Page 67 of Into the West

The air stilled, and snowflakes the size of a silver piece drifted down around them. Nobody made a sound. Even the lapping of water from the river seemed muted and distant.

The Gate was opaque from Kordas’s side, and lights on its surface formed into designs. Circles, ovoids, triangles, and a series of patterns that Kordas identified as basic spell construction notation, though much different from what he knew. Fog—genuine fog, not illusory—blew through the edges of the Gate. At the top center, many small lights gradually collected into one bright one, forming beams that swept across, well, everything. They illuminated the entire flotilla, where people by the thousands were popping out to get a look at whatever had made that boom and then lit up the night.

The large light was surrounded by a ring of blue light, which gradually erased itself. When it was gone, another set of bright lights appeared and flooded the shore with crisp, clean white light, and another blue circle appeared, dwindling like the previous one. When it vanished, fog formed everywhere that was lit. It was fog from an area of gradually building warmth, melting frost and snow away.

Another blue circle counted down. When it vanished, easily six hundred mage-lights streamed out from the Gate’s edges and took up positions over the flotilla. Another stream of mage-lights took up places six horselengths from the ground around Kordas and the Council, and the temperature was now noticeably warmer. In fact—it was now very lightly raining. Snow alighted on an invisible dome of energy over them, and became warm misting rain. Arcs of rainbow shone in circles around every mage-light, great or small, that was inside the perimeter of warmth and haze. A deep rumbling sound akin to an incredibly large horn came from the Gate. The Gate’s background color turned searing red, and the sound’s pitch went higher with each color change up to ear-piercing violet, then faded away. Dogs and other animals complained in response, and most of the people witnessing this strange show rubbed at their ears.

At either side of the Gate, colors changed in repeating patterns—rainbow colors, red to deep violet, Kordas numbly noted—while a blue circle counted down, and then there was another flash.

Kiyer! Kiyer! Kiyer! Kiyer!

He heard it the same time as he spotted it—a golden eagle, a huge bird, not the size of the terror-birds but surely twice as big as any eagle he had ever seen before, burst out of the Gate, just as it cleared to show what was beyond. Still blinking from the flash, Kordas witnessed more birds flying from the Gate into the night. Hawks, eagles, owls, falcons, ravens, and more. All unusually large, all calling an “I am here! I am here!” call for their species. As if orchestrated by a master, they all went into the sky at increasing heights, circling above the well-lit warm patch in a layered formation. The Gate’s opacity shimmered away.

Walking figures were silhouetted on the other side of the Gate by similar lighting on the other side, and as one, they stepped through.

Twenty people. Male, female, some white-haired, some dark, some half-and-half, some with extraordinary headdresses and hats. White hair from magic use? He’d heard that had happened to very powerful mages like the Six, but never as young as these people seemed to be. Golden skin, and costumes like nothing he had ever seen before—except maybe on those Dolls whose owners liked to dress them up in fanciful outfits. Or maybe one of Jonaton’s more outlandish get-ups. They walked unwary and unhurried, and something itself like a barge glided through behind them. In midair. It was clearly laden, but it was anyone’s guess as to what it bore. In midair, Kordas marveled. No horses or mules, and it’s in midair. More birds poured through the Gate, all of them at least twice the size of “normal” birds of their kinds, and they came to rest on the earthen building or the trees around it. It was very clear to Kordas that they had done so to put themselves in a watchful guard over the Valdemarans below them.

Or put themselves into a position to attack . . .

None of the men-at-arms still held their weapons up at this point. What good were arrows and axes against—that? The people strode through the Gate, bringing themselves within ten paces of Kordas.

One of the people at the rear of the group barked a single word and made a gesture in the air, as if he was closing his hand around something.

The Gate’s edges broke up into clouds of small lights, which then flickered up like embers from a bonfire to join the stars. When they had gone, the Gate closed.

One man, with silver hair and pale blue eyes, lips and eyelids painted to match his hair, stepped right up to Kordas. His outfit was made entirely of small pieces of brown leather sewn in an intricate pattern of patches and folds. Over his shoulders was a cloak made of bearskin, but it must have come from a bear bigger than anything Kordas had ever seen, judging by how deep the fur was, and how large the skin. The man could have used the skin as mattress and blanket, and not ever felt a draft.

Then again, they do grow things big around here, don’t they. Good gods. I don’t know what to say. He can’t know our tongue. I don’t dare touch him to learn his. How the hell am I going to keep two dozen insanely powerful mages from vaporizing us all in the next couple of moments?

“Greetings, Kordas, Baron of Valdemar,” the man said in a pleasant tenor as if he was a Valdemaran native. “We are the Tayledras. We have much to say to you.”

Kordas should have found that more chilling than the ice on the river, but instead, relieved, he found himself smiling.

Council and Hawkbrothers alike retired to the shelter. Or rather, Kordas numbly led the way; the Hawkbrothers called down their extraordinary birds to special perching-staffs retrieved from the floating skiff, and followed him into the days-old building. The Councilors, or at least, those who managed to overcome their trepidation at being in the presence of these folk, followed behind them.

And the moment Kordas ushered them inside the rough shelter with its pounded earth floor and ceiling that rained a bit of fine dust down over them all as the birds outside settled on it, he felt acutely ashamed. Whoever, whatever these people were . . . they were powerful, sophisticated, and he felt like a cowherd at an Imperial banquet. He cleared his throat. “I’m terribly sorry, but—”

The leader stopped him with a gesture. “Don’t be. This is a proper building for someone who is not going to remain long. It serves the purpose, and when you are gone it will melt into the land again.”

Kordas looked around for some place where the newcomers could sit, but before he could say anything, a stream of Dolls poured into the building, carrying skins, small rugs, cushions, stools, chunks of tree trunk, cushions—they must have raided every barge nearby for seating arrangements. And once they had placed their objects at the side of the fire where smoke was least likely to blow into a person’s eyes, they streamed out again, as silently as they had arrived. With quiet murmurs of appreciation, the Hawkbrothers arranged themselves on the ground, and the Councilors—rejoined by Ponu—worked out seating on what had become Kordas’s side of the fire. And as soon as everyone was in place, the Dolls appeared again, with food and steaming jugs and a motley assortment of mugs and cups.

The leader raised his cup to Kordas. Kordas raised his in return and sipped.

Well. Someone broke out the good mead. And someone else broke out the spices and mulled it. Isla. It had to be.

He looked up to gauge his guests’ reactions. Nods, slight smiles, and murmurs in a language he could not understand, but which sounded appreciative.

“More light, I think,” said the leader. “And perhaps heat.”

Each of the Hawkbrothers held out a hand, palm up. A mage-light the size of a child’s ball appeared in each of those waiting palms. As one, the lights rose into the air and formed a circle over the heads of the crowd, with the center formed by the roof centerpole. They went high enough that no one was dazzled by the light, which shone down on them all like the light from a clear morning. And as soon as they were in place, something more came from those spheres. Heat. Very, very welcome heat. Soon it was as warm as a fine spring day inside the shelter.

“I trust you realize we have come in peace,” said the leader, with a wry lift of his left eyebrow.

“If you hadn’t, I suspect you could have done something quite fatal to myself and my Council without ever opening that Gate,” Kordas responded, echoing the other’s lifted brow.

The leader of the Hawkbrothers chuckled. “Well, we probably could, though to be honest, it would be much easier to let the land itself whittle you away to nothing. You have been lucky so far. The wyrsa who followed the fading taste of the charms you put on the beasts you left with Haymouthton are inbred and dying out. The maka’ar you drove off your caravan are as well. But you are venturing into territory much more dangerous.”

He paused, and Kordas heard his Councilors whispering to one another. His mind buzzed with uneasy thoughts. Were they telling the truth? Were they lying? But that forest . . . if it had awakened while one of our groups was in it . . . are there more places like that ahead? What did they want? If they were telling the truth and the territory ahead was going to chew them up and spit out the pieces, then why come to warn the Valdemarans—