Winds Of Fury

home safe to me. Come home, so I can celebrate your handfasting to that handsome young man who loves you so.'

Elspeth returned the embrace fiercely, then fled to resume her duty before Selenay could see that tears threatened to return.

'So. Name everything in this room that can be used as a weapon,' Kerowyn grinned at Elspeth.

'Your breath, Firesong's clothes, and that awful tea,' Elspeth replied to the old joke. Darkwind and Firesong cracked smiles.

Once again, they all had gathered in Kero's office. Talia was explaining to Kero her link with the secretive and close-knit 'clan' of itinerant traveling peddlers. Elspeth had heard it all before, but it was still fascinating, for Talia seemed the last person in the world to keep up an association with the 'wagon-families,' as they were known. Very often they were regarded as tricksters and only a short step above common thieves. It had been one of the wagon-men who had taken word of her imprisonment out of Hardorn when she had been captured and thrown in a shielded cell by Ancar.

' - so I've kept in constant contact with him, and I've tried to help him get his people out of trouble, when I could,' she concluded. 'Quite frankly, they can go places we can't, and it occurred to me that it would be very useful to have their cooperation if we needed to get someone into Hardorn, so I've been building up a lot of favors that they owe me.'

Kero nodded thoughtfully, tracing little patterns on the table top with her finger. 'The gods know I've tried and failed to get an agent in among them. They're very closemouthed and insular.'

Tiredly, Talia ran her fingers through her hair. Elspeth wondered if she would get any sleep at all, or if she'd go on until she collapsed. 'Ancar hasn't got any friends among them, I can tell you that. He's taken whole families; I don't care to think what he does with them, but once his men take a wagonload, the people are gone without a trace. Since that started happening, only single men and a few women, all without families, have dared to operate over there - and only in groups, so a single wagon can't just vanish. They've taken to putting together wagon- groups of entertainers and peddlers, and putting on movable fairs. But here's what I think my contact will offer, if I ask him, as the payback for all my favors. I think he'll set our group up with a bigger carnival, give them genuine wagons and things to sell, and basically see that his people protect ours from discovery by outsiders.'

Kero made a skeptical face. 'Entertainers? Carnival showmen? Gods, I don't know...I'd thought of something a lot more, well, secretive.'

Elspeth snorted. 'And how do you propose to hide Nyara or the bondbirds?' she demanded. 'The minute anyone gets sight of her or the birds, we'd be in trouble, if we were trying to pass ourselves off as simple farmers or something! How many farmers own large exotic birds, or even a hawk? And we'd never pass ourselves off as Hardornen nobles.'

'My point exactly,' Talia said. 'You can't hide them, so make them just one more very visible set of entertainers in a sea of flamboyance. After all, where do you hide a red fish?'

'In a pond full of other red fish,' Kero supplied the tagline of another Shin'a'in proverb. 'All right; contact the man. Don't tell him anything until you get his consent to the general idea, and Darkwind can slap one of those coercion things on him.'

Talia nodded, and rose from her seat. 'I'll have him here by dawn,' she said firmly, and left.

Firesong looked highly amused. 'Carnival entertainers?' he repeated, 'Entertainers, I understand, but what is a carnival?'

After Elspeth explained it to him, he looked even more amused. 'You mean - we shall cloak the fact that we are working genuine magic, that we have mage-born creatures, by performing entertainer tricks?'

'And selling snake-oil,' Kero added, and had to explain the concept of that to him as well. By the time she had finished, he was laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation.

'But this is too perfect!' he chuckled. 'Oh, please, you must let me play a role. The Great Mage Pandemonium! I shall never have another opportunity like this one!'

'I don't know how we could stop you,' Skif said dryly. 'And your bird is the harder to hide of the two.'

Vree cocked his head to one side :Tricks, I,: he offered. Then, to everyone's astonishment, he jumped down onto the table, waddled over to Firesong, and rolled over like a dog, his eyes fixed on the Healing Adept :Tricks, I, with Aya. Together.:

'I think he wants you to have a trick bird act with himself and your firebird,' Darkwind said, his eyes still wide with surprise. 'I keep thinking he has a limited grasp of abstract concepts, but every once in a while he astonishes me. It would be a very good way of explaining the presence of both birds.'

'I could assist you, Firesong,' Nyara added shyly. 'And dance. Falconsbane made me learn to dance, seduction dances, which would be popular, I think. You could say I was your captive.'

'And everyone who saw you would be certain her looks were due to costume and makeup, and the birds to