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12

It was hairless and horny; and it had four arms that appeared to be very limber and strong, without joints, each arm ending in three tentacular fingers. It opened a beaky mouth and said:

"I am Klatlekt. I keep the door. Who comes to the Place of Winds?"

"I am Stark," he said. "A stranger. I seek audience with the Fallarin."

"You have not been bidden."

"I am here."

The blinking green-gold gaze shifted to the hounds. "You have with you four-footed things whose minds are black and burning."

N'Chaka! It does not fear. Mind not touch.

"They will do no harm," Stark said, "unless harm is done."

"They can do no harm," said Klatlekt. "They are harmless."

N'Chaka. Strange . . .

The hounds whimpered. Stark mounted one more step.

"Never mind the hounds. Your masters wish to see me. Otherwise we would not have reached this door."

"For good or ill," said the doorkeeper. "Come, then." It rose and led the way. Stark followed, through the tall thin door. The hounds padded after, reluctant.

Cannot touch, N'Chaka. Cannot touch.

They stood in a great bowl surrounded by cliffs of somber rock that shaded from gray to slatey black. The cliffs were high, so that Old Sun never saw the bottom of the bowl, which was carpeted with a moss that felt gravelly rather than soft underfoot.

All around the bowl the rock of the cliffs had been cut and carved into free-standing forms that pulled the gaze upward to the sky, so that Stark felt giddy, as if he might fall that way. It seemed that all the winds of the desert and the currents of the high air had been caught as they passed by and frozen here into stony rising thermals and purling waves and circling whirlwinds that seemed in that twilight to spring and flow. But they did not. They were firmly anchored, and the true air was utterly still. There was no sign of living things except for Stark and the hounds and the one called Klatlekt.

Yet there were living things, and Stark knew it, and so did the hounds.

Things. Watch.

The rock behind the carved wind patterns was honeycombed with secret openings. The hounds growled and shivered, pressing close. They were fearful now for the first time in their lives, their power of death useless against nonhuman minds.

Klatlekt pointed three slender fingers to a raised round platform of stone blocks in the center of the bowl. At the king-point of the circle stood a great carved seat shaped like a wind-devil.

"Go there."

Stark mounted broad steps, the hounds slinking at heel.

Minds up there can touch. Kill?

No!

Klatlekt had disappeared. Stark stood. He listened to the silence that was not quite silent, and the hairs rose at the back of his neck.

A little wind came. It fingered his hair. It went snuffling lightly down the height of him and across the breadth of him, and then it flickered cold across his face, and he thought that some of it went in at his eyes and blew swiftly through the windings of his brain. It pulled free of him with a tiny chuckle and went to pluck at the hounds and set them whimpering with their fur all awry.

N'Chaka!

Still. Still.

It was not easy to be still.

The small wind went away.

Stark waited, listening to sounds he could not quite hear.

All at once there was sound and enough; the rushing susurration of half a thousand pairs of wings a-beat on the air. The Fallarin flitted from their doorways, to stand among their rising thermals and graceful whirlwinds.

Stark continued to wait.

One came alone, from between two curling ribbons of stone that overarched the largest opening. He wore a brief kilt of scarlet leather. A golden girdle clasped his waist, and a king's torque circled his neck. Otherwise he was clad in close dark fur against the cold. His body was small and spare and light. The wings that sprang from his shoulders were dark-leathered and strong, and when he descended to the platform his movement was assured, if not beautiful. But Stark knew why they were called the Chained. The genetic alteration their ancestors had undergone, hoping to give their descendants new life on a dying world, had cheated them cruelly. That inadequate wingspan would never know the freedom of the high air.

"Yes," said the Fallarin, "we are clipped birds, a mockery above and below." He stood before the high seat, looking straight up into Stark's eyes; his own were yellow as a falcon's, but too full of a dark wisdom for even that royal bird. His face was narrow and harsh, too strong for beauty, with a sharp nose and jutting chin. But when he smiled he was handsome, as a sword is handsome. "I am Alderyk, and king in this place."

Round the circumference of the bowl, from lower galleries, a considerable number of the four-armed things had appeared. They stood quietly, watching.

They were not being menacing. They were merely there.

"The Tarf," said Alderyk. "Our excellent servants, created by the same hands that made us, though not of human stock, and with greater care, for they function admirably." His gaze dropped. "You also have your retainers."

The hounds felt the force in him and growled uneasily. Alderyk laughed, a sound not entirely pleasant. "I know you, hounds. You were made, like us, though you had no choice in that making. You are Skaith-born, like us, and I understand you better than I do your master."

The yellow eyes, somber-bright, returned to Stark.

"You are the future standing there, a strange thing, full of distances I cannot plumb. A black whirling wind to break and scatter, leaving nothing untouched behind you, not even the Fallarin."

His wings spread wide, rustling, then clapped shut. A buffet of air came from nowhere and struck Stark's face like an open palm.

"I do not altogether like you."

"Liking is neither here nor there," said Stark mildly. "You seem to know me."

"We know you, Stark. We live solitary here in our eyrie, but the winds bring us news from all the world."

And perhaps they do, thought Stark. And there are also the Harsenyi and the Ochar to peddle whatever tales go up and down the roads of Skaith. The whole north had known about Ashton being brought to the Citadel, a man from another world, and the prophecy of Irnan had followed hard on his heels. The Wandsmen themselves had spread knowledge of Stark throughout the darklands in their eagerness to capture him. It would have been strange if the Fallarin did not know all about the events that were beginning to shake the foundations of their world.

"We knew of the prophecy," said Alderyk. "It was interesting to speculate on the possibility of its fulfillment."

"If the winds bring you news from as far away as Skeg and the city-states, surely there's a breeze that whispers from your own doorstep."

"We heard all that was said there. And perhaps . . ." He cocked his dark head birdwise and smiled. "Perhaps we heard you speak by the Hearth of Hann. Perhaps, even, we heard the sun-haired woman talk of blooding in a place of rocks."

That startled Stark, though not greatly. The Fallarin had the power to move winds—sorcery or psychokinetics, the name mattered little—and it was not unlikely that they could see and hear farther than most, even if it was simply a matter of reading his mind.

"Then you know why Ildann brought me here. You know what I want from you. Tell me what you want from me."

Alderyk ceased smiling. "That," he said, "we have not yet decided." He turned and signaled to one of the Tarf. It scuttled quickly into a doorway, and up on their high perches the Fallarin clapped their thousand wings, and an angry gale whirled snarling around the cliffs. The hounds whined dismally.

The Tarf came back, bearing something on one of its arms. It climbed to the platform and came to Alderyk, who said:

"Let him see the thing clearly."

The thing was a huge proud bird, feathered all in bronze and iron. It fretted because its feet were bound and its head hooded with a bit of cloth. Ever and again it opened its beak and cried out harshly, and Stark understood the word it spoke.

"It is a Swiftwing," he said, remembering the bronze-and-iron flash in the sky, "and it calls for war. It belongs to a chief named Ekmal."

"I think it is his son you have out there."

"I was told that he would be my guide to this place. No harm has come to him."

"Nonetheless, Ekmal calls the clans to war." Stark shook his head. "The Wandsmen call for war because of the Citadel. They are determined to have me prisoner, or dead, along with my friends. The boy is safe enough, and Ekmal knows it."

"A fine witches' brew you've set boiling in our northland," Alderyk said. The Fallarin hissed, and again the wind surged angrily. "The Swiftwing came to seek out Romek, the Ochar Hearth-Keeper. We brought it here instead. The creatures are winged powerfully, but they cannot fly against our currents. We wished to know more before we let Romek have its summons."

He motioned the Tarf away. It withdrew to the east point of the platform, gentling the great bird. Alderyk's eyes held Stark's, yellow and cruel.

"You ask for windfavor as war chief of all the Lesser Hearths, to take Yurunna from the Wandsmen. Why should we grant it, when it means war with all the Ochar? Why should we not give you to Romek for the Wandsmen, or to the Springfire to feed Old Sun?"

Stark said, "Old Sun will grow no stronger no matter how you feed him. He is dying, and the north closes in. This is true for you as it is for the Lesser Hearths, and for the Ochar, too, though they don't accept it—they think the Wandsmen can keep them fed forever."

"And can they not?"

"The Wandsmen will decide that, not the Ochar. There is revolt in the south. Things have changed with the coming of the ships to Skeg. Too many folk hate the Wandsmen and wish to find better worlds to live in. There may be a breaking of power."

"Will be," said Alderyk, "if you have your way. Why should we let you use the Lesser Hearths to gain your own ends?"

"You live on the tribute from these people. Surely you know better than I how scant it grows."

There was a rustling of wings and a sigh from the high perches. Alderyk's eyes were two points of yellow fire, burning into Stark's mind.

"Are you saying that we too must leave our place where we have lived for centuries and find ourselves a better world?"

Wind buffeted Stark from all sides, deafened him, caught the breath from his mouth. The hounds cowered. When the wind died away he said, "The north-folk must move sooner or later for their lives. The Lesser Hearths are dying out. The Wandsmen are interested only in retaining their power, and where they must sacrifice to do so, they will. Make your own choice, but you would be wise to leave a road south open for yourselves when you choose to take it. In the meantime there is enough at Yurunna for all, if you control it."

Silence. The stillness of dead air.

"And you would lead?"

"Yes."

There was a sudden commotion among the Tarf, and one of them came rushing across the open and onto the platform, to crouch at Alderyk's feet.

"Lord," it said, clicking and rattling in its shocked haste, "there has been a killing below. The pilgrim truce is broken, and the Ochar hold the entrance to the cleft."

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Framed