To shake the thought from her mind, she stood up, slowly, and walked the few steps to the bars of the cage, mentally measuring the distance between the bars and Need. And as she studied the blade and how it was hung, another thought occurred to her. I'm Adept-class. My power is unlimited, for all practical purposes. Could I become like her?
The Hawkbrother stole silently up beside her, but his eyes were on the light beyond the hedges. 'It is not power and wealth that corrupt, my lady, but the lust for power and wealth. When that lust takes precedence over the needs of others, corruption becomes true evil. That you even consider that you could become like Keyjon is a sign that you are not like to do so. She has never once considered anything but what she wanted.'
'Well said,' Tarma replied, her expression wary. 'I'm Tarma shena Tale'sedrin; this is my she'enedra, Kethry.'
'Stormwing k'Sheyna,' he said, and a little rueful humor crept into his expression. 'A use-name chosen when I was young and very full of myself, and now so hardened in place that I dare not change it.'
Tarma's expression remained the same. 'So how is it that you know this woman?'
'I confess; a dose of the same folly that caused me to name myself for the powerful thunder cloud,' he replied slowly. 'I thought I could help her, I thought that if she had a friend, she could learn other ways. In short, I thought I could change her, redeem her, when others had not been able to.' He shrugged. 'I thought, at the worst, I was so much stronger than she that there was little she could do to harm me. I thought I could not be tricked; did not even guess that she was planning deeper than I anticipated, that she was using me to come at my charges, the firebirds. Now, not only do I pay for my folly, but others as well.'
'What happened to the Firefalcon shaman?' Tarma asked harshly.
A muscle at the edge of his eyelid twitched; nothing else moved. 'She caught him, coming to see me, and flung him into the cage holding the birds, making certain to panic them. She knew that if I once used my powers to control them, she could steal that control.' His eyes were very bright with tears that he was holding back. 'He knew it, too, and even as they lashed him with their flame, he told me to hold fast.' He looked from Tarma to Kethry and back. 'Will you forgive me when I close my ears to your cries?'
'Will you be closing your ears?' Kethry asked quietly, staring into blue eyes that seemed much, much older than the face that held them. 'Or will you be heeding instead the cries of those who would suffer if this woman got what she wanted?'
He closed his eyes for a moment, his expression for the first time open and easy to read. Pain -- and a relief as agonizing as the pain, if such a thing were possible. Then he opened his eyes again, and took her hand and kissed the back of it, like a courtier. It was in that moment that Kethry identified exactly what it was about him that made him so hard to identify. Stormwing was the most uniquely balanced human being she'd ever met; so completely accepting of both his own male and female natures that he felt poised, like a bird about to fly--
'But you may not have to worry about it,' Tarma said, dryly. 'Keth, I don't hear her. You want to try the Thahlkarsh gambit?'
'Why not? It worked before.' She kicked off her boots, grabbed the bars and climbed up to the top of the cage; once there (cursing her own laziness, that had let her get so out of shape) she carefully threaded her legs between the bars. As she had thought, her foot just reached the hook Need hung from.
'Get ready,' she called down below, grinning a little to see Stormwing's eyes so wide with surprise. 'I'm going to unhook the sword-belt and lower it to you.'
Stormwing shook his head. 'What good will having it do us, if this cage negates all magic?' he asked.
'It won't do me any good, but in a warrior's hands she cancels all spells cast against me wearer.' Kethry's arms were screaming with pain, and sweat streamed down her face as she inserted her foot in the loop of belt, worked it around to the top of the hook, and lifted, carefully. 'Tarma's cage is magicked, remember?'
'I hope that I am as good at throwing as you think me to be,' Stormwing replied, straining one long arm through the bars until he caught the tip of the scabbard.
Kethry didn't have the breath to spare to tell him that Need herself would take care of that, once out of the influence of the cage. She simply continued to lower the blade, bit by bit, until Stormwing had it firmly.
Then she dropped to the bottom of the cage, and waited for the pain in her arms to stop.
When she looked up again, the sword was sailing unerringly across the space between the cages, and Tarma caught it so neatly the movement looked rehearsed.
And no sooner did she have it in her hands, than the entire side of the cage swung open, like a door.
Just as Keyjon appeared in the gap in one of the hedges, accompanied by two enormous creatures, things that looked like nothing so much as walking suits of armor.
