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Chapter 6: WINGMOUNTS AND OTHER ODD PASSIONS

THE driving wind bit into her cheeks, and the cold, miserable fog soaked through Faia's erda as if it were not there. She struggled to keep the wingmount under control, wishing with all her heart that she had paid more attention to the commands Medwind Song had used to direct her beast that first day.

"You can't get lost." Yaji's voice echoed in her memory. "The city is built in a circle. Faulea University is the saje-training center. That's the place you want to find. It's across the circle from here—if it weren't so damned foggy, I could even show it to you. Even if you miss it, Faia, all you have to do is fly back around the circle until you see the towers here.

"Fly along a rim road, not one of the spoke roads. It will take you longer, but you won't fly over the city's hub that way, where the administrative mages and sajes have their posts—the border is guarded heaviest there, so if you avoid it, you'll have less chance of being spotted."

Faia had been unsure. "What do I look for? How do I recognize their university?"

That had been the smallest worry, apparently. "It's built like Daane—all of whitestone, and it will have a Greathall, rows of dorms, big blocks of classrooms, and the towers for the instructors and the senior magicians. Just watch for the towers... but stay away from them. That's where the university's powerful sajes will be."

Faia had nodded. It had all seemed so sensible and so simple.

Stealing—no, "borrowing"—the wingmount, had been ridiculously easy. They were stabled in quarters separate from the horses, but still across the throughway on the other half of the campus. Traffic was light because of the fog, and there were no guards at the wingmount stables. The Council Regents policed the lake and the dorm doors and patrolled the grounds. Faia had simply slipped down knotted sheets out of her window, thanked the Lady for the fog, and ran like a dervish across the throughway, then crept to the stable.

It seemed odd. The horses are guarded, she noted. Why not the wingmounts?

The beast she stole had been reluctant to leave its nice, dry, warm stable, and getting it off the ground in the heavy fog had been frightening.

She recalled her first and only other experience with wingmounts in vivid detail. Mostly, she recalled landing. Suddenly, Faia tried hard not to think about landing.

But her question about the lack of guards on the wingmount stable was answered. No one but idiots and the desperate ride a wingmount in full daylight. Who would expect someone to try flying one of the beastly things at night?

She discovered she had more pressing problems, anyway. With the dull red gleam of the Tide Mother making pink gargoyles of the obstacles in the fog, and the dim flickers of light that appeared briefly through the city's windows and then disappeared again into the shrouded darkness, Faia wondered how she could ever hope to find the saje university—or even her way back. Anything that might have been a landmark was occluded by the pervasive mist.

She wished she could see clearly—and realized suddenly that she might actually be able to do that. She recalled thinking that clouds had felt very much like fog on her first flight. She had flown above the clouds. Perhaps she could fly above the fog.

She urged the wingmount upward. He seemed happy to comply. They rose steadily through the murk—

—And suddenly they were above it. The final wisps and tatters fell away, and an unsuspected world lay below them. It was a silent, storm-tossed ocean of pale pink, its eerie, twisting waves reflected against the starry black of the sky—an ocean that stretched away in all directions except for the thick black line of the cliffs that ran far to the east.

The hub of Ariss, situated on the peak of the mound on which the city was built, sat slightly above the fog-line, a tiny island full of danger. All else was buried—except, Faia noted with glee, for a dotting of towers that peeked their crenellated heads out of the mist.

The towers all look alike to me. But not all of those towers belong to the saje university. Some, Yaji said, are for other kinds of training schools. So which of those hold sajes?

Faia remembered the two sajes she'd seen standing on the bridge in Willowlake. She brought their images back to mind—two gaudily dressed men with long hair and long, gold-decorated beards. She damped down her energy as much as she could and called a tiny faeriefire, then gave it their image, and instructed it to take her to them.

The faeriefire shot off directly toward the right front tower of the saje square, and she urged the wingmount after it.

No sooner was the faeriefire darting toward its destination than she had second thoughts about her solution. The faeriefire would go, not just to the university the sajes occupied, but to at least one of those sajes. It would find them wherever they were and hover right in front of them until she arrived, or worse, until they followed it back to her—and they would be powerful instructors—with unknown tempers.

Faeriefires were willful things—some of her folk had said they were elder spirits; some, that they were disguised woodsprites; and some, that they were the very eyes of the Lady. They would help one who beseeched them properly—and they had never failed Faia. But she still feared they could abandon her if she annoyed them. Did she dare call the fire back?

Did she dare let it continue on its own?

No, she decided. She didn't.

She concentrated. :Someone at the same place, but a student. Someone I can trust. And the person that I need to speak to.: The faeriefire sped on, course unchanged. :Please,: she begged.

The faeriefire slowed. The wingmount overtook it, and then the green beacon led them down into the fog. Faia could see forms of trees, the bulky masses of buildings, then what seemed to be a greensward—a clearing—and then the ground came up, her mount backwinged wildly, and Faia lost her seat and fell, hitting the ground solidly.

For a long moment the pain was everywhere, and points of brilliant white light whirled around the insides of her eyes. Then the pain pulled itself in and settled companionably in her stomach and ribs. She gasped for air like a beached fish.

The wingmount snuffled at her gently.

"I am dead," she groaned.

The faeriefire darted around her head.

"Leave me alone."

The faeriefire began swooping back and forth between her and one pair of closed windows in the nearest building, a few yards away, from which flickering light emanated. The wingmount, concerned, gave her a nudge with his nose.

"A lot of good it does for you to worry now," she whispered, and forced herself to sit up. "That was a terrible landing."

She stood, groaned again, then walked slowly to the window, leading the wingmount. As tall as she was, she wasn't tall enough to see inside. The faeriefire had come to rest on the outside sill, however, so she knew (or hoped) she was in the right place.

There was nothing nearby she could move to stand on. There were no shrubs or close trees to climb. There was merely the building, the window, and the grass.

"Stand still, you," she told the wingmount. She steadied herself against the building and climbed onto the beast's back. Carefully, she stood on the tiny saddle.

There! Clear view!

A thin, redheaded young man in voluminous blue velvet robes stood facing the far left corner of the room. She could make out the jutting, hairless line of his jaw, and the patterning of freckles across the backs of his hands and the curve of his cheek.

He raised a black metal staff high over his head with his left hand, and with his right, reached into one of an assortment of small jars that sat on a stand at his side, and pulled out some powder. This he sprinkled into the brazier at his feet. Orange smoke puffed into the room. He repeated the process, this time gesturing with his staff at one of a dozen chalk scrawls that lined the walls. The smoke turned bright yellow.

She could hear him chanting, but the words were unintelligible. Another wave, another toss, and the smoke turned green. He began to sway from side to side, and the volume of his chanting increased. He picked up a stack of silver disks and tossed them into the air, where they hung motionless. He tossed the staff into the air and it came to rest mid-air with the coins. He waved his arms in a manner that began to remind Faia of an irate farmer chasing cows out of his corn, shouted another string of gibberish, and dumped a handful of bright blue powder into the brazier.

The smoke turned blue. The coins and the staff began to circle through the air. Then, ominously, the brazier sputtered and the airborne objects crashed to the floor. Thick black clouds poured from the little brass pot, and the unlucky saje, wheezing and coughing, grabbed a ceremonial broom from the wall and began beating at the source of the smoke.

Faia saw him bump his work table. Several jars smashed to the floor, their powdered contents scattered everywhere—including into the blaze in the brazier.

There was a loud WHUMP.

The wingmount shied. The faeriefire flickered and vanished.

Faia tumbled to the ground and landed like a rock.

She lay in silent agony, unable to pull in enough air to breathe, much less make noise.

The windows above Faia flew open and acrid smoke poured into the pink-fogged night. The young saje leaned out the window and gagged and coughed.

Faia, temporarily helpless, stared up at him.

He noted first the winged horse, then the fallen girl on the ground beneath him. His eyes grew round.

"My gods—" he wheezed between fits of coughing. "What—are you?"

The Revered and Most Noble Mottemage, Frelle Rakell Ingasdotte, holder of the Lifetitle of Geste-Motte, Chair of the Mage-Ariss Committee for Life-Experiment, Head of Daane University, and fourth in line of succession to lead Mage-Ariss, couldn't sleep worth a damn.

Flynn had bounced on her face earlier, teasing her out of bed by landing on her and then darting for the tower window, until she finally walked over and looked out. The view had been spectacular—her tower surrounded by an ocean of pink fog waves; the massive architecture of the central hub of Ariss lurching like a behemoth from the storm-tossed sea silhouetted against the lurid red-purple of the planet Tide Mother; one of her prize wingmounts soaring off towards Saje-Ariss with Daane's most promising new student aboard....

It had taken second and third looks before she could believe that last.

She mixed a healthy dollop of cream with the fifth of the steins of deep-burgundy Zheltariss, sloshed the contents around until the drink was marbled-burgundy with wide white stripes, then took a long, slow pull of the concoction.

"There is always a reason, Flynn," she intoned. "This shit doesn't happen but for a reason." She took another drink. "I just want to know the gods' bedamned reason!"

Flynn leapt onto the windowsill next to where she stood and looked longingly at the small pitcher of cream.

"Here," she snarled, and pushed the pitcher to him. "Drink it. You would anyway when I wasn't looking." She turned her face back to the window.

"I can't believe Faia is a traitor—but that was her on Makketh, flying straight for Saje-Ariss. Even if she hadn't conjured a faeriefire, I'd have recognized her power signature." Rakell buried her head in her hands, and sighed deeply. "None of this makes sense. The killings started just before she got here... but after she destroyed Bright. She claims the killer, whatever is was, attacked her and Yaji, but miraculously they survived when no others have. I felt the shielding, but not the attack. Now she sneaks out in the night to the other side of the city. Why? She knows enough of our plans to destroy us if she is a traitor. How can she not be a traitor?

"Flynn, what kind of a monster is she?"

Flynn, head buried to the shoulders in the cream-pot, made no reply.

"You're just a cat anyway, hey, Flynn? You wouldn't know the good guys from the bad guys if they wore signs. Just as long as you get fed, you like 'em."

Flynn lifted his cream-coated face from the emptied pitcher and blinked at her owlishly. With great care, he began his bath.

The Mottemage managed a slight twist of a smile, then returned her attention to the window, scanning the sky for her prodigal student.

The redheaded saje shed his blue velvet robe with a quick shrug, and tossed a little rope ladder over the window. An instant later, he'd climbed down to kneel on the wet grass next to Faia, where he studied her with an expression of mixed curiosity and concern.

"Are you hurt?" he finally asked.

"I fell off a wingmount for the second time in one night. I am sure I have felt better before."

The redheaded saje grinned. "I'll bet you have. Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here? Women aren't allowed on the campus."

"So I have been told. I believe I would be even less permitted than most women. My name is Faia Rissedote. I am a mage-student from Daane University. I came here to talk to a trustworthy saje, and the faeriefire led me to you."

"Whoosh!" The man sat back on his haunches and glanced from Faia to the wingmount and back. "I guess that explains the fancy horse—mage-student, huh? I'm Kirgen Marsonne—I guess I'm trustworthy, depending on what you want. But we need to get you inside. Even in the fog, someone might notice you."

She nodded. "What about the wingmount?"

"Tie it to one of the trees in the center of the quad and hope no one pays any attention, don't you think?"

Faia propped herself up on one elbow and winced. "A moment or two and I will be able to do that."

Kirgen shook his head. "We may not have a moment or two. Someone could come along any time—we students keep odd hours. Look, you climb up the ladder into the room, I'll tie up the horse and be right back."

"Lead him; do not ride him," Faia warned.

"But I'm a good rider."

Faia looked up from her position on the grass and grinned ruefully. "So am I."

With Kirgen gone, she pulled herself to her feet, and started up the few rungs of the ladder. Her ribs ached dully until she inhaled, when they blazed with stabbing, white-hot pain; she suspected she would be living with that for a few days. Her back and left shoulder and left hip still screamed in agony from the second fall. She wondered how long it would take before she could breathe without regretting it.

Hand up. Leg up. Breathe. Groan. Hand up. Leg up. Breathe. Groan. She would have rested partway, but she heard the muffled sound of people talking, that grew louder with each passing instant, as if they were coming closer. She forced herself to hurry.

Finally at the top, she threw her least sore leg over the ledge and pushed herself into the room—but her left foot snagged on the corner of the window as her torso cleared the ledge. Her momentum carried her forward, and she clawed for a handhold that wasn't there. She couldn't stop herself. She went feet over head and thudded ignominiously back-first onto the pile of velvet on the floor, where she lay staring up at the last eddies of smoke that swirled around the ceiling.

"All-damn," she whispered.

Kirgen poked his head over the ledge. His bright blue eyes were looking down at her again. He was trying without much success to keep from laughing. "You didn't."

"I did."

"I'm surprised they let you out without a keeper."

"They do not, truth to tell. I stole out without their knowledge. But I am not like this at other times. I am merely having a bad night."

"If you say so," Kirgen said with a doubtful expression. He vaulted gracefully into the room and pulled the rope ladder in behind him. "Here, let me help you up."

He reached out his hand—his hand which wore a heavy gold ring with a deep blue stone. She noted the ring, but took his hand anyway, shivering a little, and got up, and suddenly she was looking down at him.

His eyes grew round. "Whoosh," he murmured again.

"You are surprised I am so tall, yes?"

"Oh, yah. Seeing you in the dark, I didn't realize you were so pretty, either." He winked, and Faia felt her cheeks redden. "But let me take your cloak, and you sit down and catch your breath." He indicated one of two rickety wooden chairs shoved against the wall to make room for the magic work. "You wanted to talk."

Faia took the offered chair carefully. The pain was not so bad, she found out, once she sat still. She studied the open, earnest face that seemed so much like her own, and wondered how she could tell Kirgen about the murders, the return of the Fendles, and the mages' plan for revenge. Words that had seemed so reasonable on back a wingmount flying through the air in the middle of the night seemed considerably less so in the man's warm, bright, messy room. She faltered, and changed from her intended approach.

"What were you working on?" she asked.

"Homework," he said, and sighed. "Fifth-level evocation of a helpful blue-smoke godling—a controller of fire and air. I haven't managed one yet. If I don't get it right by the end of the quarter, I'm going to be back in sixth year again next fall, messing around with pots full of powdered salepsis and vertinyger sal and doing the same damn thing."

"Ah." Faia closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. "I wish I had not asked." Evocation of godlings, odd concoctions of powdered plants and resins, symbols and drawings and muttered incantations—and all she knew was the drawing down of faeriefires, a couple of tricks with fruit and meat, and the tending of her sheep. It would be so wonderful to run away and hide in the hills and never return to strange, terrible Ariss. She shifted in the hard seat and adjusted her tunic. So the indirect approach will not help me.

She squared her shoulders and took a deep, rather painful breath. "Kirgen, to ask you about your homework—that is not why I came to speak to you, in any case."

"No. Of course not." Kirgen leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. "You're here for something important. What?"

Lady, I wish I could read his feelings just by sitting next to him. If I could control him the way I did my sheep, I could know whether or not the sajes had some great plan to take over Mage-Ariss. But the reading of minds, as some of the mages do, as even Yaji does sometimes—that is beyond me. I only came close to that during—well—  

She remembered a private moment with Baward, once, looking into his eyes at the moment of their greatest passion, when she knew—really knew—all that he felt. She had, for those few instants, heard his thoughts. And she had discovered, much to her surprise, that Baward loved her.  

Well— She bit her lip and looked speculatively at Kirgen Mar. He was attractive, and attracted, and it wouldn't require much of a push to shift him to a moment of amorous dalliance. Actually, that might work. But it wouldn't be right. That would be using a gift the Lady created for personal pleasure to get information. No—I cannot do that. She stared into the saje apprentice's wonderfully freckled face. I shall have to do the best I can without resorting to that.

Attack head-on, she thought.

"You must tell me which sajes tortured and murdered the mage students and hedge-wizards in Mage-Ariss."

Kirgen's mouth gaped, and his eyes went blank with bewilderment. "What—the... whuh... What!?" he sputtered. "Sajes—murdered... students? Tortured and murdered mage-students—and hedge-wizards?. Huh!" He stared away into space for a long time, shook his head slowly, and finally took a deep breath and looked directly into her eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked.

She kept her eyes fixed on his, and didn't blink or flinch. "No," she said bluntly, "but a saje's ring, very much like the one you wear, was found under one of the flayed and dismembered bodies."

His already fair skin went gray. "Flayed—and dismembered? And a saje-ring.... I can see where the mages would be upset. They sent you to find out, then?"

"You do not realize just how upset they are," Faia noted dryly. "I came without their knowledge, to find out the truth, and maybe offer the sajes a chance at survival. They might kill me if they find out I was here. They intend to destroy you."

"Me!?" Kirgen squeaked. "Destroy me! I didn't do anything!"

"No. Not just you. They intend the instant and total destruction of all Saje-Ariss."

There was a long silence.

"Oh. Oh. Oh... farkling gods," Kirgen whispered.

"Yes." Faia smiled grimly. "Exactly."

Medwind Song walked up the last turn of the tower steps in the Mottemage's private stairway, rubbing her eyes and swearing in barbarian tongues. Her head hurt from lack of sleep and even more from the angry, abrupt mindcall she'd gotten minutes before. She pulled Rakell's door open without knocking and stomped in. Flynn, ever the opportunist, rubbed against her ankles and darted down the tower steps toward his cat-door and the freedom of the cold, foggy night.

Medwind made no attempt to retrieve him. She kicked the door shut behind her and mumbled, "What did you want, Rak—Mottemage?"

Rakell went right to the point. "Your prize student, your hedge-wizard prote[aage[aa, stole one of my wingmounts and defected to Saje-Ariss."

Medwind blinked and shook her head. She mouthed her Motte's words silently, eyes narrowing in disbelief. "Yeah? In this fog? That's crazy." She looked out the window, at the surreal view from the Mottemage's tower window and her hands knotted into fists. When she turned back to face her superior, her mouth twisted into a grim, lopsided smile. "She probably wanted to find some boy for a tumble on the grass and didn't realize she could do that locally."

"I'm not making light of this."

"Oh, hell, Rakell—I'm not either! I know this is bad—or at least it looks bad. One, if she's trying to help somehow, she's likely to end up getting herself killed, and if she's on our side, we need her. Two, things not always being what they seem, she may be a saje-sympathizer and a traitor instead of a nice country bumpkin kid—though how that could be, I don't know. Three, it may all be a clever act, and she may be the killer."

"I've thought of all those things."

"I know you have, Rakell."

"Mottemage."

"Rakell... we've been friends for years. Tonight, I don't want to stand on formality; I don't want to be your second in command. I want to be your friend. I know Faia a little better than you do—"

"—Neither one of us knows her much at all. No one does."

"Yes. I know. But I've watched her. I've paid close attention. She doesn't think the way you do, or the way I do. She's from a completely different world than either of us. And I don't think she would intentionally hurt anyone. Whatever she's doing, I'm sure she has a logical explanation for it, and I'm willing to bet that she is trying to help."

"Are you willing to bet your life? All of our lives?—because that's what you'll be doing, Medwind."

Medwind sighed, leaned against the window casement, and stared into the dark at the pale froth of pink fog below. "I believe in Faia. I don't really know completely why, but I do. She has principles and morals. She cares about people.

"She also doesn't understand the situation with Saje-Ariss, she knows nothing of politics, and she is as naive as a human being can possibly be. Deep in my gut, I don't think she harbors any active malice—but she could destroy us simply by trying to help." The Mottemage walked over and rested her hand on her prote[aage[aa's shoulder. "Medwind, we have to find her."

Medwind pressed her cheek against the cold stone casement and sighed. "You're right, of course."

"Mindsearch. Now, please, Medwind."

"As you wish."

Flynn lurked on the huge bridge-rock that stretched into the center of the lake—the cat was almost motionless, intent, thinking "invisible-harmless-not-cat" thoughts at the fish that swam ever closer, tempted by the twig he twitched in the water.

One big bluefish struck Flynn's lure, and with quicksilver grace Flynn stretched and caught and flipped it out of the water. He pounced, bit, cracked the spine, and began to eat, picking the heavy bones out daintily with his stubby, furry fingers. In his inscrutable way, he was grateful for the fingers, and for the delicate range of movements suddenly made available to him. He stopped briefly, spread his furry, claw-tipped hands and studied them. With a warm glow of self-admiration, he gave each finger a light wash before falling back to his feasting.

Two V's of water arrowed toward him, silent in the fog-shrouded dark. Two noses sniffed the warm scent of cat; four huge, round eyes watched him hungrily.

Flynn banqueted unaware.

Without warning, the ripples erupted into huge black shapes that lurched out of the still water to land on either side of the tomcat, trapping him on the rock promontory.

Flynn hissed and spat, yowled, swore, arched his back and raised his hackles, danced sideways—and frantically looked for, but never saw, an escape route. One of the man-sized beasts lunged in, huge jaws gaping, and retreated with five bloody slashes on its nose. The other, nearer the land, watched and waited.

Flynn turned in terrified circles, trapped on two sides by water and on two by the lake monsters. During one circuit, a huge paw ripped at him from behind, and his left hind leg became a mass of bleeding ribbons. He screamed in rage and pain. The monsters inched closer.

He crouched, shivering—damp, bleeding, terrified—and his furry fingers trembled across a long, thin object. It was a fishbone, remainder of his repast, which lay under his belly. He gripped it, tensed for a leap. From his right side, one monster charged. Hanging onto the bone, he launched himself straight at the face of the other beast, landing on its nose, driving his impromptu stiletto deep into one of the creature's eyes, raking his hind claws across its face.

It shrieked in agony and fumbled at the bone, while Flynn scrambled over the top of its head and raced three-legged down its back, across the rock promontory, and toward his tower home.

"... so, you see, we aren't trying to take over Mage-Ariss. We sajes are trying to quantify the stuff of life. We are unlocking the mysteries of the spheres; we're researching the history of Ariss and the whole of Arhel; we're doing investigations into the nature of magic itself. We aren't warriors—we're scholars."

They had talked for hours, while Faia observed Kirgen with every wile, guile, and subtlety she possessed. There was no indication that any part of his training had centered on violence, no indication that he bore animosity toward women, no sign of great desire for power to control others—and the faeriefire had led her to the person she needed to speak to. Faia trusted the faeriefires—so she felt she could trust Kirgen to be enough like his fellows to show her what she needed to see.

Her smile at Kirgen was radiant. "I knew they were wrong about the sajes. I know men, and they do not. So." She embraced him in a spontaneous hug. "Now I can tell them that they must look elsewhere for that terrible killer, that the Sajes are not responsible. I will not let them destroy Saje-Ariss."

Kirgen pulled her closer and hugged her gently in return.

The warmth and the tender strength of his arms around her felt so good. He smelled musky and masculine, still slightly smoky from his earlier mishap; she pressed her face against the smooth skin of his neck and felt hunger wakening in her belly that had been dormant since Bright burned. "Ah, Kirgen," she whispered, and kissed him lightly at the base of his neck, once, and then again. She felt his startled shiver.

His arms tightened around her, and his breath quickened across the back of her neck.

She ignored the twinges of her ribs and bruises and scrapes. It had been too long since she had felt something like this. Slowly, she twined one hand through the coarse waves of his hair, and slowly, she left a line of little kisses from his shoulder up his neck and along his jaw. His heart pounded against her breasts.

She turned to look at him—his eyes were wide and intent, his pupils huge. His lips trembled as he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her into a careful, gentle kiss.

She closed her eyes and deepened the kiss. His rough stubble scoured her cheek; his lips caressed hers hungrily.

When she pulled away, he looked startled and disappointed. Faia shook her head and smiled, and began working as fast as she could at the lacings of his jerkin.

"Oh." His smiled uncertainly and stroked her hair and her back. "You're so beautiful."

She grinned impishly. " 'All women are goddesses/Once the dark falls,' " she told him. "At least that is what Faljon says. Just be glad you will not have to see me in the sunlight. You might change your mind."

"Whoever Faljon is, he isn't very nice."

"But he is usually right. He has one about men and the sizes of their—"

"I don't want to hear it."

She laughed and stood and tugged his jerkin off over his head. "—the sizes of their feet. But I will not tell you." She traced the muscles of his chest with her fingers and stroked the light coating of red hair that narrowed to a downward-pointing thread at his navel.

He stood, too, and fumbled with the laces of her jerkin. "I shall do that," she whispered, and removed it in one quick tug. She hissed at the sudden pain that pinched at her ribs.

He stared. "What's the matter?"

"I was trying to forget I fell off my horse." She grinned ruefully and rubbed her ribs. "My wounds just reminded me."

"Poor thing," Kirgen said, and bent over and kissed the spot she rubbed. His kisses crept higher, and became light, feathery nibbles. With a soft moan, he pulled her against him.

"Are you sure you want this?" he whispered.

"I'm sure," she said.

Faia suffered a momentary twinge of anxiety. No alsinthe, though, she thought. I have none in my room at the dorm, I have none with me... but I can go to the market tomorrow and get some. Tomorrow will still be in time.

Besides, she reassured herself, it will only be this once....

The Mottemage watched Medwind Song, waiting in the tense stillness for her answer.

The barbarian frelle sat, as she had sat for nearly an hour, in a chalkdrawn circle facing a black mirror with tall white candles lit on either side of her. Her unfocused eyes stared into the ebon glass. Her breathing was so slow it was almost imperceptible.

Then she jumped a little, startled, and stiffened into intense concentration. Abruptly, Medwind chuckled. The sound fell like an anvil into the ice-bound silence of the room, shattering it into sharp, invisible shards.

Rakell's voice cut, another icy blade. "Well? What are you laughing at?"

Medwind shook her head gently and smiled up at her mentor from her seat on the floor. "Believe it or not, Rakell, my little joke was the true answer all along. She's found herself both boy and bed."

The Mottemage howled, "What! That brainless ninny! That idiot! What does she think she's doing—"

Medwind waved a hand to cut her off. "Actually, I can tell you what she's doing. She's having a good time... but she also seems to be concentrating on his intent and his honesty. It appears that she's invoking what little empathy she has on him to see if he was involved in the murders."

Rakell quieted. She stood, staring thoughtfully at the lean, dark woman on her floor, and her face clouded with confusion. "Dig deeper. Did she have a reason to suspect him?"

"It appears that she summoned a faeriefire to guide her to a trustworthy saje. The whole plan of hers seems rather juvenile and poorly thought out, but she apparently felt our decision to annihilate the sajes was unfair (Which it was, Medwind added to herself) and she wanted proof that the sajes—or at least most of the sajes—weren't involved. So she has questioned this young man at length, and is satisfied that he is innocent."

Rakell sighed. "And does she intend to sleep with all the rest of the sajes to determine their innocence?"

"I believe that the bedding was unplanned, Motte."

The Mottemage hit her head with the palm of her hand several times in quick succession. "Of course it was!" she snarled. "How silly of me. Gods save me from idealistic children! So she has proven his innocence to herself, and therefore she must fall in love with him?"

Medwind stretched and pinched out her candles. "She's a hill girl. They don't equate sex with love," she noted. "And, ethically, I have to admire Faia. She's going about it the wrong way, but she's trying to prevent what she sees as an injustice from happening."

"Not you, too, Frelle Medwind," the Mottemage growled in warning. "Don't you start with that 'poor innocents and sweet men' theme. I won't have it."

Medwind opened her mouth to protest, but the Motte cut her off. "And don't think I don't know about your 'secret' activities, either. I know all about the trapdoor in your room and your midnight visitors. Your taste for virile young men hasn't been a problem to this point, Medwind. And I'm very forgiving of your barbarian upbringing, and your heathen distaste for celibacy—but don't let that cloud your thinking on this issue." Rakell paced. "The sajes are guilty—maybe not all of them, but some of them. And the bastards need to be destroyed." She stared past Medwind out the window, eyes narrowed with hatred. "They're going to regret killing my students—my children. They're going to regret it, Med."

Faia's unbound hair spread across Kirgen's chest like a silk blanket. She nestled against him on his narrow cot, watching the smile play across his face.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him.

"Oh... that this would be a very nice place to be a hundred years from now. I could be content never to move again."

Faia laughed with delight. "So true. But just think. You would miss your classes on the so-important evocation of a cheerful number seven fire-breathing god—"

"Helpful fifth-level blue-smoke godling."

"As you wish. And I would miss my wonderful classes on how to renew rotted apples."

Kirgen chuckled. "That sounds exciting."

"Especially since my mother taught me how to do that when I was a small child."

The first gray light of dawn filtered through the fog into the room, and Faia propped herself up on her elbows. Her smile vanished. "You were wonderful, and this has been wonderful, but I must leave now, Kirgen."

"I suppose you must. When will I see you again?"

"I do not know that you ever will. We can hope, I suppose, but the situation in Mage-Ariss is very grave."

Kirgen slipped his jerkin back on, and handed Faia hers. "You're right." He sighed. "What should I tell the sajes? Should I tell them anything?"

Faia pulled on her own clothes. "You must—mmph!—do what you feel is right. I do not know"—her voice became muffled, then clear again as she worked her face free of the leather jerkin—"a good answer to give you. Maybe there is no good answer."

"Perhaps not. Faia—"

His voice broke, and Faia tensed. "What?"

"Thank you," he finished. "For not believing that all of us could be so evil."

Faia remembered Rorin and Baward and half a dozen other shepherd boys, and her brothers and her uncles, the dim and distant memory of her long-dead father, and the few men her mother accepted as lovers, and she smiled gently. "I know men. They do not."

"And now I know women," Kirgen noted. "They are not so frightening as I was led to believe."

There was a bloody, bone-chilling scream right outside the Mottemage's door, a long, high-pitched howl that froze both Rakell and Medwind in their places.

It quavered into silence, and Medwind whispered, "Merciful goddess, what now?"

Rakell ran to the door, summoning her shields around her as she went. "Back me up, Med," she yelled.

She flung open the door, hoping to catch whatever was out there off guard.

The steps were empty, except for wet, dirty, bleeding Flynn, who bolted into the room as if pursued by the nine dog-demons of Mejjora and ran under the lowest chair in the room.

From his hiding place, his blue eyes gleamed out balefully.

"Flynn?" the Mottemage croaked.

Medwind and Rakell traded glances, and Rakell stared back down the spiraling steps. As far as the curve, there was nothing, and even beyond, she sensed nothing, although the familiar power signatures of Daane instructors were nearing various doors. They'd been, she reasoned, wakened by the screams.

"It was apparently Flynn," she finally told Medwind, sounding disappointed that it wasn't one of the killer sajes—or worse.

She carefully closed and bolted the door, and turned to watch her head instructor.

Medwind was belly-down beside the chair, trying to coax the big tomcat out of hiding. She'd reached under and pulled back a scratched and bloodied hand, and had decided on the more politically sound approach of "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

"He looks badly hurt, Rakell," the barbarian said. "His left hind leg is mangled and I can't get him out so I can look at it. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..." she added.

The cat shuddered and hissed and spat. The Mottemage joined her friend on the floor.

"I'll take care of this, Medwind. Flynn," Rakell said in a cold, commanding voice. "Come here."

The hair on the back of Medwind's neck rose, and gooseflesh stood on her arms. Compulsion spell, she thought. The Mottemage's magic is strong enough to compel an army forward. Just the backwash of it draws me.

But the cat crouched and glared.

"Flynn," Rakell commanded again, "COME—HERE."

Medwind, her face pressed into the floor, her hands gripping furniture to keep herself from crawling to her superior, was not in a position to see the cat's response. But she heard him. He spat and hissed.

And Rakell's magical compulsion lifted. "Damn!" the Mottemage muttered. "Nothing ever makes a cat do what you want it to." She stood and stomped into the kitchen and came back a moment later with another small pitcher of cream and a slab of raw fish, which she placed in the middle of the rug, but where Flynn could see them.

Then she joined Medwind on the floor, gave her a self-deprecating little smile, and said, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..."

And now I know women....

Kirgen's words echoed in Faia's memory as she clung to the back of the wingmount. Could the sajes know as little of Ariss' women as the mages know of the men? Is this city nothing but a flock of old, lonely virgins plotting in their towers how best to hurt each other? How strange and how sad. Kirgen was no skilled lover, but I had thought at his age he would have been with a woman before.

She urged the wingmount downward as she approached the Daane tower.

Can they not see how much they need each other? How much better their lives would be if only they would let themselves trust each other again.

That shall be my job in this city, she decided. I will make them all see that men and women should be together, not apart. She smiled, and drove the wingmount down into the billows of fog. The Tide Mother was setting as the sun rose over the horizon. The garish pink faded, replaced by white.

The wingmount recognized its home pastures and set its wings into a glide. When it whinnied, it was answered by a stable full of its brethren.

"Hush, beast," Faia said. "You'll get us both caught." But nothing moved around the wingmount stables, and she grinned. Almost home free.

"There she comes," Medwind told the Mottemage. "Right over the fog-hills, staying low. She has no idea she's been missed."

Rakell sat on the floor, her fingers stroking the now nearly healed wounds on Flynn's leg. She seemed totally lost in the concentration of healing, but she looked up briefly from the purring cat and said, "Bring her to me at once.

"Yes, Mottemage," the barbarian murmured, and left.

Yaji paced from one side of the dorm to the other, stepping over clothes and projects and musical instruments, twisting her hair, and praying to all the old gods whose names she could remember. From time to time she stopped and studied the primitive little glass mirror trap, with its pentacle scrawled on one surface. Nothing appeared to have changed, and she had not thought to ask Faia what the trap would be like if it were full. She bit her lip each time, twisted harder at her hair, and resumed her pacing.

Dawn crept through cracks in the shutters and shone off the pale rose glass beneath them.

And Yaji, tired and frightened, could only think that with sunlight came safety. She opened the windows and unbarred the shutters and shoved them open to admit the light.

Tattered fog, thinning even as she watched, swirled and blew in ragged wisps across the lawn. A flurry of whinnies came from the direction of the wingmount stables, and her heart leapt. Let it be Faia, back safe, she prayed.

Silky brown undulations caught her attention, and she stared through the remaining fog at the path that led from the student dorms to the lake. A line of Fendles hurried down it. Their movements seemed furtive, but Yaji decided after quick deliberation that was too much credit to give simple animals. "Probably raiding the trash piles behind the kitchen," she muttered. She continued watching them, but they did nothing more interesting than run single-file out along the long rock that went toward the center of the lake and dive into the water.

She turned her attention back toward the direction of the wingmount stables. Come on, Faia. Hurry, or you're going to miss first bell, and then I'll have to miss breakfast.

"Don't move."

Faia, cleaning the wingmount's tack before she returned it to the rack, froze.

Medwind Song, breathing hard, eyes dark-circled and angry, stepped in from the far doorway and came to stand beside her.

Faia's brain scrambled for reasons why she might plausibly be in the tackroom of the wingmount stables before first bell on a class morning, but nothing was forthcoming.

"Frelle Medwind..." she began anyway, hoping inspiration would strike in midsentence.

Medwind cut her off. "What the hells kind of a stunt were you trying to pull by flying to Saje-Ariss and bedding a saje-apprentice?"

Well, I suppose that means I do not need to think of a plausible story, she decided. Just as well. Mama never approved of lies. And Faljon says, "Liars are vipers/who bite their own tails."

"I was trying to prevent a terrible mistake from happening," she told Medwind. "The sajes are not guilty—at least not all of them. We cannot destroy them all."

"Even if you are right—and just so you'll know, I think you are—you cannot solve a problem by creating new ones. Even you admit that some of the sajes could still be involved. By going to Saje-Ariss, how can you be sure you have not made things worse? You went to the enemy—don't interrupt, Faia. The saje-ring we found is still compelling evidence, so we must consider at least some of the sajes the enemy. And which sajes? I don't know, and neither do you."

"So... you went to the enemy, and you told the enemy of our plans."

"Kirgen is not the enemy."

"Probably not. But what if his best friend is?"

Faia clenched her fists. "I had to do something. We cannot slaughter guilty and innocent together!"

Medwind sighed. "This I know. Faia, you must tell no one, not even the Mottemage, but I find this kill-all approach as abhorrent as you do. I am working on the problem, trying to find the true story of the Old Woman and the Fendles, for this horror we are living through now is rooted, not in the present, but in the past; not with the mages and sajes of now, but with those from hundreds of years before. This two-faced city's past returns to haunt us. Not until we can unravel the mystery of the Fendles' return will we discover that which they hope to protect us from."

Faia smiled. "Good luck."

"Thanks. In the meantime, you are in deep muck," Medwind added. "The Mottemage intends to skin you and nail your hide to the wall for her cat, Flynn, to sharpen his claws on, I think."

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