Through the night, Avithan had slipped further and further away, until Taine and Iriana had to face the fact that they were losing him. Out of sheer desperation they had cobbled together a time spell - a risk in itself, for Taine had never attempted time magic, and Iriana, though she had read the theory, was similarly lacking in experience. Nevertheless, it had been Avithan’s only chance. Now he lay in the tent, unmoving beneath the magic’s eye-defying shimmer, and until they got him back - somehow - to Tyrineld, and the spell could be removed, they would not know whether they had saved or killed him.
Looking at Iriana now, Taine marvelled anew at her courage. For a little while the previous night, before they had performed the spell, she had sobbed broken-heartedly and he had tried in vain to comfort her. Having given vent to her grief and anxiety, she had pulled herself together and set about doing what needed to be done. He had nothing but admiration for the young Wizard. When she spoke of Esmon’s death, Taine had realised how deeply she was grieving for the murdered Warrior. The loss of her animals had affected her profoundly, both emotionally and practically, and he sympathised with her frustration that she could no longer see unless the stallion was near, or be of much practical assistance to her companion. Yet she had remained capable and steadfast throughout her ordeal. He felt humbled by her courage. How would he have managed, sightless, bereft and in peril from both assailant and storm?
All at once, his wandering attention snapped back to her words, as she translated Corisand’s thoughts: ‘And then Tiolani threatened Aelwen, Hellorin’s Horsemistress. So Aelwen decided to flee, and I decided we should escape together, along with—’
‘What? What?’ Taine all but pounced on Corisand. ‘Say that again. What about Aelwen? She escaped? Where is she? Is she all right?’
He leapt to his feet, pacing the clearing, scarcely able to contain himself as Corisand’s narrative continued. When he heard that his beloved had been lost in the storm, his heart turned over. So close. He had come so close, and now she might be dead.
Iriana had stopped speaking and was watching him open-mouthed. Even Corisand looked astonished, and he realised that he must have been babbling out loud. ‘We have to find her.’ His voice grew urgent as he rounded on Corisand. ‘Tell me again - I mean, tell Iriana. Tell us exactly what happened. How far away from her were you? What direction was she moving in, when you went down?’
‘I’m sorry, Taine, but I have no notion.’ Corisand’s words came back through Iriana. ‘Too much was happening - we were a goodly distance apart, and as well as the storm, I had Ferimon and that accursed Huntsman to deal with. You have no idea what it was like up there. The wind hurled us around so much, I had no idea of anyone’s direction. Aelwen could be anywhere - close by, or fifty miles away. We can’t possibly hope to find her.’
‘And what about Avithan?’ Iriana laid a hand on his arm. ‘We must get him home now. We must take him back to the healers.’
In his heart Taine knew she was right, and that only made it worse. But how could he leave Aelwen?
‘Taine, we can’t stay here,’ Iriana said urgently. ‘The Phaerie—’
‘But Corisand said she threw her rider,’ Taine protested. ‘If Tiolani has fallen, there will be no flying magic. It will take them two or three days to come out this far - and even then, this is a big forest to search. If they cannot see us from the air, they can’t find us. We have a little time left, surely?’
‘But there is something I didn’t tell you. Cyran may know very soon that we’re in trouble. Last night, when I was running from the assassin who killed Esmon, I sent out a cry for help in mindspeech. I think the distance was too great, but I was desperate. I called to Challan, my foster-father in Nexis. We had such a close bond once, I thought there might be a chance. If he heard, he could have sent a message through by carrier bird—’
Taine sighed. ‘Iriana, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your foster-father can’t have heard you, because he wasn’t in Nexis. I met a Wizard called Challan on the road a few days ago. He was going to Tyrineld, to search for his daughter. She had run away, apparently, after some sort of family quarrel.’
He wondered at the bitter look that crossed her face. ‘Chiannala,’ she muttered, then he saw her square her shoulders, shrugging away whatever had upset her. ‘All right. So Cyran can’t know of our danger. But Corisand also said the others tried to catch Tiolani, and she didn’t see whether they succeeded or not. She may not be dead, or even badly hurt. What if she’s planning, right now, to bring the Hunt out after Corisand and Aelwen and her friend? We must get away, as far and fast as we can—’
‘There is no need to run away. I will protect you.’
She had come out of nowhere, the woman with the face of ageless beauty and the fine-spun silver hair that glowed around her head like an aureole.
Taine and Iriana leapt to their feet, she with a cry of astonishment, and he with a curse. Corisand’s head snaked out aggressively, her ears going back flat to her head. Swiftly though Taine snatched at his weapon, the stranger was faster. His hand closed on emptiness as the blade sailed through the air and thudded to earth on the far side of the clearing.
‘See? I can protect myself, too,’ the woman smiled wryly. ‘But you have nothing to fear from me, Iriana, Corisand, Taine.’
‘Then what do you want?’ Taine demanded.
‘How do you know our names?’ Iriana asked at the same time.
‘I am not from this world, and I am here to help.’ She smiled as their jaws dropped at this bald statement. ‘You may call me Athina, or the Cailleach. Trust me. The fate of your world is truly hanging in the balance, and I know that your Archwizard has also foreseen this, Iriana. I have, shall we say, a very great interest in your world, and I am trying to save it from utter destruction. I too believe that the crisis is nearly upon us. I have had my own visions. I know that the future lies in the hands of a very small group of people: one is Hellorin’s daughter—’
‘Her?’ said Corisand. ‘Are you insane? That must be wrong.’
Even as Iriana began to translate, the woman held up her hand. ‘There’s no need for that, Iriana. I understand the Windeye of the Xandim perfectly. Which is just as well, because you, Corisand, and you, Iriana, were the others in my vision.’
A storm of protest broke out, with everyone speaking at once. All but the strange woman, who stood quietly and let their words break around her like waves. ‘Then let me prove it.’ Her quiet words were suffused with such powerful compulsion that the others were silenced as effectively as if she had shouted at the top of her lungs. ‘Both you, Iriana, and you, Taine, are yearning for missing companions.’ She turned to the trees behind her, and cast her arm out in a sweeping gesture. ‘Behold, I restore them to you.’
There was a snapping of twigs in the underbrush, then out of the trees stepped Aelwen, riding her midnight stallion.
Her face was drawn with weariness and her hair hung down in tangles, snarled with leaves and twigs. She was shivering, Taine noticed, and her clothing had been darkened by the soaking rain. The linen shirt under her leather jerkin clung to her body in sodden wrinkles, and was ripped down one sleeve. There were bruised shadows under her eyes, a scratch on her forehead and a long smudge of green bark down one cheek.
He had never seen anyone so beautiful.
She froze, staring at him with wide, stunned, vulnerable eyes. He could see the emotions chasing across her face: disbelief, amazement, joy. A mirror of his own feelings. For Taine, time stopped. For a moment they simply stared, utterly transfixed, drinking in the sight of one another like desert travellers who, parched with thirst, reach an oasis at long, long last.