming a little with what sounded to her like approval. 'Or at least, that is what our records told me. Iceshadow, my friend, would it be possible for us to move to somewhere a little less formal for the rest of this?' He gestured apologetically to her, and to Skif and Tre'valen, ' , I am sorry, but I fear I must beg your indulgence and find a place to sit.'
'What about the fishpond over there?' Darkwind asked, pointing with his chin somewhere behind Iceshadow's shoulder. 'It's quiet enough, and there shouldn't be anyone there after the sun sets.'
'Good enough,' his father replied-gratefully, Elspeth thought.
'There should be room for your large friends, and seating enough for all of us.' Iceshadow gestured to the younger Hawkbrother to lead the way; Elspeth followed him, and the rest trailed behind her. By now it was becoming quite dark, and she was grateful for the mage-lights Iceshadow and Starblade produced. She found that distances were deceptive in the Vale; the ornamental fishpond Darkwind spoke of was actually hardly more than a stone's throw away from the Heartstone circle, and yet it might easily have been halfway across the Vale. Once they had arranged themselves around it, there was no way of telling that the Heartstone was anywhere nearby.
'Well,' Starblade said, once he had settled himself in a comfortable 'chair' formed of the roots of a tree with moss cupped where a cushion would be. Elspeth took a second, similar seat, and found it incredibly comfortable. 'Iceshadow has asked me to explain to you just what sort of a-ah-situation you have unwittingly involved yourselves in. And since I am the partial cause of that situation, I think it only fair that I make the attempt.' Elspeth met his eyes and recognized what she saw there. Pain, mental and physical This conversation was going to cost him something-but she had seen some of that same pain in Darkwind's eyes whenever he had spoken of his father, and she knew that Starblade had put that pain there. The man was right. It was only fair.
She settled herself and nodded to him, decisively. 'Go ahead,' she said. 'I don't think anything you say is going to make us change our minds, but I was trained as a tactician; I like to know what I can expect.' She smiled, slightly. 'Good or bad.' Starblade nodded gravely, and leaned forward. He cradled his right hand around his bandaged left hand-surely there must be a story behind that as well. This was either going to be very short, or very long. Whichever it was, it was going to be interesting.
She had told the truth about not changing her mind; she only hoped what she learned wasn't going to make her regret her own decisions. It was a little too late for regret now.
It was not, however, too early for strategy. It was never too early, or too late, for that.
*Chapter Two - The Celebration
'I know you are an Outlander... but I know not how much my son has told you of our troubles here,' Starblade began, with a sober glance at Darkwind, 'so I shall tell my tale from the outset, and beg your patience if I repeat what you know.' He glanced down at the pond, with its patient, colorful carp skimming just below the surface of the water.
'I shall be as brief as I can.' He paused for a moment, clearly organizing his thoughts. 'Mornelithe Falconsbane,' he said at last. 'It all comes down to him.' Darkwind nodded grimly, but said nothing.
'The Heartstone-' Starblade closed his eyes, but not before Elspeth had seen another shadow of pain pass across them. 'Its shattering is his doing, but by my hand. I was foolish and vain; I thought myself clever, and I found out differently. He caught me through my foolishness, and my pride. He broke me, and he used me.' Terse speech, but obviously each word cost him dearly. 'Through me, he set his darkness upon the Heartstone, disrupted our magics, broke it from the inside, and in so doing, caused the deaths of many of our mages. Because of me, three-fourths of the Clan are lost somewhere in the wilderness.'
'How?' Elspeth asked, puzzled. 'I mean how could you lose that many people?' Starblade toyed with a glass-beaded feather braided into his hair.
'When a Clan moves, it is our way to establish the children, the lesser mages, the weak and the old, with the bulk of our scouts and warriors to protect them, at a new site. We send them by means of a Gate, we drain the Stone of its power and send it to the new Stone, then we follow.
But when we filled the Stone with all the Clan's power in preparation for diverting the power to the new site, the Heartstone shattered, and the Adept holding the Gate open died with the shattering. We had no one among us who could use the Heartstone, damaged as it was, to go to them by Gate. We barely know the true location of the rest of the Clan, for the scouts who had found the new place were with them.'
'And they couldn't reach you without sending badly-needed fighters,' Elspeth supplied. 'I take it none of the lesser mages were able to build these Gate things?'
'Only an Adept can master the Gate Spell,' Iceshadow replied. 'And
we fear that even if they had one who could cast it, the Stone is too unstable and there may be no way of bringing a Gate near to it.'
'All the scouts that knew the overland way to the new Vale are at that Vale,' Darkwind repeated. 'Our number would be decimated trying to get to them by foot-leagues traveled are hard-won going North-and they cannot come to us, burdened with the old, the young, the sick.' His father nodded. 'Indeed. So-to make the bad
