Only a few went to Darkwind's extreme, and changed their use-name, but he was not completely alone in his reaction. To change a use-name meant that, for all intents and purposes, the "person" described by that name was dead." That was why "Songwind" became
"Darkwind." When he had recovered from his burns and lacerations, he repudiated magic altogether.
Then, when that move brought him into conflict with his father, he moved out of the family ekele, and took up life on his own, with the scouts and craftsmen who were left.
Another mage, Starfire, became Nightfire, and became obsessed with the remains of the Heartstone, studying it every waking moment, trying to determine the cause of the disaster.
And the most traumatized mage of all, Moonwing, became Silence.
I could have been like Silence, he thought, beating a branch aside with unnecessary force. I could have retreated into myself, and become a hermit.
I could have stopped speaking except mind-to-mind. I could be broadcasting my pain to anyone who dared touch my thoughts. I didn't do that; I'm doing something useful.
But that, evidently, was not enough for Starblade.
He'll have me as a mage, or not at all. Darkwind scowled at the trail before him, frightening a passing hertasi into taking another route. He should look to the Clan; there are more important problems than the fact that I will not use magic.
The physical wounds had mended, but the emotional and mental injuries were still with k'sheyna, and they were not healing well.
But then, those that could have taken care of such deep-seated problems had all perished themselves.
There was no one skilled enough, for instance, to enter Silence's mind and Heal her-Heal Silence? there's no one even skilled enough to Heal me ...There should have been help coming from other clans-there can only be only one reason why there isn't, he thought, and not for the first time. the Elders' pride. they will not admit that we failed so badly, or that we need help at all.
Fools. Fools and blind.
In the first few weeks after the disaster, there had been messengers from other Clans. That much he knew for a fact; the rest was a guess, for he had been delirious from brain-fever and the pain of his burns. He had been in no position to make any pleas, but the visitors did not stay long, in any case. He had no doubt that they had been rebuffed. Now no visitors-or offers of help-came at all.
Darkwind reached the edge of the Vale, where the shield met the outside world. The boundary line was quite clear; within the Vale grew a riot of flowers and plants with enormous, tropical leaves, all of it surrounding individual trees that reached higher than the cliffs beside them, trees with trunks as large as houses. Flowers bloomed and plants flourished no matter the season. Outside the Vale-one scant finger-length from the shield-it was pine forest, with the usual sparse undergrowth.
And if Darkwind looked closely enough, he could see a kind of shimmer where the one ended and the other began.
Of course, if he cared to use Mage-Sight on that barrier-which he did not-that shimmer was a curtain of pure energy, tuned only to allow wildlife, the Hawkbrothers, their allies, and select individuals across.
He paused before crossing that invisible border, and looked reluctantly at a stand of enormous bandar-plants. Behind those plants lay a hot spring, one of many that supplied the heat and moisture the plants required... and provided places of refreshment as well.
Gods above, I could use a soak... it's been a long day, and there is still more ahead of me.
Well, perhaps a short pause would not hurt anything.
He slipped between two of the plants and shed his clothing quickly, leaving it in a pile on the smooth stones bordering the spring.
This was not one of the larger springs, nor one of the more popular.
It was too close to the edge of the Vale and the shield, and the reminder of the Real World outside their little sheltered Vale made many of the remaining mages too uneasy to use it.
While the scouts, who were more than a little uneasy within the heart of the Vale, in close proximity to the shattered, but still empowered and dangerous Heartstone, did not much care to use the larger, carefully sculptured springs there, with their pools for washing as well as pools for soaking away aches-or disporting.
Hertasi did their best to keep all the little pockets of hot, bubbling water free of fallen leaves and other debris, but they had too many other duties to attend to. This particular spring had not been attended to in some time and ran sluggishly, the surface covered with fallen vegetation.
Darkwind tossed a half dozen huge leaves out to the side, and scooped out quite a bit of debris at the bottom before the spring bubbled up freely again.
Then he relaxed back into the smooth stone of the seats built into the sides, created by magically sculpting the rock before the water had been called here.
As the warm water soaked away his aches and bruises and relaxed too-taut muscles, he closed his eyes and, for once, tried to remember back to those dark and chaotic days immediately following the catastrophe.
Did we know then how bad the area was outside our own borders? He didn't think so; it seemed to him that no one had paid any attention to the lands outside the purview of the Clan, and to be fair, they had their hands full with the territory they had undertaken to cleanse.
We definitely had enough to do-and whatever was out there tended to leave us alone while we were strong. there was no reason to think that it was any worse than our own lands.
It was only after they had cleaned up their own areas, and were preparing to move, that they realized that the blight they faced on their southern border was at least as pervasive as the one they had just dealt with. And was, perhaps, more dangerous than the area to the west that they had chosen as the new Vale-site.
Why hadn't they seen the blight? Well, it might have been because there had been a clear zone between the two, a zone that disguised the true nature of what lay beyond. It was only after the disaster, when creatures from across that clear zone swarmed over the wreckage of the Vale, that anyone realized just how tainted that area was.
Now, of course, they could not deal with it, could not clean it out, and could not eliminate it.
There's at least one Adept in there, Darkwind thought, clenching his jaw involuntarily. It was his constant "attentions" after the accident that forced us to pull back our borders in the first place.
And now that there were no more offers of help from the other Clans, they could not ask for one of the others to lend aid. They could not even push the unseen enemies back, not without help.
I'd try to contact the other Clans myself, but I would have to do so by magic means. I don't know where the other territories are, and Father isn't about to give me a map.