Winds of Change (34 page)

Her mind ran around in little circles, like a frightened mouse - and it was that image that enabled her to get hold of herself.

Stop that,
she told herself sternly. She forced herself to sit and
think,
as Need had taught her; to use all that energy that was going into panic for coming up with answers.

The first, and most immediate problem, was how she was going to get down out of the tower to hunt in the first place.

And she had already come up with one possibility; she just hadn’t done anything about it yet. Well, now she was going to have to.

We have plenty of rope, and no one is going to cross all that snow without leaving tracks a baby rabbit could see, so there’s no harm in using a rope to get up and down with. No one will get in here to use it without my knowing. I can just secure one end of the rope up here and climb down that way. That isn’t perfect, but then, what is?

And as for game, well, whatever hampered her would also hamper the game. In fact, as cold as it was, she could even think about creating a hoard for emergencies; if she hung the carcasses just inside the tower, they’d stay frozen. If she put them high enough, they’d be out of reach of what scavengers were brave enough to venture inside with her scent all over everything. She could even take deer, now, and not worry about spoilage.

And since she hadn’t bothered the deer yet, they did not yet regard her as a predator. Snow would be at least as hard on them as it was on her.

I
can pull the carcasses easier through the snow, too; I won’t have to try to cut them up to carry them back. . . .

With a plan in mind, at least for getting into and out of her shelter, and the possibility of new game to augment the old, she looked down on the forest with curiosity rather than fear.

She had never seen snow before, not like this. Falconsbane had copied the Tayledras, whether he admitted it or not, keeping the grounds of his stronghold free of ice and snow, and warmed to summer heat. He had hated winter; hated snow and ice, and spent most of the wintry days locked up inside his domain, whiling away the hours in magery or pleasure. The only time she had ever seen snow was when she had ventured to the gates, and had looked out on a thin slice of winter woods and trampled roadway from the tiny and heavily-barred windows. She was not permitted on the tower tops, lest she attempt to climb down and escape, and the windows in wintertime were kept shuttered and locked against the season.

She had always dreaded the coming of winter, for during the winter months her father often became bored. It was difficult for his creatures to move through the snow; even more difficult for them to slip into the Hawkbrothers’ lands unseen. And of course, Falconsbane would not venture outside unless it was an absolute emergency, so his own activities were greatly curtailed. Humans tended to keep to their dwellings in winter, and the intelligent creatures to band together, so the opportunities for acquiring victims were also reduced. He dared not be too spendthrift with the lives of his servants, for there were only so many of them, and fewer opportunities to get more. They were trapped within the walls, too, and if he pushed them too far, they might become desperate enough to revolt. Even he knew that. So Falconsbane ‘s entertainments had to be of his own devising.

When he grew bored, he often designed changes he wished to make in his own appearance, and worked them out on her, an activity that, often as not, ranged from mildly to horribly painful. And when that palled, there were other amusements in which she became his plaything, the old games she now hated, but had then both loathed and desired.

No, until now, winter had not been her favorite season. Spring and fall had been best - spring, because her father was out of the stronghold as often as possible, eager to escape the too-familiar walls, and fall, because he was seizing his last opportunities to get away before winter fell.

But this year, the coming of winter had not induced the fear that it had in the past.

Odd. I wonder why?

Then she realized that all the signs of winter that she had learned to fear were things Falconsbane had created; the increasing number of mage-lights to compensate for the shortening days, the rising temperature in the stronghold, and the shuttering of the windows against the gray sky.

Any mage might do those things - there were other signs in Falconsbane’s stronghold that marked the season of fear.

Forced-growth of strange plants brought in to flower in odd corners, creating tiny, often dangerous, mage-lit gardens. Many of those plants were poisonous, some had envenomed thorns, or deadly perfumes. It was one of her father’s pleasures to see who would be foolish enough to be entrapped by them.

More slaves in the quarters reserved for those Falconsbane intended to use up, slaves usually young and attractive, but not terribly bright. Her father tended to save the intelligent, warping their minds to suit his purposes, keeping them for two or even three years before pique or a fit of temper brought their twisted lives to a close.

Strained expressions on the faces of those who hoped to survive the winter and feared they might not. Sometimes, usually in the darkest hours of the winter, her father’s temper exceeded even his formidable control - though most of the victims were those former “favorite” slaves. . . .

There had been none of that this year. The shortening of the days had not signaled anything to her, and she had simply reacted to the long nights by sleeping more. There had been no blazing of lights in every corner to wake old memories, merely the flickering of her own friendly fire. There was no tropic heat to awaken painful unease, only the need to move everything closer to the firepit, and to build up a good supply of wood.

This place that she lived in could be called squalid, compared to the lush extravagancies of an Adept’s lair, but it was
hers.
She had made it so with pride, the first place she could truly call her own, unfettered by her father’s will. The wood and rope and furs were placed by her desires alone, with the advice and help of Need, who had become a trusted friend. Taken as a sum of goods, it was insignificant; taken in its context, it was delightful.

The view from her window surprised her with unexpected beauty; the ugliest tangles of brush and tumbled rock had been softened by the thick blanket of snow.

It was astonishing; it took her breath away. She simply admired it for many long moments before turning her thoughts back to the reality that it represented.

It could also be deadly to one who had no real experience in dealing with it.

For a moment, a feeling of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her with panic again.

She quelled it.
No point in getting upset - I have Need. She can always help me solve any problems that come up. If we
have
to, she can deal with them with magic.

She turned her mind to her sword - And met only blankness.

She never quite remembered the first few hours; hours when she had huddled in her furs, alternately weeping and howling. It was a good thing nothing dangerous had come upon her then; she would have been easy prey.

When she exhausted herself completely, she fell asleep, doing so despite her fears, despite her despair, she had drained herself that badly.

When she woke again, in the mid-afternoon, the sheer, unthinking panic was gone, although the fear remained. Somehow she managed; that day, and the next, and the next.

She found game, building a blind beside the pond where the ducks and geese came to feed, and covering it with snow. She caught a goose that very night, and not content with that, hung it in her improvised larder to freeze and scoured the forest for rabbits. She didn’t catch any of those, but she discovered a way to fish in the ice-covered ponds, using a bit of metal found in the tower, scuffed until shiny, as bait.

She hauled wood up to her shelter, and kept it reasonably warm and dry; made plans for a blind up in one of the trees above a deer-trail, so that she could lie in ambush for one.

Somehow she kept panic from overwhelming her at the thought that the sword was no longer protecting her from detection.

For if something had happened to Need, she would have to protect herself. She had no choice, not if she wanted to live. Sooner or later, something would come seeking her.

She spent hours crouched beside the fire, bringing up everything Need had ever told her about shielding, about her own magic. Then she spent more hours constructing layer after layer of shields, tapping into the sluggish power of the sleeping forest and into her own energies. But to tap into her own power, she needed a great deal of rest and food - which brought her right back to the problem of provisions. She decided that she
must
start hunting deer; that there was no choice, that it was the only way to buy her the necessary days of rest and recovery when she built up her shielding. The rest of the time - the hours of darkness before sleep finally came - she spent bent over the sword, begging, pleading with it to come back to life. Prodding and prying at it, to try and discover what had gone wrong. Something must have; there was no reason for the blade to simply fall silent like that, not without warning.

And all with no result. The blade was a sword now; no more, no less. A weapon that she could not even use properly, for without Need’s skill guiding her, she was as clumsy as a child in wielding it.

Finally, after trying so hard on the evening of the third day that she worked herself into a reaction-headache, she gave up, falling into an exhausted sleep, a sleep so deep that not even her despair penetrated it. A dreamless sleep,
^:
so far as she knew.

When she woke again, quite late on the morning of the fourth day, the clouds had vanished overnight, and sun blazed down through the windows of her tower with cold, clear beams. When she looked out of her window, she had to pull back with her eyes watering. It was
too
bright out there; too bright to see. The sun reflected from every surface, and although there were shadows under the trees, they were not dark enough to give her eyes any rest.

Now
she knew what her father’s men had meant when they spoke of “snow blindness.”

There was no way she was going to be able to see out there without getting a headache, unless she found some way to shade her eyes.

Shading her eyes probably wouldn’t do that much good; there would still be all the light reflecting up from the snow.

Wait, though, she could
change
her eyes. After all of Need’s lessons, she had a little control over her body; she might be able to make her eyes a little less sensitive, temporarily
 
. . .
 
perhaps
 
darken
 
them
 
to
 
let less
 
light through. . . .

:It’s about time you started looking inside yourself for answers,:
came the raspy, familiar mind-voice.

She whirled, turning away from the light, peering through shadows that were near-black in contrast with the intense sunlight. “You’re back!” she cried, staring at the vague shape of the sword leaning against the firepit where she had left it the night before.

:I never left,:
Need said smugly.
: I just decided to let you see you could manage completely on your own for a while.:

Anger flared; she took a deep breath and fought it down. Anger served no purpose unless it was channeled. Anger only weakened her and could be used as a weapon against her. She reminded herself that Need never did anything without a good reason.

Anger faded enough so that she was in control, not the emotion. She tried not to think of the fear, the first hours of desperation - of all the endless hours when she had been certain that she would not live through this season. That would only make her angry again.

“Why?” she asked bluntly. “Why did you
do
that to me? I didn’t do anything to warrant being punished, did I?”

The sword didn’t answer directly.
:Look around you. What do you see? The game stocked away, the firewood, all the defenses you constructed.:

She didn’t have to look, she knew what was there. “Get to the point,” she snapped. “Why did you leave me alone like that? Why did you leave me defenseless?”

:Did I do any of that, any of the things you‘ve accomplished in the last few days? Did I hunt the game, catch the fish, rig that hidden ladder to the top?:
There was a certain quality in Need’s words that overrode Nyara’s anger completely.

“No,” Nyara admitted slowly. She had done quite a bit, now that she thought about it. Without any help at all.

:Did I rig all these shields ?:
the sword persisted.
:Did I figure out the way to make them cascade, so that the only one under power is the first one unless something contacts it?:

“No,” Nyara replied, this time with a bit of pride. “I did that.” Given that her magic was pathetically weak compared to Need’s, or even the least of the mages that her father controlled, she really hadn’t done too badly.

:If I really was destroyed tomorrow, would you be able to get away, to hide, to keep yourself alive?:
The sword waited patiently for an answer, and the answer Nyara had for her was a very different one than the one she would have had a few days ago.