Holly Lisle Fire In The Mist

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slow and lazy; her belly soaked up the heat of the sandstone through her thin
leather jerkin.
I wish I had stayed in Saje-Ariss, she thought.
Or that I had taken the damned wingmount and started flying and just kept on
going until I got someplace I liked.
She slapped the water, splashing a wave across the glass-smooth surface that
sent ripples racing away in all directions.
I would have been fine if I'd done that.
The soft "ploosh" of something heavy going into the water sounded from around
the tree-covered point off to Faia's left. The splash was followed by six
more.
Faia looked up. At first there was nothing, and then she could make out the
smooth "V" of something swimming toward her. It became a line of somethings,
one after the other and she recognized the
Fendles.
They haven't abandoned us, she thought, first delighted then frightened as she
realized, If they haven't abandoned us, neither has the killer.
She sat up and watched them racing across the lake toward her.
The Fendles swam up to the rock, and jumped on it one by one, chittering with
anxious, high-pitched squeals. She caught the terror in their eyes and in
their movements, and flashes and fragments of their thoughts. Slowly she began
to understand, and cold fear settled into her belly, heavy as lead.
Something something terrible was coming.
Chapter 8: THE BELL
THE colt fluttered his new wings and craned his neck around to look at them.
They were nearly transparent, without the smooth downy furring they would
develop as the colt grew to adulthood, but already they showed faint promises
of the smoke-edged coloring that was Rakell's trademark on the wingmounts.
Rakell grinned and chased the finished colt out of the altering room to
pasture. Months of preliminary work had paid off. All the subtle changes in
metabolism and all the delicate rearrangement of bone and ligament, muscle and
nerve that had gone before tedious, careful changes that lacked the visible
results
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her students so loved were behind her. Now the dramatic changes the unfolding
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of the wing-buds and the opening of the extra chambers of the heart were being
completed right on schedule, and with magnificent results.
This fiddling with the wingmounts has become the best part of the day for me,
she mused.
Teaching grows tiresome, and the administrative work is a nightmare if I
didn't get to do my experiments in the stables, I think I'd lose my mind.
For what seemed like the hundredth time, she considered stepping down and
leaving Daane in the hands of Medwind Song and for what seemed like the
hundredth time, she had to face the prejudices of Mage-Ariss against the
barbarian Hoos and, for that matter, against any outsiders. The time still
wasn't right; she began to wonder whether it ever would be.
Maybe I ought to tell Medwind that I don't think the Magerie will accept her
as head of Daane.
She shook her head in sudden disgust.
And then again, maybe I ought to get off my ass and fight for her place in the
Magerie. Gods know she's capable, and bookish enough to suit any of the
scholars. After this war business is behind us
Enough of politics.
She turned her attention to the last two beasts the two delicate fillies who
waited in the holding corral. "Now, little ones," she asked with companionable
cheer, "who's next?"
Flynn, lurking among the rafters on the top of the stone wall that divided the
stalls, peered down at the
Mottemage and yowled.
Rakell glanced up. "Hush, cat. I'm working."
Flynn yowled again, louder, hackles rising. He glared out the door and
crouched and spit at something beyond Rakell's line of sight.
She sighed and got up from her comfortable straw bale, muttering, "Fine,
beast. I'll look. But I won't chase off that raggedy-ass tom who's been
poaching in your territory. You can fight your own battles, slug."
Or most of them, anyway, she thought, remembering Flynn's wounds of the
fivedays before.
Wish I had an idea what did that to you. I'd fry it, whatever it was....
She looked out the door and across the pasture, straining to see what Flynn
glared was glaring at. She noted the heavy traffic of the throughway, then the
rolling greensward near the dorms, and the far edge of the lake. The near edge
was hidden by the traffic.
Probably visible to you, up there near the rafters. But damned if climb up
there to see what
I'll bogey's offended you. I haven't the time... or the knees.
"Go catch mice, Flynn," she snapped. "I'd tell you to play with matches, but
I'm sure you would."
Flynn's blue eyes scowled at her. He hissed out the door one more time.
"If it bothers you that much, go eat it. But leave me out of your cat fights.
I have wingmounts to finish."
Flynn, instead of stalking off with wounded feelings as he usually did when he
didn't get his way, hunkered down in an alert crouch, eyes fixed on the
mysterious point outside the barn.
The Mottemage forced her attention away from her eccentric cat and back to the
fillies. "Lump of sugar
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for the next baby," she said and held out a hand. Both fillies hurried
forward, and she clipped the halter around the quicker of the two and led it
from the holding corral into the altering pen.
She secured the harness, then settled on her straw bale and rested her fingers
on either side of the young horse's nose. Eyes closed, she pressed her
forehead against the velvet skin of the muzzle. Her mind projected slow
tendrils of energy that poked and twined along pathways of the filly's cells,
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teasing new shapes out of tissues and bones, shifting masses to make some
things lighter, some things sturdier, creating better pathways for oxygen,
more efficient handling of fuel finishing, as a sculptor would, the final
buffs and polishes of a masterpiece.
Rakell was, in truth, a very long way away from her own body at that moment.
And above her, Flynn sat guard.
Kirgen chased along in a lopsided sprint, dragged by one arm behind the
galloping middle-aged saje, who had introduced himself on the run as Paf,
First Clerk of Faulea University.
"Where are we going?" Kirgen yelled as he ran.
"To Saje Blayknell 's quarters."
"Who is he and why are we going there?"
"Can you transport?" the saje yelled back.
"No," Kirgen panted.
"Well, Bendle's been to the classrooms by now, so most of the Sajerie is
already on its way to the
Basin and can't transport either. But Blayknell can. He'll get us to the
Basin. Besides, he's the one and
I
only Bellmaster. Only he has authority to call a Conclave."
Kirgen mulled that over, his mind racing faster than his feet. There had been
two Conclaves called in his lifetime. The first, when he was very small, had
been when a malignant fire-demon escaped the pentacle that held it and started [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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