‘Ah, let her be, my Lord. Tonight is special.’ Arvain laughed. ‘I recall my first Hunt. I spent an age getting ready, as vain as any girl. It’s the same for us all. I will call her.’ For a moment he was silent, his golden gaze opaque and inward-looking. ‘She comes.’
‘Are you sure I look all right?’ Tiolani turned this way and that in front of the mirror, scanning her reflection with a critical eye
Varna, her lady-in-waiting, two years older and Ferimon’s sister, cast her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘For the thousandth time, you look perfect. Now, can we please go? It will not do to keep the Lord of the Phaerie waiting, even if he is your father.’ Grabbing Tiolani’s hand, she tugged her determinedly towards the door.
Tiolani glanced back for one last look in the mirror. She was always concerned about her appearance - that was all part of being the Forest Lord’s only daughter - but tonight was different. Now that she had reached her twenty-first year, she was about to join the other members of her father’s court in one of their best-loved and exciting pastimes, but this would be about more than just thrills and sport. Her first Hunt was a rite of passage which all Phaerie must undergo. Only when she had killed her first human would she truly be accepted as an adult, and a member of the Phaerie Court.
Will I like it? Will I really like hunting mortals - all the bloodshed and the slaughter?
Of course she would. Tiolani dealt firmly with that small quiver of doubt. She was Phaerie, and Hellorin’s daughter. The Hunt was part of her heritage. It was in her blood. Why should she not come to love it as Arvain had?
As Varna hurried her out of the room, the image in the mirror lingered in her mind. Could she compete with the slender lady-in-waiting, as dark as her brother was fair, and one of the greatest beauties of the court? She decided that she could. Like Arvain, she had inherited her looks from her mother, though the copper in her tawny hair was a shade or two deeper. Her eyes, however, instead of being golden, were dark grey; uncannily like those of her father but lacking, as yet, the mastery of Hellorin’s piercing gaze. Tonight they sparkled in a face that was pale with excitement. Her long red-gold hair normally hung loose down her back in rippled waves, but tonight, under Varna’s skilful hands, it had been threaded with gems and looped back in an intricate arrangement of braids. After much deliberation, she had settled on shining gold for her costume, and the result was dazzling. She might be a newcomer to the Hunt, but she was damned if she would let any of the hard-riding females in the Court outshine her when it came to looks.
At that moment, Arvain’s call, spoken directly from one mind to the other, broke into her thoughts. ‘Tiolani, are you not ready yet? Hurry up, you little monster. Do you want to keep the entire court waiting all night?’
Tiolani gasped in dismay. ‘Tell Father I’m sorry,’ she called back. ‘Varna and I are on our way right now.’
Hearing the sound of hoofbeats, Hellorin turned towards the entrance of the long, echoing tunnel that curved through the depths of the hill, even passing beneath the palace itself, to emerge in the courtyard before the great doors. This permitted the Phaerie steeds to be brought with ease from the north-facing stables at the bottom of the hill to the palace high on the southern slopes, without having to thread a long and tortuous way through the crowded streets above ground. The passageway had been cunningly wrought by magic, and lit all along its length by crystal globes filled with tamed lightning that crackled and hummed and gave out a tingling ozone smell.
A procession of grooms was leading the horses into the courtyard up the gentle ramp at the tunnel’s entrance. Hellorin looked at the animals with pride. The mounts of the Phaerie could rival and in some respects even surpass their masters in splendour. Their necks arched proudly, their great muscles moved smoothly under shining coats and their long manes and tails swept down in waves of gleaming silk. In appearance, speed, stamina and every other respect, they were far superior to the horses of the Wizardfolk - as well they might be. They were different. Special. They were bred only here in the royal stables, and they were never traded or sold to people of other races. Their origins were a mystery known solely to the Phaerie.
The Phaerie loved secrets, and it pleased the Forest Lord inordinately that his Wizardly rivals had never guessed the origins of the Xandim breed: that these splendid creatures had once been shapeshifters, capable of switching at will between human and equine form. Hellorin smiled. The subjugation of the Xandim race had been one of his greatest triumphs. His people had discovered the tribe of metamorphs in the mountains that formed the northern boundaries of their own realm. The Xandim were a primitive people by the standards of the Phaerie and Magefolk civilisations, and it had been no great task to subdue them. Their human aspect had been of little interest to the Forest Lord - he already possessed mortal slaves aplenty. He had been stunned, however, by the magnificence of their equine forms, and it had been a simple enough matter to formulate the spells which trapped them in that shape forever.
Arvain ran back down the steps and took the reins of his magnificent chestnut stallion from the groom. ‘It’s a good thing,’ he said to his father, ‘that none of the Magefolk know that the Xandim ever existed - otherwise, no doubt, they would be raising their usual bleeding-heart outcry at what we’ve done.’
Hellorin shrugged. ‘After this long age, there is no way in which they could discover the truth. No living soul outside the Phaerie can remember the origins of these animals, and after so many generations have come and gone, even the Xandim themselves must have forgotten that they were ever human.’
You are almost right, Hellorin - but one of us remembers. One single Xandim holds the memories of a race long gone.
The chestnut stallion Valir, Arvain’s mount, eyed the Forest Lord coldly. No one, not even his own people, suspected that he possessed an intelligence and intellect far beyond that of an ordinary beast. Of them all, only he remembered that the Phaerie horses had come from very different beginnings. He was the Windeye, or Shaman, of the Xandim race - a role which had originated in the time before the tribe had been enslaved and trapped in their equine shapes, and which had been passed down through his bloodline during all the countless generations in captivity. Only the Windeye possessed powers of the Old Magic, which stemmed from the same ancient roots as the arcane abilities of the Phaerie. And though he was unable to access this magic whilst in his equine shape, at least it allowed him to think and reason in a human way - and, more importantly, to remember his origins and those of his people.
It wasn’t easy. To become Windeye was to be born into a life of frustration and loneliness. The other Xandim could neither think nor communicate in the complex manner of the Phaerie. They had few actual words - such as ‘food’, ‘run’, ‘come’, ‘go’ and ‘danger’ - and these could be expressed through a change in stance, the roll of an eye or the tilt of an ear, as well as through vocal sounds. Their thoughts were also simple, and based on emotion, cause and effect, or instinct. Much worse, they could neither remember nor understand what they had lost. What could a Windeye - one solitary individual - do to change all that? Valir was trapped: without magic he stood no chance of fighting the Phaerie and regaining his humanity, yet until he could take on human form, his powers would be lost to him, and he could do nothing to help his people.
Standing there in the crowded courtyard, the stallion wondered which of his many sons and daughters would inherit his mantle when he was gone. Only one in every generation had the seeds of the Windeye’s powers lying dormant within, which would burst into life following the current Shaman’s death. So I’ll never find out which of them it will be, Valir thought. If only there was some way of knowing. Then at least I could warn them, prepare them, try to explain . . .