Winds of Change (16 page)

Wintermoon coughed politely. “Well, none of the scouts have felt easy about having long-term affairs with one who hunts the dangerous hours of night by choice, and no woman of the Clans would ever consider a long liaison with a man who has no magic.”

“But you have magic,” Skif felt moved to protest. “Better than mine, in fact.”

Wintermoon shrugged. “It is not magic by Starblade’s definition,” he said, too casually. “I do not know how these things are reckoned in other Clans, but it is that way in k’Sheyna.”

Skif stirred the pot vigorously, and tried to think of a tactful way to approach the subject of Starblade. Darkwind had been so relieved at the release of his father, that he was likely to look no further, but Skif did not trust Starblade’s ability to assess his own strengths and weaknesses. Tact had never been his strong suit; he finally gave up searching, and tried bluntness instead.

“What do you think of Starblade?” he asked. “Now, I mean - now that he isn’t being manipulated. Do you trust him?”

“Much the same as I have always thought of him,” came the surprising answer. “Not often, and not a great deal. This revelation has changed very little between Starblade and myself, whatever it has done for Darkwind.”

“But - ” Skif began. Wintermoon looked up from his task, briefly, and the firelight flickering over his face obscured whatever faint expression it might have held.

“Starblade disassociated himself from me when testing proved me to have no real magic,” he said carefully. “Do you really wish to hear this? It is not particularly interesting.”

“Why don’t you let me judge that?” Skif replied, just as carefully. “It will help me to know k’Sheyna through you.”

Wintermoon raised an eyebrow at that, but made no other comment. “So, then,” he began. “My mother was a k’Treva mage, who came to k’Sheyna to look for a father for outClan children. She bargained with Starblade for twins, male and female, the male to leave, the female to take back with her. I do not know if my sister had mage-powers, but
I
did not, and I am told I was a great disappointment to my father.
I
did not know that, and I only knew he was my father because I was told, for I scarcely saw him.”

“At least you know who yours is,” Skif replied, with a bitterness that took him by surprise. “I don’t. If I have any sibs, I don’t know that, either. Mother never got around to telling me anything; she was too busy teaching me to pick pockets. Then someone decided to get rid of her - a rival thief - and I was on my own.”

He snapped his mouth shut, appalled at the way he had simply blurted that out to a near-stranger; things he hadn’t told anyone except his dear friend Talia.

“You were a thief? In a city?” Wintermoon seemed more intrigued than anything else. “I should like to hear of this one day. I have never seen a city.”

“You haven’t missed much,” he replied. “Cities aren’t all that impressive. And I’d give a lot to have a brother.”

Once again, the Tayledras dropped his eyes. All of Wintermoon’s apparent attention was again on his half of dinner. “At least I do have Darkwind, that is true. I am actually glad that I am so much older than he; if I had been younger, I would have hated him for stealing Starblade’s love and care. But I was old enough to know that what occurred was no one’s fault, that without magic, I would never represent anything but failure to Starblade, and that Darkwind was no more to be blamed for that than the magic itself, which declined to manifest in me. Still, I stay away a great deal. It is very easy to find myself envying him, and envy oft turns darker.”

He sighed, as Skif nodded. He stared into the fire for a moment and continued. “I think I will never have other than mixed feelings for Darkwind. I do love him. When he was very young, it was easy to love him, for his disposition was sunny, and his mother treated us both as if we were sons of her body. Even as he came into his power, he was not prideful - he rather delighted in the learning, in finding what could be done - in showing it to me, like any young man with a new accomplishment. Magic was like a huge and complex puzzle to him. But at the same time, there was always the envy. ...”

“I don’t see how you could have gotten away from it,” Skif put in quietly, hoping he wasn’t going to break Wintermoon’s mood by speaking. This was instructive; it gave him an idea of how some of the more complex situations in the Clan had evolved.

“Ah, but I am also jealous,” Wintermoon said with a lightness that did not in the least deceive Skif. “Darkwind has so many things come easily to his hand, from his bond-bird to his magic. Things that I must struggle to achieve, and often have not even a hope of having. Women, for instance. If you have gotten the impression that he could have any partner in the Vale that he chose, you are substantially correct. That is not the least because he was - or is - a powerful mage.”

They sat in silence for a while as their dinner cooked, and ate in silence. Finally Wintermoon broke it. “I think, perhaps,” he told Skif, slowly, “that I have said too much. You must think badly of me. I do not ordinarily speak of such things even to friends; I cannot think why I did so now.”

“Maybe because we’re more alike than either of us guessed,” Skif replied. “And, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to talk. There’s been something bothering me for a long time, and I can’t really talk about it to anyone - at home. They wouldn’t understand.” He looked straight into Wintermoon’s eyes. “I think you might.”

Maybe it was that Wintermoon was
so
strange - and yet so very like him. Maybe it had something to do with everything the entire Clan had just endured. Maybe it was just time. Skif didn’t know, but when Wintermoon nodded, he drew a deep breath and began choosing the simple, painful words to tell the story of his failure.

“You know we are at war with a country to the east of us, right?”

Wintermoon nodded.

“And I told you that I was a thief, once. Well, for a little while, I was working across the Border, because I’m used to doing things that are - outside a Herald’s usual skills.” He paused for a moment, then continued, keeping his voice as expressionless as he could. “I was supposed to be helping people escape across the Border, and I was working with a series of families that were providing places for escapees to hide as they fled across the country. I lived with one of those families. Hunters, the husband and wife both - he hunted game, she hunted herbs that won’t grow in gardens. They had two children, an older boy and a little girl. They were - kind of the family I never had.”

Wintermoon nodded knowingly. “As Darkwind’s mother played mother to me.”

“Exactly.” His stomach churned, and a cold lump formed in his throat. “I never thought I’d like living out in the middle of nowhere - and I used to tease them about being backwards - but I kind of got to enjoy it. Then we got a message saying there was someone waiting at the next house in, waiting for me to guide him to the place on the Border. I went and fetched him - and damn if he wasn’t
just
like me. Same background, used to be a thief before he joined Ancar’s army, all that.”

I
trusted him. I should have known better, I should have, but I liked him, I trusted him. . . .

“He had to stay a couple of days before it was safe to make the crossing. We talked a lot.”

He acted and reacted just like me, teased the kids, helped with the chores
-
but I should have known, I should have
-

“Anyway, it was finally clear, and he went
off.
I
thought
he made the crossing. I left him, though, because I had to check back with the people he’d stayed with before, bring them some news and money. That was when I found out - ”

“That they were no longer there,” Wintermoon interrupted. “That the plausible fellow you had trusted was a traitor.”

“How did you know?” Skif’s jaw dropped, and Wintermoon grimaced.

“Because I am older than you, by more than you know,” the Hawkbrother said, gently. “I have seen a great deal. Remember who was the unwitting traitor in
our
midst. To be effective, one who would betray others must be likable and plausible - while all the time actually being something else entirely. He must be a supreme actor, projecting warmth and humanity, while having a cold, uncaring heart. Someone who was a criminal is likely to be all of these.” He looked up at Skif, thoughtfully. “I do not think he was likely to have been a thief, though he may well have associated enough with them to have collected the tales he traded with you. He is likelier to have been something darker. I would say, one who kills in cold blood for pay.”

Skif blinked, and tried to collect his thoughts. All he could think of to say, was, “How old are you?”

Wintermoon did not seem surprised at the non-sequitur. “You are Darkwind’s age, I would guess. I am sixteen summers his senior.” He half-smiled, wryly. “It is difficult to determine the age of a Tayledras, even if you are of the Clans yourself.”

“Oh.” Skif gathered his scattered and perambulatory wits, and continued his story, but this was the most difficult part to face.

“I - I went back, as fast as I could - but - ” He swallowed the knot of grief in his throat. He didn’t close his eyes; if he had, he’d see them, hanging from the crossbeam of their own barn. See what had been done to them by Ancar’s toadies before they were hanged. He still saw them, at night. “The only one left was the little girl; the family had managed to get her out before the troops caught them, and she was hiding in the woods.”
Thank the gods, she never saw any of it, never knew what had been done to them.
“I got her across the Border; left her with friends. Then - then I went back. Against orders. The bastard shouldn’t have told so many stories; he gave me more clues than he knew, and I
know
cities. I tracked him down.”

And I did to him what had been done to them before I killed him.

Wintermoon nodded, and waited.

Skif hesitated, then continued. “Nobody ever said or did anything, even though they must have known what I did. And I’d do it again, I swear I would - ”

“But part of you is sickened,” Wintermoon said softly. “Because what you did may have been just, in the way of rough justice, it may have been - excessive.” He stared up at the sky for a moment. “It is better to kill cleanly,” he said, finally. “If you did not, you are at fault. A creature like the one you described is not sane, any more than Momelithe Falconsbane is - was - sane. But you do not torment something that is so crazed it cannot be saved; you kill it, so that its madness does not infect you.”

Skif was astonished. “After all he did to your people - if you had Falconsbane in front of you now - ”

“I would kill him cleanly, with a single stroke,” Wintermoon said firmly. “I learned this lesson when I was a little older than you, now - when I visited similar retribution on a very stupid bandit that had been tormenting
hertasi
and killing them for their hides. It does no good to visit torments upon a creature of that nature. It teaches him nothing, and makes your nature closer to his. And that is why you are troubled, Wingbrother. You knew this all along, did you not?”

Skif hung his head, and closed his eyes. “Yes,” he admitted, finally. “I did.”

Wintermoon sat in silence a moment longer. “For what it is worth,” he said finally, “What was done, was done in the heat of anger, and in the heat of anger, one loses perspective - and sanity.
Now
you are sane - and sickened. Do not forget the lesson, Wingbrother - but do not let it eat at you like a disease. Let it go, and learn from it.”

Skif felt muscles relaxing that he hadn’t known were tensed, and a feeling of profound relief. There. It was out in the open; Wintermoon had guessed most of it without Skif having to go into detail. And the result: he had just discovered he wasn’t alone in depravity after all.

“
I
visited similar retribution upon a stupid bandit, who had been tormenting
hertasi
and killing them for their hides.”

He would never have guessed from Wintermoon’s serene exterior.

“Others will forgive you this, Wingbrother,” the Tayledras said softly, “but only you can forgive yourself. You must never, never forget.”

“I won’t,” Skif promised, as much to himself as to Wintermoon. “I won’t . . .” He shook his head, in part, to clear it. “I - after that, though - I got myself assigned back at the capital. I just lost my taste for adventure.”

Wintermoon chuckled. “In that case, Wingbrother, why are you here?”

“I also couldn’t resist Elspeth. It’s strange how, even if you know inside that there isn’t a chance, you’ll pursue something anyway because the thought of it is so attractive. I’ve known it for a long time, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself. Elspeth has her own plan for her life, and my role in it is not as her lover. Still, there it is. The only way they were going to let her make this journey was if I came along.” He smiled, and shrugged. “But, when mis is all over, if I’m given a choice, I’d like to have a place like that family had. For me ... or maybe for their memory.” Skif pursed his lips, then looked back up at Wintermoon. “Oh, I’d probably be awful at country living - I’d probably have everyone in the county laughing at me, but it would be good trying. I know I’d like to have a home. A family.” He smiled, a little wistfully. “Nobody at Haven would believe that of me.”

“You have seen enough blood, enough death,” Winter-moon surmised. “You fought in battles, as a soldier?”