Elster advises Raven to marry Aguila, for she needs his strength and support.—Aurian and her companions travel to the Xandim Fastness, aided by winged couriers sent by Raven, On arrival, they are ambushed by the mad Healer-Mage Meiriel, aided by Gristheena, the brutal leader of the great cats. Meiriel kidnaps Wolf, but the Mages and Chiamh track her down and Aurian slays her.—Shia defeats Gristheena, but leaves Hreeza to rule the cats so that she herself can remain with Aurian.
Parric’s term as Herdlord is coming to an end. The Xandim revolt against him, and while the companions are escaping their attackers, Bohan falls from the cliffs behind the Fastness and dies. Backed by Chiamh, Parric nominates Schiannath to Challenge in his place. The former outlaw battles Phalihas and, on killing him, becomes Herdlord.
In Nexis, Vannor is still the captive of the Magefolk. Though Miathan will not permit her to kill him, Eliseth has discovered that she can use Mortal pain to increase her powers, and mangles Vannor’s hand. Zanna has manipulated herself into the role of Eliseth’s maid, hoping to spy on the Mages. When she discovers her father, she rescues him and they escape via the archives and the sewers. They find sanctuary with Hebba, Vannor’s cook, who is also sheltering Tarnal, Yanis, and the physician Benziorn, who is forced to amputate Vannor’s injured hand. They all escape from Nexis and flee back to the Nightrunners.—In a vision, Chiamh discovers that the Sword of Flame is hidden in the Lady Eilin’s Valley. The Mages and their companions make plans to return to the North, unaware of the fact that Eliseth has sent Bern to infiltrate the rebel camp in the Vale.
In the city of Taibeth, Sara is alone, for Xiang has headed north across the desert in search of his son Harihn, unaware that the Prince is already dead.—Sara has evolved a plan to dupe Xiang with a feigned pregnancy during his absence. On reaching the far side of the desert, Xiang finds the forest occupied by Eliizar and his folk—who are ready for invaders. Xiang’s forces are vanquished and he is slain by Eliizar himself. As long as Sara can carry out her deception to its conclusion and produce a child from somewhere at the proper time, she will be in an unassailable position of power as the mother of Xiang’s successor.
On reaching the coast of the Southern Lands, Aurian summons the Leviathan Ithalasa. Risking the disapproval of his people, he agrees to take Chiamh, Parric, and Sangra on his back so that they can contact Yanis and arrange for Night-runner ships to take the Mages and the Xandim forces provided by Schiannath back to the North. Before they can board the ships, Cygnus joins them. Though he has deceived Raven into sending him to assist the Mages, he has truly come to steal the Harp by any possible means.
In Nexis, Eliseth sees in her scrying crystal that Aurian has returned. She makes a treacherous attack on Miathan, takes him out of time and steals the Grail of Rebirth. With a force of mercenaries, she advances on the Valley to battle the Mages and their allies on the outskirts. D’arvan, the Wildwood’s guardian, lets Aurian’s folk pass within. When Eliseth finds herself barred from entering, she calls down lightning to set the woods ablaze.
When Aurian reaches the lake, she is attacked by Maya, but breaks the spell and returns her old friend to her human form. When the Mage tries to claim the Sword, it demands a sacrifice—the blood of a loved one. Rather than make such a bargain, Aurian forfeits the Artifact. The Phaerie, freed by the Sword but unable to swear allegiance to its wielder, are loosed upon the world and turn the Xandim back to their equine form. Cygnus, seeing his chance, attacks Anvar, and as Aurian rushes to his aid, Eliseth steals the Sword. When she tries to wield it together with the Grail, however, she rends open the fabric of time, vanishing with Anvar through the gap. Aurian follows, along with D’arvan, Maya, Chiamh, Schiannath, and the great cats Shia and Khanu. All of them are lost in time and hurtling toward an unknown fate.
1
The Last of the Magefolk
When the wizard failed to master the Sword of Flame, the Phaerie were free at last. To Hellorin, it was a stroke of good fortune beyond belief that the flame-haired Magewoman had not only, through her weakness, granted his people the liberty they had craved, but had also been the means of restoring the Phaerie steeds that had lived for so long in human guise, far across the sea.
“Ride, my children,” he roared exultantly. “Let the world tremble, for the Phaerie ride once more!”
“No,” Eilin shouted. “Lord, you must not do this. Let the Xandim go. These are intelligent beings!”
For an instant, the Forest Lord hesitated. While the Mage had been trapped in his realm they had become close friends, and she had meant a good deal to him—but now that he could exercise his will again nothing must interfere with his freedom. The days of the Magefolk were over, and once again the Phaerie could take the world and shake it to its foundations. Hellorin shrugged, dismissing Eilin from his mind along with his softhearted son, who would have left the Phaerie steeds in their useless human form. D’arvan would be taught to know better in times to come.
With a spine-wrenching leap, the white mare sprung skyward. The heart of the Forest Lord, fettered and earthbound for so long, soared with his Phaerie steed as her hooves spurned the ground and she sped aloft, with stretching strides, along a path of invisible air. So intent was he on his triumph that he failed to notice the gate in time that the Sword of Flame had opened behind him. He did not see D’arvan, his son, leap through the gateway after Aurian, to be whirled away into oblivion.
Scores of voices took up Hellorin’s cry as his people followed; shadowy figures no longer, but comely and clad in radiant flesh: soaring behind him on their own mounts, who but moments before had worn the guise, and held the consciousness and intelligence, of mortal men. Higher and higher the Phaerie climbed, swarming upward like a drift of dark smoke as they followed their Lord into the heavens. Those who remained earthbound, through lack of sufficient horses, scattered into the forest as though they planned to follow the Hunt on foot.
The Forest Lord glanced proudly back at his followers, his triumph marred only by the fact that this gathering was but a pallid reflection of the great ridings of old, for little more than fivescore of the Phaerie steeds had come with the strangers to the Vale. Therefore many of his folk could not take to the skies. Firmly, he shrugged the thought aside, determined not to let such comparisons mar this great and triumphal moment. If the missing horses were on this side of the ocean they would be found—and if they were still lost across the seas, beyond the powerful reach of the Phaerie, then others could easily be bred from the stock that had been recovered today. Casting such mundane matters firmly from his mind, Hellorin reveled in his new freedom, breathing in great drafts of the icy wind that stung his face and burned thinly in his lungs. Glancing earthward, he gloried in the power of his Phaerie mount as the white mare leapt from cloud to cloud, striking thunderbolts with her silver hooves.
Far below, Hellorin’s keen eyes spied human shapes: a throng of fleeing Mortals who were swarming like ants through the smoldering trees near the rim of the Vale. Though such creatures had their uses, they must first be taught a lesson—that the Phaerie were their masters now. With a triumphant howl, the Forest Lord called up his pack of great hounds and spurred the white mare, sending her hurtling downward, toward the invaders. His people followed, curving down out of the sky like shooting stars, their eyes ablaze with the thirsting lost for Mortal blood; their voices upraised in a shrill, discordant song of battle that sliced the air like blades. One by one, the mercenaries who had followed Eliseth on her ill-fated raid were hunted down like deer amid the trees, and like deer were slaughtered while the earth amid the roots of the tortured forest drank deeply of their blood. Only when all the Mortals had been slain did the Phaerie look around them for other prey.