‘Why not?’ Athina agreed. This was a pastime she had started some months before, when Dael had not been with her for long. The entire point of her coming to this world had been to find the young women of her vision, and warn them, somehow, of the momentous events that were about to be set in motion. That way, there was a fragile hope that some of the damage, at least, might be averted. Unfortunately, Athina had not taken into account that, because she had brought herself into the mundane world, she had become subject to certain of its constraints. She had found it impossible to identify the women she sought, no matter whether she scried by fire, water, mirror or crystal, because the events that would reveal their true identities and destinies had not yet taken place. Her only option had been to keep searching through a multitude of images of the world outside her secret vale, until the people she sought should reveal themselves - and her task was made much more difficult by the growing suspicion and hostility between the cities of Eliorand and Tyrineld, both of which were now protected by magical shields of concealment and illusion against prying, spying eyes.
When Dael had first arrived, his presence had interfered with these activities. Though he was well aware that she had magical powers, how could she explain her constant scrying in search of a small group of strangers? Rather than becoming enmeshed in a web of explanations and lies, Athina had invented the ‘pictures in the fire’ game, a form of scrying that let her search through a multitude of images for those three special women. It had been a simple matter to let him share her visions. He thought he was viewing them with his own eyes, and did not realise that she was slipping them into his mind.
She had also not told him that she had been watching the Wild Hunt. After hearing about the massacre of his brethren, and discovering what Dael himself had been through at the hands of the Phaerie hunters, she had not wanted to distress him further by letting him see them in action again. So she had watched alone, in the depths of the night when he was fast asleep, and when she saw for herself the savage bloodlust and the merciless slaughter of the Hunt, she wondered what had happened to the shining, perfect world that she and her brethren had created so long ago.
Then she had seen Tiolani, and had immediately known that this was one of the Three she sought. Following that recognition had come the dreadful knowledge that this was not the saviour of the world for whom she had hoped. Horror had sheeted like ice across her skin as she became aware of the aura of darkness, cruelty and hatred that shrouded the girl. The death of her beloved brother had twisted the girl’s mind. The incapacity of her father had removed the only member of her family who remained to comfort her, while leaving her with plenty of freedom to seek vengeance and the power with which to accomplish it. To make matters worse, she was being misled by those who pretended to be her friends.
But the worst thing of all about the situation - the one that kept the Cailleach from her sleep each night - was that Tiolani’s intense and abiding hatred of humans knew no bounds. Having embarked on the comprehensive slaughter of the ferals, and executing the human slaves in her realm on the slightest pretext, she was now turning her attention towards the Hemifae. How long would it be before the whole of the Phaerie civilisation collapsed completely? Tiolani was hurtling headlong towards evil, and the Cailleach knew, with a sinking feeling of certainty, that it was already too late to stop her.
One hope lost, then. But what of the others?
For a little while following her dreadful discovery, Athina had no more heart for searching. Instead, she had immersed herself in the pleasure of Dael’s company, and had occupied her days in pottering around the tower and its environs with this human she had so serendipitously found. Tonight, though she didn’t think much would happen in such foul weather, the Cailleach realised with a pang of guilt that she had been neglecting her search through cowardice, and that this was hardly meet behaviour for one of the Guardians of the world. To salve her conscience, she was more than happy to go along with Dael’s suggestion. Once he had built up the fire, she held her hands out to the smoke and flames that streamed up the chimney and put forth all her powers, casting out from the tower in ever-widening circles to find the ones she sought.
The flames blurred in the fireplace, and were hidden by a glowing golden haze that darkened rapidly into an impenetrable pool of blackness. No vision could pierce that rain and wind, and the cloud-shrouded darkness beneath the trees. Only in the brief lightning flashes could a disjointed series of images be seen. The slanting silver curtain of the downpour. Branches writhing wildly in the gale. A flooded river; a savage, surging mass of foam that swept great chunks of its banks away and tore up trees and bushes that lay in its path. A mighty sycamore split apart by a searing bolt from the churning cloud above.
The Cailleach shuddered at such violence. In her sojourn here she had come to love the forest, and it pained her deeply to see the fallen giants, the broken branches, the leaves torn from the boughs and the rivers and streams overflowing and wreaking such havoc in their path.
For a time, Athina scanned the area around the tower. She didn’t mind keeping up this vigil for hours: roaming around the shadowy glades of the wildwood, widening her circle to take in the busy frontier town of Nexis, trying to penetrate the walls of chimera and enchantment that protected the cities of Eliorand and Tyrineld. Tonight, however, with nothing to see but darkness, downpour and desolation, she rapidly grew weary. ‘Dael, I don’t think there’s any point in going on with this—’
The words died on her lips. In the captured instant of a lightning flash, she saw a skein of brightly clad figures among the clouds: the Phaerie Hunt rode, as she had seen them ride before - but this time, the elements were the hunters, and the Phaerie were the prey. Though they were beyond the leading edge of the storm, Athina knew just how fast those clouds could move. ‘Fools,’ she muttered under her breath. From what she had seen of the Wild Hunt in her months of watching, she viewed its members with anger and contempt. However, she had also seen, with great astonishment and unutterable joy, that their mounts were Xandim - the lost race that she herself had created in the far-distant past, when she and her brethren had spun the world from their imaginations, for nothing more than the sheer joy and fulfilment of practising their art.
Though she had believed, at first, that the Xandim must have some kind of alliance with the Forest Lord, Dael had soon made her think otherwise. On hearing his version of the situation between the Phaerie and their mounts, she realised that the race could only have been enslaved by Hellorin. Enraged as she was, however, the Cailleach knew that she had not come here to right every injustice of this world: that would have been unpardonable interference, and the more she meddled, the more likely her brethren were to find out what she was doing, and move to prevent her. Her only mission was to locate the three from her vision, and do what she could do set them on the right path. So Athina was forced to leave the Xandim to their fate. But it was hard to watch them tonight, being heedlessly ridden into peril by their Phaerie conquerors, for they were innocent, and beautiful and brave, and did not deserve to die.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the ranks of the Phaerie. One of the horses seemed to go mad . . .
Wide-eyed, Athina saw Tiolani’s fall, the ambush of her rescuers and her capture. She saw the horse attack the Huntsman, watched him plummet into the forest below. The hounds, uncontrolled now, scattered to the winds, their instincts telling them to flee the lethal wind and lightning. She saw Ferimon vanish into the clouds in pursuit of the girl’s runaway mount - and there was something about the horse itself, something that drew her attention and set warning bells ringing in her mind . . . But too much was happening all at once; there was no time to look closely before the creature was gone, deliberately hurling itself into the maw of the storm.