Eventually, after about eight days—the measureless monotony of the vast prairie made it all too easy to lose count—
Eliseth had found what she had been seeking: two young Xandim herders, a man and a woman, out on the plains alone, guarding a small cluster of shaggy white cattle. In order to get close to her prey, the Mage used her air-twisting spell to blur and disguise the outlines of herself and Bern, so that from a distance they would appear as a passing cloud shadow, a swirl of dust, or a flicker of sunlight on the windblown grass.
For a night and a day she followed the Xandim as they tracked the slow-moving bovines, noting the pattern of their activities. Every few hours they would take turnabout as rider and mount, one resuming human shape, and the other changing to equine form. When night fell once more they herded the cattle back to the deep grassy dell where they had pitched their camp—a sturdy hide tent and a fire in a shallow pit cut out of the turf to protect it from the worst of the omnipresent wind. The location was well chosen—there were few sheltered spots anywhere on the grasslands, but here the soil lay thin across the bones of the earth, exposing, along one side of the hollow, a slanting wall of fractured stone that dropped sharply to the grassy bottom of the dell. A spring oozed out between two cracked rock faces, its waters trickling down to collect in a mossy, reedy pool at die foot of the steep and stony gradient.—During the day, as the cattle grazed, their herders, a dark-haired man and a girl with tanned skin and long brown braids, had hunted hare and wild birds with bow and sling whenever an opportunity arose. Now, as the red sun dipped behind the edge of the dell, the pair moved into what appeared to be a well-rehearsed routine, with one skinning, drawing, and spitting the game while the other lit the fire and fetched water from the spring. When all was organized and the supper was roasting over die fire, the man stood up and smiled, holding out his hand to the woman. They vanished into the tent together, and were gone some time before the woman emerged once more, pulling on her shirt as she came. She turned the meat and went down to the pond to wash as her partner, stretching and whistling, crawled out of the tent and set a pot of water at the edge of the fire to boil.
When the Horsefolk had eaten and settled for the night they took turns at watch, one guarding the camp while the other slept. At last the Magewoman was ready to make her move. She waited an hour or two, shivering in the frosty moonlight until she was sure that the Xandim were well settled. At last, when the time was right, she slipped into Bern’s mind, controlling him as he crept up on the drowsy woman and cut her throat. The herder died without a sound, and her partner, still fast asleep within the tent, drew his last breath without even waking.
Smelling the blood, the cattle began to bawl uneasily and mill around the far side of the hollow. Eliseth, abandoning Bern’s body, darted out from her hiding place behind the tent and the shaggy white beasts exploded into terrified flight, stampeding away over the rim of the dell into the grasslands beyond. As the Magewoman came round to the front of the tent she almost fell over Bern, who knelt, retching, by the fireplace. Ignoring him, she filled the grail from the herders’ own waterbag and restored the first victim to life.—Eliseth took control of the Xandim’s mind almost before the girl had a chance to regain consciousness. There she planted the instruction that the herders must obey the silver-haired Outland woman without question, and serve her in any way they could. Once the girl’s mind had been enslaved, the Magewoman left her and repeated the process on the male herder.
Much to Eliseth’s amusement, the Xandim, Saldras and Teixeira, were most astonished to discover that a strange woman had suddenly appeared in their camp. They remembered nothing of what had happened to them—but now they were so gripped by the strange compulsion to devote themselves to the newcomer that they didn’t even spare as much as a thought for their vanished cattle.—For the first time Eliseth discovered, as Aurian and Anvar had so long ago, that the Magefolk possessed an innate facility to understand new languages.—Once she had questioned the herders about the habits, numbers, and whereabouts of the local Xandim, the herders were of no use to the Magewoman in their human form. Taking control of their minds, Eliseth forced them to change to equine shape and stay that way, hobbling them tightly so that they could not escape while she slept.
The Weather-Mage returned to the Xandim tent, now her own, in a glow of satisfaction. At last! No more trudging for mile after weary mile across these endless bloody plains! Now she could continue her journey quickly, for she had decided that the Horsefolk as a race would be of little use in her plans of conquest—she could come back and deal with them later, at her leisure. No, the secret of power in the Southern Kingdoms was control of the skies—and, among the scraps of knowledge she had gleaned from Anvar’s mind, she had found the names of Winged Folk who would be only too glad to help her oust the rightful Queen. Now that she had the Xandim to transport her, Eliseth intended to head for Aerillia with all speed.
In the meantime, however, there was one small detail to take care of. The Magewoman had not forgotten her plan to force Vannor to mount an attack on the Phaerie. Eliseth shared the remains of the herders’ supper with a ravenous and grateful Bern, then dismissed him, with a blanket, to sleep outside the tent.—Even as he drowsed in the almost-forgotten warmth of blanket and fire, she slid into his mind and obliterated his memories of the murder and resurrection of the Xandim. Not before time, too. Already, the baker had been starting to wonder if she had not dealt with him in some similar fashion.
Once the Mortal had settled, Eliseth took a candle and filled the grail with water. Looking into the dark and shifting depths of the chalice, she bent her will upon Nexis, and sought the unsuspecting mind of Vannor, High Lord of the City.
Vannor was trying hard to keep his temper, but that fat fool Pendral just got right under his skin and stuck there. If the idiot’s brain was as big as his mouth, the exasperated High Lord thought, then I wouldn’t be having all this trouble. He set down his goblet so hard that the wine splashed out in a streak of crimson over the polished surface of the library table.
“For the last time, man, what the thundering blazes do you expect me to do about the bloody Phaerie? Poor old Parric’s near demented—how can you expect the troopers to beat off an airborne attack? The enemy can shield against our arrows with their magic, and wherever we station our soldiers in the city, the bastards just come down somewhere else!”
Pendral’s piggy little eyes narrowed into slits. “But I do expect you to do something about the problem, Vannor. You are High Lord of Nexis—a position, I might remind you, that you took upon yourself. The citizens have every reason to look to you for help—and they’re getting damned tired of waiting for an answer from you and that drunken tosspot of a Garrison Commander.”
Vannor leapt to his feet, upsetting his goblet. He leaned across the table, glowering at Pendral. “Given your own collection of vices, you’ve got a bloody nerve to complain about Parric,” he growled.
Pendral’s face turned the color of the spilled wine. “Vicious lies?” he spluttered. “I challenge you to prove your baseless accusation, or .. .”