Savil emerged from a linen closet on the ground floor, a legacy of her father's legendary building spree. At the far end of this hallway was the old family chapel, whose door Savil intended to use as a Gate-terminus. It had been used that way a number of times in the past, and the border-stones “remembered” those configurations. It was easier, and took far less energy, to build a Gate where one had been, built before. And it was safer to anchor one end of a Gate on holy ground; there was less likelihood that something would come along and take control of it away from you.
We've shielded this chapel to a fair-thee-well, Savil thought, surveying the door for a moment. It was well-shielded before, but it's a magical fortress now. That's good; less chance that the Gate-energy is going to get out and turn poor Van inside out. It's been twenty years, and his channels are still sensitive to Gate-energy. I'd rather not take a chance on making his condition any worse right now.
A few months ago, she wouldn't have been able to do this, because she wouldn't have had the strength to spare. But when Van had changed the Web-Spell, he'd freed her and the other Guardians from the constant drain on their resources required by the Web. Now she had energy for just about any contingency, for the first time in years.
That freedom couldn't have come at a better time.
She braced herself, and invoked the four sides of the Gate; right side and left, threshold and lintel. When she had the “frame” built on the actual doorjambs, and the sides, bottom and top of the door were all glowing a luminous white, she invoked the second half of the spell. She fought a wave of weakness back for a moment, then sent the energy of the Gate out in little seeking threads, “looking” for the place she showed them, where they would build the second terminus.
It was easier this time than the last Gate she'd built to the Pelagirs, because she knew now where the k'Treva had relocated their Vale the last time they'd moved, and knew also where they built their own Gates inside the Vale.
Easier in terms of time; it was never “easy” to build a Gate, and the energy all had to be drawn from the mage himself; no outside sources could be used. As always, it felt as if bits of herself were spinning off and leaving her; as if she was trying to Fetch something that was just barely beyond her strength. It was hard to think; as if someone was actively preventing her mind from working. But there were no more than a few heartbeats between the moment she began the search and the moment she made contact with the other terminus.
There was a flare of light - and the chapel door no longer opened on a prosaic little family shrine, but on a riot of green leaves and twisted rock, with a hot spring bubbling off to the right.
K'Treva Vale.
She stumbled across the threshold, and into a circle of unblinking and hostile guards.
A half-dozen golden-skinned, blue-eyed warriors stared at her over the crystalline points of spear- or arrow-heads. Though not mages themselves, these guards knew the tiniest signs of the Gate being activated, and were prepared to handle anything or anyone coming through. This was the first time Savil had actually seen the Gate-guards at their posts, though she had met several of them during her visits to Moondance and Starwind - whenever one of the k'Treva mages needed to use the Gate, the guards generally cleared discreetly out of the way.
They stared at Savil for a very long moment, and she was altogether glad that she hadn't come with the intention of trying to cause trouble, because they looked more than capable of handling it.
Their no-nonsense attitude extended to their appearance. Most wore their hair shorter than was usual for Tayledras, barely past shoulder-length; and since it was summer, the normal silver-white had been dyed in mottled browns and dull yellow-greens. Their elaborate clothing was also dyed that way. In a tree or hiding in underbrush, they would be very hard to see.
Some few of them had the Mage-Gift, but none were primarily mages. These were members of the Tayledras Clan who, whether or not they had the Mage-Gift, preferred not to use what Gift they had. They served the Clan in other ways; as Healers and craftsmen, as scouts and border-guards, and as guards of the few places within the k'Treva shield that needed both tangible and intangible guards. After all, they didn't have to be sensitive to know when the Gate had been activated - the effect was fairly obvious.
Most of them were young; the life-expectancy of a Tayledras scout was about that of a Field-Herald, and for many of the same reasons.
“Savil!” exclaimed one of them, as Savil fought off her weakness and looked up. The circle of suspicious and hostile expressions changed in an instant. Someone knew her and recognized her. The weapons were lowered or set aside entirely, and two came to her aid as she swayed with fatigue and dropped to her knees on the bare stone in front of the Gate itself.
“Wingsister!” exclaimed the same one, a lean, sharp-faced young woman Savil knew as Firesong, whose spear clattered onto the smooth, bare stone as she tossed it aside. She helped Savil to her feet, and before the Herald-Mage could even voice her need, snapped out a series of commands.
“Windblade, get tea and honey. Hawkflight, find Bright-star; he should be with his weapons-teachers. Dreamseeker, find Starwind and Moondance. Suncloud, get me three more guards. Move on it!”
The four so designated handed their weapons to comrades, and sprinted off. Firesong helped Savil over to a seat on a magically smoothed boulder, supporting the Herald-Mage with one arm around her shoulders.
“How long can you hold the Gate?” Firesong asked as soon as Savil was settled.
“As long as I have to,” Savil replied dryly. “Don't worry, the other terminus is secure. I wouldn't put k'Treva into any danger I could avoid.”
“Good.” Firesong looked as if she might have said more, but the youngster sent off for tea returned, as did the boy sent to fetch replacements. The guardswoman then had her attention fully claimed by the newcomers.
Like every set Gate-terminus Savil had ever seen constructed by Tayledras, this one was built around a cave-mouth. Unlike the last one, which she had helped shape, it was a very shallow cave this time; it went into the solid rock of the cliff-face scarcely more than two horse-lengths. The entrance had been cleared of dirt down to the bare rock, and ringed with boulders. It wasn't wise to allow anything to grow too near a place used often as a Gate-terminus; strange things happened to the plants. . . .
In spite of her claim to be able to hold the Gate, Savil was coming to the end of her strength. She huddled with her hands cupped around the hot cup of tea, and shivered. They'd better come soon, she thought, or I'm going to lose this thing. We could call it up again, but that would take time, a good day before I'd be fit to try. We have time, but I don't think we have that much.
But as if they heard her thoughts, Starwind and Moondance finally made their entrance, dramatically as always, bondbirds on their shoulders. Savil looked up from her tea, sensing them, more than hearing them-and there they were.
They were mages - Adepts, in fact - so their hair was its normal silver-white, elaborately braided and beaded, and flowing down past their waists. And being Adepts, they tended to a sense of the flamboyant that showed in their fantastically designed green tunics.
Savil smiled weakly at them; they wasted no time in formal greetings on seeing the depleted state she was in. They moved as one to augment her own failing energy.
She sighed as they each caught up one of her hands and she felt their energy flowing into her, strong and pure. With one sitting on either side of her, feeding her power to replace what she had lost, she felt able to talk to them.
It had been a while since she was last at k'Treva, but the years hadn't made much change in either of her friends. It was impossible to tell that Starwind was Savil's age, and Moondance only a little older than Vanyel. Adepts were long-lived, normally; node-magic tended to preserve them. Tayledras Adepts were even more long-lived, for they lived amid a constant flow of node-derived magic, magic that touched even the non-Gifted, whether born or raised among them, bleaching their hair and eyes to silver and blue in a matter of two years.
That bleaching effect was even more pronounced and took less time for the mages, a sign that working with node-magic changed them in deeper ways. The drawback was that when they did near the end of their allotted span - and not even an Adept could know when that would be - they would fail and die within a matter of weeks, as the magic burned them up from within.
Savil knew all that, but growled, “You two have little simulacrums locked away somewhere, don't you, that age for you.”
“Now, Wingsister,” Starwind chuckled, “You know that isn't true. You could enjoy the benefits we do, if you would accept our invitation to live here.”
“Can't,” she said shortly. “I have duties, and we've been through all that. Listen, I need your help -”
Briefly, she outlined everything that had happened, and waited for their response.
The initial reaction was pretty much as she'd expected.
“We do not leave k'Treva,” Moondance began, uneasily, when she had finished. “You know that. Our place is here, as it has been for centuries -”
“That, ash'ke'vriden, is no excuse,” said a light tenor voice from just beyond the trees planted at the edge of the “safe” boundary. A huge, white owl winged silently into the clearing to perch on a boulder, and following it was a younger version of the two Tayledras Adepts.
Except that instead of blue eyes, this striking young man had luminous silver, and there was something about the timbre of his strong, vibrant voice that would remind anyone who heard it of Vanyel.
Hardly surprising, since Vanyel was Brightstar's father - and apparently Brightstar was going to be Savil's unexpected ally.
“You yourselves have taught me that Tayledras have left their territories at need before,” Brightstar said, taking a stand beside his owl, “and the world being what it is, likely will again.” He lifted his chin in a way that reminded Savil irresistibly of Van in one of his aggressive moods. “If the need is great enough, what harm in answering it?”
Savil explained again, and Brightstar stiffened his back in outrage. “But you must go! I owe Wingbrother Vanyel my very existence. I would go, if I knew how to deal with these 'leech-blades' -” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “But I cannot.”
“What, humility from the falcon who refused to admit there was any height he could not soar to?” Starwind raised a sardonic eyebrow.
They were taking this a little too lightly for her comfort, and evidently their adoptive son felt the same. Brightstar glowered. “I do not think that we have time to waste while Vanyel lies in danger from this thing,” he said. “And you are quite right that there are some things I am not suited for.”
“So at last you recognize that yours is the Gift of changing the living and Healing the earth, and not things made by the hand of man.” Moondance looked up, theatrically. “Has the sun turned green? Are fish learning to fly?”
“Is my honored father going to return to the point?” Brightstar retorted. “The question is - Vanyel is in need of us and cannot come to us. How do we answer that need? I say you must go to him before he comes to harm!”
Starwind nodded reluctantly. “Vanyel needs us, and indeed, we owe him much - but is our Clan served by our leaving the Vale? Or would this bring harm that outweighs any good we could do? My son, there are good reasons for keeping our presence as secret as we may.”
A polite cough interrupted them. Savil turned slightly, and saw that Firesong was standing there, obviously waiting to be heard.
Starwind nodded at her, and she coughed again, self-consciously. “If you will excuse my intrusion,” she said, standing at rigid attention with her hands clasped behind her, “It seems to me that the better question would be if the Vale and Clan are harmed by your leaving. And I cannot see that this would be the case. The debt of k'Treva to Wing-brother Vanyel is a high one, and our honor would be in doubt if we did not proffer help when it was asked of us. In my opinion, and speaking as the head of the scouts, I think that this overrides even our tradition of secrecy.”
“So, I am twice rebuked,” Moondance said with a slight smile. “And by the infants. I do believe that I hear a turtle singing.”
“Lest the ground itself rise up to rebuke us a third time, shay'kreth'ashke,” Starwind said, rising and holding out his hand to Savil, “or our son strike us down and drag us across the threshold, let us go.”
“I'm very glad to hear you say that, ke'chara,” Savil said, as they walked toward the Gate, and steeled themselves for the shock of crossing.
“Whyfor?” Starwind asked, pausing on the threshold of the Gate itself.
“Because,” she said, “I'm getting too old to hit attractive men over the head and carry them off. And the sad part is, I'm so old that's the only way I can get them!”
And with that, she took his elbow and stepped across the threshold, taking him with her.
Though she was so exhausted that it felt like days since she'd left, it was hardly more than a candlemark. Either weariness had made it seem longer, or time did odd things when you passed through a Gate.
Or both, she thought, turning to face her creation. No one really knows how the damn things work, anyway: Someday maybe an artificer will discover how to make us fly, and we can do without them altogether. If I had the choice between a nice journey in a comfortable seat, and one of these gut-wrenching Gates, I'd take the journey every time.
She held up her hands and began unweaving her Gate, strand by careful strand, taking the energies back into herself. Tedious work, and dangerous; going too fast could send the power back into her at a rate she couldn't handle. And at her age, a shock like that could all too easily kill her.
Then again, that journey would probably mean entrusting myself to the competence of strangers. There's plenty of folk I wouldn't trust my baggage to, let alone my safety. Ah, well, it's a nice dream, anyway.
Building a Gate took most, if not all, of a mage's energies, but taking it down put a sizable amount of that energy back. Savil was feeling very much her cantankerous self when she turned back to Starwind.
“Well,” she said, dusting her hands off on her tunic, “what kind of an entrance do you want to make?”
“Your pardon?” Starwind replied, puzzled by her turn of phrase.
“Do you want things to stay as quiet as possible?” she asked. “Would you prefer we kept your presence at Forst Reach a secret? It'd be hard, and frankly, we'd waste a lot of magic doing it, but we could, if that's what you want.”
Starwind exchanged glances - and probably thoughts - with Moondance. He bit his lower lip, and looked at her measuringly before replying.
“I am of two minds,” he said. “And the first thought is that it would be worth any effort to keep our presence unknown. Yet if we were to do that, we would be unable to accomplish many things that I would like. Moondance wishes to have speech of Vanyel's father, for one. If we are to do such a thing, we must be here openly.”
Savil did her best to keep her surprise from showing. “I can't imagine why you'd want to talk to Withen, but - all right. So what's your choice?”
“Open,” Moondance said promptly. “With as much drama as we may. If we are to break Tayledras silence, then I say we should leave your folk with a memory that will follow them all their days.”
“You'll do more than that, my lad,” Savil muttered, but nodded anyway. “However you want,” she said a little louder. “I'd like you to look at Treesa first, if you would. Van can wait a little, and I'd rather get her on her feet before Withen comes home and has hysterics.”
Starwind nodded. “Lead the way, Wingsister. We will follow your lead.”
I doubt that, she thought, but didn't say it.
It was worth every odd look she'd ever collected from the members of her family to see their faces as she sailed into Treesa's sickroom, followed by the two Tayledras. They certainly knew how to time things for a particularly dramatic entrance, she gave them that. She shoved open the doors first, then made a half-turn to see if they were still coming - then, just before the doors swung completely shut, they flowed through, side by side, and paused to look around.
There were roughly half a dozen people in the room, all told. The only two Savil recognized were the Healer and Father Tyler, both of whom stared at the exotic Adepts with their mouths slowly falling open.
The rest drew back as far as they could get; years of being told as children to “be good, or the Hawkbrothers will get you” were bound to have an effect. And no one could doubt for a moment that these two were a pair of the fabled out-landers-for their birds were still perched calmly on their shoulders, as if they passed through Gates and were carried around strange keeps every day of the month.
Both birds were stark white now, though when Savil had last seen him, Starwind's bondbird, the younger of the pair, was still marked with gray where the darker colorations hadn't yet bleached out. She found herself marveling anew at the birds' calm; no falcon in the Ashkevron mews would sit unjessed and unhooded on a human's shoulder, nor tolerate being taken all over the keep. But then, these birds were to ordinary raptors what Shin'a'in warsteeds were to horses. Bred for centuries to be the partners of those they bonded with, their intelligence was a little unnerving. Just now Starwind's bird was watching Savil with a quiet, knowing look in its eyes, and Moondance's was watching the priest with what had to be an expression of wicked amusement.
Moondance himself strode toward the bed where Treesa had been placed. Those at her bedside melted out of his way without a single word. He held his hand briefly above her forehead, frowned for a moment, and then announced without turning around, “You were correct, Wingsister. It is simple mage-shock from being too near a blast. I can bring her out, if you'd like. It makes no difference to her recovery if she is awakened now or later.”
“Do it now,” Savil advised, “before Withen comes crashing in here like a bull with its tail on fire.”
Moondance took both of Treesa's hands in his, and held them for a moment with his eyes closed. Treesa began to stir, muttering unintelligibly under her breath. Moondance waited for a moment, then opened his eyes and called her name, once.
“Treesa,” he breathed. Only that, but somehow the name took on the flavoring of everything she was, and things Savil hadn't guessed she could be.
Treesa's eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she focused on was Moondance.
“Oh -” she said, weakly. “My.” She gulped, and blinked at the Tayledras as if she could not look away from him, though he dazzled her. “Am - am I dead? Are - are you an angel?”
Starwind was too polite to burst out laughing, but Savil could tell by his too-calm expression and the creases around his twinkling eyes that he was doing his very best not to laugh at the notion of Moondance as an angel.
Moondance is never going to hear the last of this, Savil thought, holding back a smile that twitched the corners of her mouth despite the seriousness of the overall situation.
“No, my lady,” Moondance said haltingly in the tongue of Valdemar. “I am only a friend of your son. We came here to help him, and you as well.”
“To help -” All the color drained from Treesa's face. “Van - how badly is he hurt? Dear gods -”
She struggled to sit up, but the Healer prevented her from moving by holding her down with one hand on her shoulder. Moondance put his hand atop the Healer's, eliciting a gasp from both the Healer and Treesa.
“We go to him now, my lady,” Moondance said, and smiled sweetly. “Be at ease; all will be well.”
And with that, he turned and swept out of the room, Starwind joining him so that they left as they had entered, together. Savil smiled at Treesa, as reassuringly as she could, and followed them.
“Where is young Vanyel?” asked Starwind as soon as they were all in the stone-walled corridor.
“Up a flight and over a bit,” Savil told him, taking the lead again, and moving as quickly as her aching hip would permit. “I should warn you about something. Seems he's lifebonded again, this time to a young Bard about half his age -”
Starwind exchanged a wry glance with Moondance. “Indeed? And where have I heard that tale before?”
“I would have no idea,” Savil replied, her tone heavy with irony. “Just because you were near thirty and Moondance was all of sixteen ... At any rate, the boy's with him. Don't frighten him; he's had a bad few hours, and he's part of the reason why I haven't been frantic to get you here.”
Moondance looked puzzled, but Starwind nodded knowingly. “Ah. The blade feeds on both of them. I had wondered why you were so calm about all this.”
“So long as you didn't take a week to make up your minds, I reckoned we had time.” She paused outside Vanyel's door. “Here. And remember what I told you.”
This time Starwind held the door open for her, and followed her inside with no dramatics at all. Stefen, whitefaced, was absorbed in Van - so completely that he didn't even notice they were there until Starwind laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Stefen jumped; he looked up at the Tayledras Adept, and his eyes grew very large, and very round. His mouth opened, but he couldn't seem to make a sound.
“We are here to help young Vanyel, little one,” Starwind said kindly. “But for us to do so, you must move away from him.”
Stefen lurched to his feet, knocking over the chair he'd been sitting on, and backed away, tripping over it in the process. Moondance caught him before he fell, and Savil wondered for a moment if the poor boy was going to faint on the spot. He recovered, and edged over to Savil, standing slightly behind her, his eyes never once leaving the Tayledras.
Starwind held one finger near to the leech-blade, but did not touch it. “A nasty piece of work, that,” he said in his own tongue to Savil. “More than ordinary malice went into its making.”
“But can you get rid of it?” Savil asked anxiously.
“Oh, aye. Not easily, but it is by no means the hardest task I have ever undertaken. Ashke -”
Moondance nodded, and moved to stand immediately behind him, with one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Starwind ripped part of the ornamental silk from his sleeve; the cloth parted with a sound like the snarl of a hunting cat. He wrapped the bit of silk around his hand, and only then grasped the hilt of the leech-blade.
“Now we give it something else to seek after,” he murmured, and held his other hand a few thumblengths away from the wicked little knife. Invoking Mage-Sight, Savil Saw that his hand glowed with life-force; far more than Vanyel possessed, even at the core of him. And she Saw how the blade loosened its hold on the Herald-Mage; how it turned in Starwind's hand, and lurched out of the wound like a hunger-maddened weasel.
“Not this time, I think,” Starwind said aloud, pulling his unprotected hand away before the writhing blade could strike it. “Now, ashke -”
Moondance made an arc of pure power between his two hands, and Starwind brought the blade down into it.
The thing shrieked.
Stefen screamed, and clasped his hands over his ears. Savil very nearly did the same. The only reason she didn't try to block her ears was because she knew it wouldn't do any good. That hideous screaming was purely mental.
The scream of the blade continued for four or five breaths, then, as suddenly as it had begun, the thing fell silent. Moondance damped the power-arc, and when Savil's eyes and Mage-Sight recovered from the dazzle, she saw that Starwind held only a hilt. The blade itself was gone, and the air reeked of charred silk.
“And that,” the Tayledras said with satisfaction, turning the blackened hilt over in his hand, and examining it carefully, “is that.” He looked up at Savil. “And now, dearest Wingsister, we four can all join to bring our brother back to us.”
She was placing her hands over Moondance's when she realized what he'd said.
Four? Huh. Well, why not?
“Come here, lad,” she said over her shoulder to Stefen, who was hovering worriedly in the background. “They won't bite you.”
“Much,” Moondance said, in her tongue, with a sly grin for Stefen. Oddly enough, that seemed to relax him.
“What can I do?” he asked, taking his place at Savil's side.
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But he knows. So let's both find out.”
Starwind smiled, and placed his hands atop theirs.
Savil took a long, deep breath and looked quickly down at Vanyel. He was breathing normally, deeply asleep, and his color was back. He'll probably wake up in a candlemark or so. 'Fandes will be out about as long.
“What happened?” Stef asked, dazedly. “What did we do?”
“Sit, Singer,” Moondance said, pushing him down onto the bed. “We gave young Vanyel a path back to himself, and the strength to return upon it. But that strength came from us, you most particularly, and you should now rest.” He nodded at the bed. “There is plenty of room there, and Vanyel would feel comforted by your presence.”
“He would?” The youngster looked on his last legs, but was stubbornly refusing to admit his weariness. “Well - if you think so -”
“I think so.” Moondance threw a light blanket over the Bard's shoulders. “Rest. You do not hasten his recovery by fretting.”
“If you -” he stifled a yawn “- say so.”
Moondance shook his head at Starwind. “Children. Was I that stubborn-minded?” he asked in Tayledras.
“Oh, you were worse.” Starwind grinned, and took Savil by the elbow. “Kindly show us where we will be staying, Wingsister. I think we will have to remain here some few days more, else Vanyel will foolishly exert himself and it will be all to do again.”
:And just what do you have up your sleeve?: she asked him. :You're right, of course, but there's more that you aren't telling the boy.:
:Perceptive as always,: he replied. :I wish you to hear this from Moondance, however.:
She nodded at Moondance, who joined them at the door. “Sleep, Stefen,” he ordered as he closed it. An indistinct mumble came from the general direction of the bed. It sounded like agreement.
“In the absence of anyone else I guess I'll make the decision of where to put you two,” Savil said. “And because I don't know where else, I guess you might as well take the room next to Van's.”
She opened the door to the next guest room, which looked about the same as Vanyel's in the dim light; with Forst Reach entertaining as many as a hundred visitors during the course of a year, no room ever sat long enough to take on an air of disuse. The only real sign that it was not occupied was the fact that the shutters were closed, and what light there was leaked in through the cracks.
“So, now, what was it you wanted to tell me about?” Savil asked Starwind, closing the door behind him. The older Tayledras went directly to the window and threw the shutters open.
“Not I,” he said, “but Moondance.” He sat on the window ledge and leaned out, looking with interest-though real or feigned, Savil couldn't tell which-at the grounds below.
“Well?” she asked impatiently of Moondance. The Healing-Adept looked very uncomfortable.
“I do not know how much you give credence to our beliefs,” he said doubtfully.
“Depends on which one,” she replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. “If it's the one about how people should live in trees, I still think you're out of your mind.”
He ignored the sally. “We think - and have proved, insofar as such a thing is possible to prove - that souls are reborn, sometimes even crossing species' boundaries. Rebirth into something of like intelligence, a hertasi perhaps being reborn as a kyree, or a kyree as a human -”
“Must make things interesting at dinnertime,” Savil jibed.
He glared at her. She gave him a sardonic stare right back.
“This is all very fascinating philosophy, but I don't see what it has to do with Van,” she pointed out, tilting her head a little.
Moondance shook his head. “Not with Vanyel - with the Singer.”
“Stef?” she exclaimed incredulously. “Why on earth Stefen? And why is it important?”
“Because my shay'kreth'ashke believes - as do I - that your Stefen is, or was, the young one called Tylendel,” Starwind called from the window.
Savil's first reaction was surprise, then skepticism. “What, just because they lifebonded? Really, isn't that a little too neat, too pat? It makes a very nice tale, but -” She shrugged.
“No,” Moondance said, walking to the window to stand beside Starwind. “No, it is not because of the lifebond, or not primarily. There are other things-memory traces of Vanyel many years ago, ties other than the lifebond.” He paused, and looked up at the ceiling as if gathering his thoughts. “And there are reasons, pressing reasons, for this to have happened. The bond between Tylendel and Vanyel was strong, stronger even than most lifebonds I have seen. There is a debt owed to Vanyel because of what happened. There is unfinished business because Tylendel failed as a Herald.” He looked at her expectantly for a moment, then shrugged. “I could go on at length, but that would only bore you.”
“I doubt it,” Savil replied, fascinated in spite of her skepticism. “But I can't see what relevance it has to the current situation, either.”
Starwind left the window. “Only that the past has bearing on the present, and will color what happens in the present.”
“So, should I tell them about this speculation of yours?” she asked curiously.
“Ah.” Starwind clasped his hands behind his back, and gave his lifebonded a wry smile. “That is where we differ. I think perhaps yes, but I do not feel at all as strongly as Moondance, and am willing to be overruled.”
“And I think that on no account should you tell them,” Moondance said adamantly, leaning his back against the windowframe. “But our reasons for our feelings are much the same.”
“We feel,” Starwind took up the thread of conversation, “that this relationship should be permitted to develop without the baggage of the previous one. It is not the same set of circumstances at all, their meeting and bonding; nor are their relative status or ages the same. Therefore I think they should be told so that they may avoid misunderstandings that echoes of the past may bring.”
“And I think that being told will only bring problems; that Vanyel will cease to react to Stefen as he has become, and that he will begin behaving in ways that will warp the relationship out of all recognition and health.” Moondance crossed his arms over his chest, and looked very stubbornly at Savil.
“I can think of one problem right off,” she said slowly. “If Van thinks Stef's his old love, he's likely to do one of two things - pay more attention to Stef's opinions and advice, or less. Neither is healthy. Stefs got a good head on those shoulders, but he also has a lot of growing up to do yet. Right now Van's giving him about the same amount of slack he'd give any lad his age, and listening to him when he makes sense -”
“Which is the way it should remain,” Moondance concluded.
She shook her head at Starwind. “Sorry, old friend, but my vote goes with Moondance.”
He shrugged. “I had already told you I did not feel that strongly; I am content to be overruled.”
“To change the topic, how long do you want to stay?” she asked. “I'll have to tell Withen something when he gets back.”
“Three days, perhaps five. No more, certainly.” Starwind shook his hair back. “Two days to keep Vanyel from overexerting, then however long it takes to unravel who did this thing, and why.”
“If we can,” Moondance said with resignation. “It is by no means certain. But with four Adepts at work, the odds are that what can be uncovered, will be.”
“Which brings me to a request, dearest Wingsister,” Starwind grinned. “Do you think this place is capable of producing garments of a suitable size for us? It seems that we forgot to pack. ...”
“Oh, probably nothing good enough for you, you preening snow-birds,” Savil grinned wryly, “but we may be able to rummage up something.”
Yet another of Treesa's ladies had Savil and the elder Tayledras trapped in a conversation, this time just outside the keep as Starwind sent his falcon up for some exercise. There was no reason for this one-sided discourse; she'd done it purely for an excuse to gawk at the exotic. Savil closed her eyes for a moment, and wished that the chattering child-woman would come to the point. “This,” said Starwind under his breath, in his own language, “is not a family, it is a small army. And half of them are mad.” He nodded to the young woman, smiled, and tried to interject a single word. “It -”
She ran right over the top of him without pausing for breath, and without taking her eyes from Starwind's face. “But my mother's cousin twice removed, you know, the Kyliera Grove Brendewhins not the Anderlin's Freehold lot, the ones who -”
:Does she never cease speaking?: Starwind asked. :Even in sleep?:
:Not to my knowledge,: Savil replied the same way.
:Then I shall have to do something rude to free us from the chains of her words,: he told her.
:You're forgiven in advance,: Savil assured him.
Suddenly, with no forewarning whatsoever, Starwind's white gyrfalcon swooped down out of the sky above them, and dove at the girl, missing her by a goodly distance, but frightening her into silence. The bird hovered just over Starwind's head, screaming at her, threatening to dive again.
“Your pardon,” Starwind said, with a completely disarming smile, “but I think my bird must have taken a dislike to your apparel. I have never seen him act in this way before. He must believe that you are a threat to me.”
The bird dove again, and this time the girl shrieked and fled. Starwind held up his arm, and the falcon settled on it immediately, then hopped to his shoulder and began preening itself with every sign of being completely calm.
Kellan wandered up, and put her nose up to the bird. It reached out with its wicked beak and gently nibbled at her upper lip before resuming its preening.
:A bird with sense,: Kellan told her Chosen, a wicked twinkle in her eye. :I was considering charging you three just before Starwind asked Asheena to threat-dive.:
:The only problem with that is Lytherill would never have believed threat out of you,: Savil said. :She believes in the unquestionable goodness and purity of Companions.:
Kellan hung her head and moaned. :Does this mean I can expect her to garland me with roses, try to hug my neck, and speak to me in babytalk?:
Savil laughed. :No love, she's not quite that young, though a couple of years ago, before she discovered boys, you'd have been in danger.:
:How close are you to finding out what that mage was up to?: Kellan asked, with the kind of abrupt change of subject Savil had come to expect from her over the years.
:Close. We'll probably be able to run the spells tomorrow.:
:Indeed, Wingsister.: A new mind-voice entered the conversation and both Savil and her Companion suppressed startlement. Adepts - or very powerful Mindspeakers - were so few that Savil seldom remembered that the Tayledras shared with Vanyel the ability to “overhear” any conversation that was not shielded against them. :Pardon,: he said apologetically. :Yes, we should be prepared enough and Vanyel recovered enough to make the attempt tomorrow. Would the one who struck him were still in condition to be questioned.:
Starwind sent his falcon up once more, this time in response to a pigeon taking wing from the keep eaves. Wild raptors, Savil knew, missed more often than they struck, but Tayledras bondbirds seldom stooped without a kill at the end. Starwind had his eyes closed, and his entire body stiffened with tension as his bird dove. A scream of triumph rang out as the bird pulled up for the kill and Starwind shivered a little, a tiny smile of satisfaction on his lips, as the falcon's talons struck home.
The gyrfalcon carried its prey to the roof to feed, and Starwind opened his eyes and smiled a little more broadly at Savil's knowing grin.
“Fantasizing someone other than a pigeon at the end of that stoop, hmm?” Savil asked.
“I?” Starwind was all innocence. And Savil didn't believe it for a moment.
“You. If I had that bastard in my reach right now - never mind. Come on, let's finish this walk.” Savil headed out into the paddocks, and Starwind fell in beside her, Kellan following noiselessly behind.
“As for being waylaid by half-grown girls, half the problems you and Moondance are having you brought on yourselves,” she told him frankly. “You two insisted on being spectacular, well, now you see what happens to a spectacle. I'm sorry, but I can't feel terribly sorry for you.”
“I would not have insisted, had I known the sheer number of inhabitants in this place,” he replied ruefully. “Gods of my fathers - five families, with no less than seven children in each, hundreds of men-at-arms, and then there are the servants, the fosterlings -” He shook his head in disbelief. “K'Treva is little larger, and it is an entire clan! It staggers the imagination.”
“And every one of those people is dying for a close-up look at you,” Savil sighed. “I tried to warn you.”
“The warning came too late.” He shrugged. “Though - I am glad to have met Withen's falconer, for all that he salivates every time he looks upon our winged brothers. And I am doubly glad to have met Vanyel's father and mother.”
Savil strolled over to a fence surrounding the field that held the yearling fillies, and leaned on it, putting one foot on the lowest rung. “Withen's gotten better the last five years or so. I must say, I'm rather proud of him. Most men go more hidebound with age, but the old bastard seems to have relaxed some of his attitudes. Hellfires, he hardly ever bellows at me anymore.”
“You think so?” Starwind replied, looking out over the field. “That is good. That is very good.”
But why it was good, he refused to say.
Every night after dinner, Withen and Treesa had taken to inviting the Tayledras, Savil and Vanyel up to their private suite or (more often, since the weather was excellent) out to the secluded side porch Vanyel had favored before the orchard incident. In part, it was out of pity - to get them away from the Forst Reach hordes. And after the first evening, they included Stefen in on the invitation, although the Bard begged off, saying he had promised to entertain the younger set.
Tonight was no exception, but this time Vanyel, too, had gracefully asked pardon to decline. He didn't give a reason, but Savil told Withen as she joined the group out on the porch that he was missing an unusual experience.
“What is it?” Withen said curiously, handing Starwind a cup of wine. He'd had servants line the porch with festival-lanterns so that the place was well, but not brightly, lit.
“Someone managed to goad your son and his friend into challenging each other, musically speaking,” she replied. “That's what they're up to right now, in front of most of the younglings of the keep - no, Treesa, trust me, it isn't anything you want to subject yourself to.”
Treesa had begun to rise, but sank back down to her seat. “I do trust you, but why? I trust Van not to do anything that would upset the children's parents, so it can't be a bawdy-song contest, can it?”
“No, it's not,” Savil said, grinning. “It's a bad song contest. They've challenged each other to come up with the worst songs they know. Trite, badly-rhymed, badly-scanned-you name it. Right now Van's going through some piece of drivel about being trapped in a magic circle for seventeen years, and it sounds like it may take seventeen years to sing it.”
Treesa laughed. “It may, at that,” she said, and filled a cup for the younger Tayledras.
Moondance took it, but his face was sober. “Lady Treesa, Lord Withen, I have a great wish to speak of something with you, and as it concerns your son, I think this moment of his absence gives me the opportunity. If you will permit.” He paused, and looked first into Treesa's eyes, then into Withen's. “It is not comfortable.”
Treesa dropped her gaze, but nodded. Withen cleared his throat. “Nothing about my son is particularly comfortable. I'm not sure he was ever created to inspire comfort. I think I would like to hear what you have to say. No, I would not like it, but I think I should hear it.”
Moondance sighed, and sat down on the stone railing.
“Then, let me tell you something about a very young man, a boy, named Tallo.”
Savil was considerably more than a little surprised; Moondance found the story of his own past so painful that he had rarely divulged it to anyone. She knew it, of course; she had found the boy . . . she had brought him to Starwind, nearly dead.
Moondance told his story in as few words as possible, his voice flat and without emotion.
“Some thirty years ago, in a village far from here, there lived a boy named Tallo. He was a recluse, a lone runner, an odd boy, given more to thought than deed. His parents hoped he would become a votary, and sent him to the priest to learn - but in the priest's books he found what he was truly Gifted with. Magic. His parents did not understand this, nor did they sympathize, for their lives had little to do with magic and mages. This made him further alone, more different, and his parents began to try to force him back to their own simple ways. It was too late for that - there were arguments. There were more when they attempted to bring him to wed, and he refused. He could not tell them what he felt, for what he yearned for were those of his own sex, and such a thing was forbidden.”
Moondance's soft voice did not betray the pain the Tayledras Adept felt. Savil knew; no one better - but certainly Withen could never have guessed.
“One summer, after a winter of arguments and anger, there came a troupe of gleemen to the village - one among them was very handsome, and quite different from his fellows. Thus it was that Tallo learned he was not the only boy to feel yearnings of that kind. They became lovers - then they were discovered. Both were beaten and cast out of the village. In anger Tallo's lover repudiated him - and in pain and anger, Tallo called lightnings down upon him.”
Moondance sighed, and shook his head. “He did not mean even to hurt, only to frighten - but he did not know enough to control what he called, and the young gleeman died in agony, crying out Tallo's name. And in remorse for what he had done, Tallo tried to take his own life. It was Herald Savil who found him, who brought him to her new friend, Starwind of the k'Treva. Who was also shay'a'chern, and Healed the young boy in body and spirit - but still, there was such grief, such remorse, that Tallo felt something must be given in sacrifice to the harm he had done. So did Tallo die, and in his place came Moondance.”
Withen started. Moondance glanced sideways at him, and only now did the Tayledras show any emotion. “Tallo is no more,” he said, his voice subdued. “And no one in Tallo's village would know Moondance. The Tayledras are stories to frighten children with, and they would not dare to recognize him. Those that were his family would only be afraid of what he has become. Never can the one who became Moondance reconcile with his family; he did not when he was Tallo, and now it is impossible to do so. And that, Lord Withen, Lady Treesa, is a desperate sadness.”
He sipped his wine, as the insects sang in the darkness around them, and the lights in the lanterns flickered.
“It seems to me, Lord Withen,” Starwind said, finally, just before the long silence became too much to bear, “that a man's life must be judged by what he has done with it. Your son is a hero, not only to your people, but to ours, to the peoples of Baires and Lineas, even to some outside the Borders of your realm. Look at the good he has done - and yet always with him is a deep and abiding hurt, because he feels that you have seen nothing of the good he has done, that you feel he is something evil and unclean.”
Withen swallowed his cup of wine in a single gulp. He stared up at the stars for a long time, then lowered his eyes to meet Starwind's for just a moment. He dropped them, then toyed with his cup, until the silence grew too much even for him to bear.
He cleared his throat, and furrowed his brow, looking very unhappy. “Thank you. You've given me a lot to think about,” he said, awkwardly, and turned to lock gazes with Moondance. “Both of you have. And I promise you that I will think about it.” He looked down at his cup, as if he was surprised to find it empty. “I think at the moment that I have had quite enough wine for one night.” He smiled suddenly, stood up, and held out his hand to Treesa, who took it with a surprised expression. “By now that little contest should be over, and I do believe I'd like to find out who - and what - won.”
And with that, he set his cup down, aided Treesa to her feet, and exited with a certain ponderous grace.
Savil blinked, and took a sip of her own wine. “What was that supposed to accomplish?” she asked. “And why on earth did you broach that subject now?”
Moondance put down his cup of wine untasted. “It was something that needed Healing,” he replied. “I have done my poor best, and we may only see what time will bring.”
Starwind nodded without speaking.
Savil looked up at the velvet of the night sky; no moon tonight, which made the stars seem all the brighter. “It felt right, if my opinion means anything to you,” she said at last. “Right words, right time. If anything is going to happen -”
“It is in Withen's hands,” Starwind sighed, then stretched. “Gods of my fathers - if there is anything more difficult than dealing with the heart, I do not know what it may be. I am to my rest.”
“And I to mine,” Savil said, putting her cup down. “Tomorrow is another day.”
“Yes. And tomorrow we shall have finished the preliminaries over that evil hilt. Tomorrow we shall look into its past, and that of its wielder.” Moondance shook his head. “This will not be pleasant.”
“No,” Savil agreed, moving toward the door with the other two. “And I don't think the answers we're going to get will be pleasant either. So let's enjoy our peace while we have it, hmm?”
“Indeed.” Starwind said, pausing to let her precede him. “For it is all too fleeting and fragile a thing, peace.”
Vanyel knew that Savil would have been happier in a fortified Work Room, but the current situation wouldn't allow it. There really was no place suitable in all of the keep. The Tayledras felt more comfortable out-of-doors, and the orchard was the place where the strange mage had died, so to the orchard they had all come. Savil had brought a cushion with her; the ground was too much for her bones. The Tayledras sank down in their places with no sign of discomfort at all. Vanyel wished belatedly that he had thought to bring something to sit on, but it was too late now.
They sat in a circle, but with their backs to each other, rather than face-to-face. All four of them would see this reenactment of the recent past; all four of them would Hear the thoughts that had been strong enough to have left an imprint there. They were looking outward, not inward, and hence, the seating arrangement.
They were all in place now, as Vanyel eased himself down between Savil and Starwind.
The little circle did not include Stefen, who was keeping Treesa and her ladies occupied and out of the mages' way, but it was Starwind's opinion that he was better employed in that capacity than in watching them work magic he could not participate in.
Vanyel unwrapped the blackened hilt and laid it on the bare earth. He looked up at Savil, whose expression made him think that her insides were probably in knots. “You don't have to do this, you know,” he reminded her. “You don't have to help.”
“I know that,” she replied, “but I'd worry myself to bits until you three finished this little exercise. I'd rather be in on it.”
Vanyel nodded. “All right, then. Let's link.”
He linked to Savil, while Starwind gathered Moondance in; familiar bonds to familiar. Then the two halves joined, forming a meld that was as close to seamless as anything Van had ever seen. It helped that the four of them had wielded magics as a group before; it also helped that their friendship was as close as it was. But what made this work was that all four of them had actually trained together. They would take turns as leader and supporters in this, and there was no room for temperament or pride.
Savil took the lead for the first part; invoking from the hilt and from the blood-soaked ground the mage's last moments.
The peaceful orchard and his companions vanished from Vanyel's sight. Now he approached a ring of Treesa's ladies, listening to Stefen's music, as if he rode upon the mage's shoulder, and Vanyel knew that the others were Seeing what he Saw. All of the stranger's surface thoughts were open to them for that time period. Savil froze the scene at the moment the mage had attacked Treesa and Stefen, and they read then what was uppermost in his mind.
Vanyel was so startled he nearly fell out of the link. The man he had captured in the Wood and this mage might just as well have been two entirely different people! Not only was this mage not crazed, but his attitudes were drastically different, as well as what could be read of his past history and training.
The mage had not known that Vanyel was home; he had deduced who Vanyel was quickly enough, but had entrapped him by pure accident. He had been assuming that he would trap Withen's house-mage; most nobles outside Valdemar had one, to weave protections for themselves and their interests. Since he hadn't detected any of the arcane protections that would have shown him Withen's house-mage had a Work Room, he had supposed that his enemy must be some kind of woods' witch, or hedge-wizard, to do all of his spellcasting out-of-doors. The Wood, with all of its residual magics, would have been perfect for that. So the stranger had waited, snare at the ready, for the first sign of spellcasting. He had expected to catch another hedge-wizard.
He had gotten Vanyel. This was rather akin to setting a trap for a sparrow and catching a firebird. The mental blow that knocked him unconscious had caught him completely by surprise.
So when he came to, he had done so behind a screen prepared for just such an occasion. He had retreated behind a disguise that had been created for him by another mage - just in case he had discovered that the one he intended to neutralize had been more powerful than he. This was the false persona whose thoughts Vanyel had skimmed, the madman who interpreted everything as an attack or a threat to himself.
At this point the stranger had still not known that he'd caught Vanyel; he had only thought that Withen's house-mage was far more skilled than he had guessed. It wasn't until Vanyel actually came into his line-of-sight that he had realized who and what had caught him.
That had been the spark of recognition Vanyel had seen. After that, the man buried himself even deeper beneath the false persona, deciding to fall back on his secondary plan.
That involved getting inside Forst Reach itself-and Vanyel played right into his hands by taking him to Father Tyler.
He'd waited for Vanyel to probe him more carefully, and had been relieved when Van was too preoccupied to see if there was anything behind the persona-screen. That made his job all the easier.
He had disposed of Father Tyler, and had gone looking for Treesa or Withen. He'd found out where they were by the simple expedient of asking a servant. Then he'd gone hunting.
The final thought Vanyel read as the mage prepared to launch the leech-blade at Treesa was that his master would be very pleased.
That was, maddeningly, all.
Savil tried to Read farther into the past than the moment of the attack, but once he was off Forst Reach lands, the mage had been screened and shielded, and there was nothing there to be Read. There was no image in the mage's mind connected with this “master”; he'd never seen the unknown mage in person. The “master” had only given him his orders, then given him the means to carry them out - he had set up the disguise-persona, had screened his servant against detection and back-Reading while off the Forst Reach lands, and had constructed the twin leech-blades for him.
The mage had only been a tool in the hands of someone bigger.
Vanyel shook off his disappointment, and began gently disengaging himself from the spell. Gradually the frozen scene faded from Mage-Sight and ordinary sight; then, with an abrupt, gut-wrenching shudder, it vanished completely, and Vanyel was back in the present, with a numb behind, and far too many unanswered questions.
He got up, breaking the circle, and stretched. He stood staring at the tree just in front of him for a while, trying to get everything he'd learned and everything he hadn't learned sorted out. When he turned around, Starwind was staring at him, a slight frown on his lips.
“You do realize what this attack means, do you not?” he said to Vanyel. “That you were vulnerable to the leech-blade was the purest accident; if you had been warded against magic the thing would have had no purchase upon you. Nevertheless, you were the target; the mage recognized you and knew that. He was to destroy you by indirect means, by destroying those you love. The one who sent him does not want to confront you - but does want you eliminated. This time the targets were to be Lady Treesa, Lord Withen, or both - hence the two blades.”
“The protections I put on them won't hold against direct attacks,” Savil admitted unhappily. “I can't stop an assassin. I don't think this is going to end with one attack, either, not with what I picked up. Van, I don't know what to say.”
Vanyel sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “It's nothing I haven't anticipated, Savil. That's always been my worst fear, you know that. But if there is somebody, some powerful enemy of mine out there-where has he been all this time? What does he really want? And is he just my enemy, or is he Valdemar's enemy as well?”
Moondance stretched as Starwind clasped his shoulders and rubbed them absently. “This comes as quite a surprise to us as well, Wingbrother. We are reclusive, yes, but there are still signs of such a mage as this “master” seems to be which we should have detected long before this.”
Vanyel offered Savil his hands to pull her to her feet. “Except that you have a peculiar blind spot, my friends,” Savil, said, accepting the aid. “You never look outside your own territory. Even the Shin'a'in Clans work together, but you don't; each of your Clans operates on its own. That's your strength, but that's also your weakness.”
“Strength or weakness, it matters not,” Starwind said shortly. “The question is, how is Vanyel to ensure the continued safety of his parents? As you have pointed out, Wingsister, this is not going stop at one attack.”
“There's only one thing I can do,” Vanyel said. “Since I can't be where they are -”
“Get them to move to where you are.” Savil shook her head. “I don't know, Van. That may be harder than getting yourself transferred to Forst Reach.”
“That may be,” Vanyel said grimly, “But it has to be done.”
Dinner was a cold lump in Vanyel's stomach, and his weariness made the lamplight seem harsher than it really was.
“. . . . I have no choice but to insist on this, Father,” Vanyel concluded, clasping his hands around his ale mug, and staring at the surface of the table. “I know you never want to leave Forst Reach - and the gods know you never asked to have a Herald-Mage for a son. I'm asking this because I have to. I can't protect you, Savil can't protect you, Randale can't afford to keep a Herald here full-time to keep you safe; there aren't enough of them, and nothing less would do it. You could hire all the guards you wanted to; none of them would do any good against a mage. Hire a mage, and whoever this is will send a better one. This enemy of mine knows me very well, Father. If you or Mother died because of what I am - I - I'd never get over it.” He looked up; at Withen's troubled face, and at Treesa's frightened one. “There's no help for it, Father. You'll have to take up the Council seat for this district and move to Haven. Everyone would be glad to see you in it, and Lord Enderby never wanted it in the first place. You'd do a good job, and the Council could use your experience.”
Treesa sighed happily and lost her fear instantly; she had wanted to move to Haven for years, ever since the last of her children wedded. “Oh, Withen,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “You must! I've hoped for this for so long-”
Withen winced. “I think you mean you've hoped for a reason to make me go to the capital, and not that the reason would be that we're in danger otherwise!”
Treesa pouted. She'd recovered very quickly, showing a resilience that Moondance called “remarkable.” “Of course that's what I meant! Withen, for all that you like to pretend that you're a plain and simple man, you've been running not only Forst Reach, but most of the county as well. And you very well know it. When something goes wrong, where's the first keep they go to? Here, of course. And it isn't to ask advice of Mekeal! I think Van is right; I think you'd make a fine Councillor.”
Withen shook his head, and took a long drink of ale. “Ah, Treesa, I hate politics, you know that-and now you want me to go fling myself into them right up to the neck -”
Vanyel put his mug down. I'm going to have to shock him into taking the seat, or he'll go, and pine away with boredom. “Father, it's either that, or move to Haven without anything to do but sit around the Court all day and trade stories with the other spavined old war-horses,” he said bluntly. “I was offering you an option that would give you something useful to do. You are going to Haven, whether or not you like it. I cannot afford to leave you here.”
Withen bristled. “So I'm a spavined old war-horse, am I?”
Vanyel didn't rise to the bait. Withen expected him to try and back down, and he couldn't, not with so much riding on his persuading Withen that he was right. “In a sense, yes; you're too old to rejoin the Guard, even as a trainer. There's nothing else there for you. But that Council seat is crying for someone competent to fill it, and you are competent, you're qualified, and you won't play politics with Valdemar's safety at stake - and that puts you ahead of half the other Councillors, so far as I can see. And you, Father, are trying to change the subject.”
Abruptly, Withen put his mug down and held up both hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I'll take the damned seat. But they'll get me as I am. No Court garb, no jewels and furbelows. Treesa can dress up all she likes, but I'm a plain man; I always have been, and I always will be.”
Vanyel's shoulders sagged with relief. “Father, you can be anything you like; you'll be a refreshing change from some of the butterfly-brains we have on the Grand Council. Trust me, you won't be alone. There are two or three-other old war-horses - no more 'spavined' than you, I might add - former Bordermen like you, who have pretty much the same attitudes. And I say, thank the gods for all of you.”
Withen glowered. “I'm only going because you've got work for me,” he said, grumbling. “Meke may think he runs Forst Reach, but Treesa's right: when there's trouble, it's me they all come to.”
All the better for Meke, Vanyel thought. Let him make his own mistakes and learn from them.
But what he said was, “Then it's time to expand your stewardship, Father. More than time. I think you will serve Valdemar as well or better than you served Forst Reach.”
He started to get up, when Withen's hand on his wrist stopped him. “Son,” his father said, earnestly. “Did you really mean that about how you'd be hurt if something happened to your mother or me?”
“Father -” Vanyel closed his eyes, and sank back into his seat, swallowing an enormous lump in his throat. “Father, I would be devastated. I would be absolutely worthless. And somehow this mage knows that, which is why it's so important for you to be somewhere safe. Valdemar needs me, and needs me undamaged. And I need you. You're my parents, and I love you.” He took a deep breath; what he was going to say was very hard, and it had cost him a lot of soul-searching. “I can't change the past, Father, but I can manage things better in the future. You've been very – good - about my relationship with Stef. If it would make you feel better, though, I'll see to it that he and I - don't see much of each other. That way you won't have - what I am - rubbed in your nose at Haven.”
Withen flushed, and looked down at the table. “That's . . . that's very good of you, son. But I don't want you to do that.”
Vanyel bit his lip with surprise. “You don't? But -”
“You're my son. I tried to see to it that you learned everything I thought was important. Honor. Honesty. That there are things more important than yourself. It seems to me you've been living up to those things.” Withen traced the grain of the table with a thick forefinger. “There's only one way you ever disappointed me and - I don't know, Van, but-it just doesn't seem that important when you stack it up against everything else you've ever done. I don't see where I'd have been any happier if you'd been like Meke. I might have been worse off. Two blockheads in one family is enough, I'd say.”
Withen looked up for a moment, then back down at his cup. “Anyway, what I'm trying to say is - is that I love you, son. I'm proud of you. That youngster Stefen is a good-hearted lad, and I'd like to think of him as one of the family. If he'll put up with us, that is. I can understand why you like him.” Withen looked up again, met Vanyel's eyes, and managed a weak grin. “Of course, I'll - admit that I'd have been a deal happier if he was a girl, but - he's not, and you're attached to him, and any fool can see he's the same about you. You've never been one to flaunt yourself -” Withen blushed, and looked away again. “I don't see you starting now. So - you and Stef stay the way you are. After all these years, I guess I'm finally getting used to the idea.”
Vanyel's eyes stung; he wiped them with the back of his hand. “Father - I -I don't know what to say -”
“If you'll forgive me, son, for how I've hurt you, I'll forgive you,” Withen replied. He shoved his seat away from the table and held out his arms. “I haven't hugged you since you were five. I'd like to catch up now.”
“Father -”
Vanyel knocked over the bench, and stumbled blindly to Withen's side of the table. “Father -” he whispered, and met Withen's awkward embrace. “Oh, Father,” he said into Withen's muscular shoulder. “If you only knew how much this means to me - I love you so much. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Withen's arms tightened around him. “I love you, too, son,” he said hesitantly. “You can't change what you are, any more than I can help what I am. But we don't have to let that get in the way any more, do we?”
“No, Father,” Vanyel replied, something deep and raw inside him healing at last. “No, we don't.”
Ordinarily Stef would have been fascinated by the activities in the fields - he was city-born and bred, and the farmers at their harvest-work were as alien to him as the Tayledras, and as interesting. But Vanyel had been brooding, again, and finally Stef decided to ferret out the cause.
The road was relatively clear of travelers; with the harvest just begun, no one was bringing anything in to market. That. Savil had told Stef, would happen in about a week, when the roads would be thick with carts. This was really the ideal time to travel, if you didn't mind the late-summer dust and heat.
Stef didn't mind. But he did mind the way Van kept worrying at some secret trouble until he made both their heads ache.
And it seemed that the only way to end the deadlock would be if he said or did something to break it.
“Something's bothering you,” Stefen said, when they were barely a candlemark from Haven. “It's been bothering you for the past two days.”
He urged Melody up beside Yfandes, who obligingly lagged a little. Vanyel's lips tightened, and he looked away. “You won't like it,” he said, finally.
Stef swatted at an obnoxious horsefly. “I don't like the way you've been getting all knotted up, either,” he pointed out. “Whatever it is, I wish you'd just spit it out and get it over with. You're giving me a headache.”
He eyed Savil, who was riding on Vanyel's right, hoping she'd get the hint. She raised one eyebrow at him, then held Kellan back, letting herself fall farther and farther behind until she was just out of earshot.
Though how much that means when she can read minds - Stef thought, then chided himself. Oh, she wouldn't probe unless she had to. Heralds just don't do that to people, not even Van comes into my mind unless I ask him. I've got to get used to this, that they have powers but don't always use them. . . .
“It's you,” Van said quietly, once Savil had withdrawn her discreet twenty paces. “I'm afraid for you, Stef. The way I was afraid for my parents, and for the same reason.” He shaded his eyes from the brilliant sun overhead, and looked out over fields full of people scything down hay, but Stef sensed he wasn't paying any attention to them. “I have an enemy who doesn't want a direct confrontation, so he'll strike at me through others. Once it's known that you and I are lovers, he won't hesitate to strike at you.”
Gods. I was afraid I'd shocked or offended him. He's so - virginal. And Kernos knows I'm not. “Ah,” Stefen said, relieved. “I was hoping it was just something like that, and not that - that I'd upset you or anything.”
Vanyel turned to face him with an expression of complete surprise. “Stef, you've just had a taste of what it's like to be a target! How can you brush it off so lightly?”
“I'm not treating this lightly, but why are you bringing your parents to Haven if it isn't safe there?” Stefen pointed out with remorseless logic. “I thought that was the whole idea behind making them move there.”
Vanyel looked away from him, up the road ahead of them.
It won't work, lover. You're never getting rid of me. Stefen had already made up his mind to counter any argument Van gave him, so he used Van's silence as an excuse to admire his profile, the way his long, fine-boned hands rested on his saddle-pommel, his perfect balance in the saddle. . . .
“It's safer,” Vanyel said, after a strained silence. “That doesn't mean it's safe. I don't want you hurt.”
“I don't want to be hurt,” Stefen said vehemently, then laughed. “You keep thinking I'm like a Herald, that I'll go throwing myself into danger the way you do. Look, Van, I am not a hero! I promise you, I have a very high regard for my skin! Bards are supposed to sing about heroes, not imitate them - there's no glory for a Bard in dying young, I promise you. I'll tell you what; at the first sign - the very first sign of trouble, I will most assuredly run for cover. I'll hide myself either behind the nearest Guard or the nearest Herald. Does that content you?”
“No,” Vanyel said unhappily, “But I can't make you leave me, and that's the only thing that would keep you safe.”
“Damned right you can't,” Stefen snorted. “There's nothing that would make me leave you, no matter what happened.”
“I only hope,” Vanyel said soberly, peering up the road at the gate in the city walls, “that nothing makes you eat those words.”
“I only hope nothing makes you eat those words.” Was it only a few months ago I said that? I knew it could come to this, but will he understand?
“I'm sorry, Stef.”
Vanyel spoke with his back to the Bard, looking out the window of his room as he leaned against the windowframe; he couldn't bear to look at Stefen's face. He didn't know how Stef felt, though he expected the worst; he was so tightly shielded against leaking emotions that he couldn't have told if Stef was angry, unhappy, or indifferent. But he didn't expect Stef to understand; the Bard couldn't possibly understand how a Herald's duty could come ahead of anything else.
Maybe nothing would make you leave me, ashke, but nobody said anything about me leaving you. And I don't have a choice.
“I can understand why you have to go - you're the only real authority who can speak for the King. But why can't I go with you?” Stefen spoke softly, with none of the anger in his voice that Van had expected - but Stef was a Bard, and used to controlling his inflections.
“Because I'm going to Rethwellan. They don't like shaych there. Actually, that's an understatement. If you came with me, they'd probably drive us both across the Border and declare war on Valdemar for the insult, if - when - they found out about the two of us.” Vanyel gripped the side of the window tightly. The beautiful late-autumn day and the garden beyond the open window were nothing more than a blur to him. “We need that treaty, and we need it now - and the Rethwellan ambassador specifically requested me as Randi's proxy. I want you with me, but my duty to Valdemar comes first. I'm sorry, Stef.”
Arms around his shoulders made him stiffen with surprise. “So am I,” Stefen murmured in his ear. “But you said it yourself; Valdemar comes first. How long will you be gone?”
Vanyel shook his head, not quite believing what he'd just heard. “You mean you don't mind?”
“Of course I mind!” Stef replied, some of the anger Van had expected before this in his voice. “How can I not mind? But if there's one thing a Bard knows, it's how Heralds think. I've known all along that if you had to make a choice between me and your duty, I'd lose. It's just the way you are.” His arms tightened around Vanyel's chest. “I don't like it,” he continued quietly, “but I also don't like it that you can speak directly to my mind and I can't do the same to yours, and I'm learning to live with that, too. And you didn't answer me about how long you think you'll be gone.”
“About three months. It'll be winter when I get back.” The silence lasted a bit too long for Van's comfort. He tried to force himself to relax.
Stefen slid his hands up onto Van's shoulders, and began gently massaging the tense muscles of his neck.
“I'll miss you,” the Bard said, eventually. “You know I will.”
“Stef - promise me you'll stay safe -” Van hung his head and closed his eyes, beginning to relax in spite of himself.
“I'm the safest person in the Kingdom, next to Randale,” Stefen chuckled. “Frankly, I'm much more concerned with knowing that you'll keep yourself safe. And one other thing concerns me very deeply -”
“What's that?”
“How I'm going to make sure tonight is so memorable you come running back here when you've got the treaty,” Stefen breathed into his ear.
If 'Fandes wasn't so bone-deep tired, Van thought through a fog of weariness and cold, I'd ask her to run. Ah, well.
Dull gray clouds were so low they made him claustrophobic; the few travelers on the road seemed as dispirited and exhausted as he was. Sleet drooled down as it had all day; the road was a slushy mire, and even the most waterproof of cloaks were soaked and near-useless after a day of it. Dirty gray snow piled up on either side of the road and made walking on the verge impossible. Van had stopped at an inn at nooning to dry off and warm up, and half a candlemark after they started out again he might as well not have bothered. Both he and Yfandes were so filthy they were a disgrace to the Circle.
:No one would be able to stay clean in this,: 'Fandes grumbled. :How far are we? I've lost all track of distance. Gods, I'm freezing. :
:I think we're about two candlemarks out of Haven at this pace,: Vanyel told her.
She raised her head, a spark of rebellion in her eye. :To the lowest hells with this pace,: she said, shortly. :I'm taking a new way home.:
And with that, she pivoted on her hindquarters and leaped over the mounds of half-thawed snow that fenced the sides of the road. Vanyel tightened his legs around her barrel and his grip on the pommel with a yelp of surprise. He tried to Mindspeak her, but she wasn't listening. After three tries, he gave up; there was no reasoning with her in this mood.
She ranged out about twenty paces from the road, then threw her head up, her nostrils flaring. :I thought so. This is where the road makes that long loop to the south. I can cut straight across and have us at the Palace gates in half a candlemark. :
“But -” he began.
Too late. She stretched her weary legs into a canter, then a lope. She was too tired for an all-out run, but her lope was as good as most horses' full gallop.
“Look out!” Vanyel shouted. “- you're going through -”
She leaped a hedge, and cut through a flock of sheep, who were too startled by her sudden presence to scatter. Something dark and solid-looking loomed up ahead of them in the gusting sheets of thick sleet. She leaped again, clearing the hedge on the opposite side of the field; then lurched and slipped on a steep slope. Vanyel clung to her back as she scrambled down a cut, splashed through the ice-cold creek at the bottom, and clambered up the other bank.
Van gave up on trying to stop her, or even reason with her, and hung on for dear life.
The sleet thickened and became real snow; by now Vanyel was so cold he couldn't even feel his toes, and his fingers were entirely numb. Snow was everywhere; blown in all directions, including up, by the erratic gusts of wind. He couldn't see where Yfandes was going because of the snow being blown into his face; only the tensing of her muscles told him when she was going to make another of those bone-jarring jumps, into or out of someone's field, across a stream, or even through a barnyard.
Finally she made another leap that ended with her hooves chiming on something hard. Presumably pavement; she halted abruptly, ending in a short skid, and he was thrown against the pommel of his saddle before he could regain his balance. When he looked up, the walls of the city towered over them both, and here in the lee of the walls the wind was tamed to a faint breath. Already snow had started to lodge in the tiny crevices between the blocks of stone, creating thin white lines around each of them.
She moved up to the gate at a sedate walk, bridle bells chiming cheerfully as a kind of ironic counterpoint to her tired pacing.
The Guard at the gate started to wave them through, then took a second look and halted them just inside the tunnel beneath the walls, with a restraining hand on Yfandes' bridle. This tunnel, sheltered from the wind and snow, felt warm after the punishing weather outside.
Vanyel raised his head tiredly. “What -” he began.
“You're not goin' past me in that state, Herald,” growled the guard, a tough-looking woman who reminded Van of his own sister, Lissa. “Old man like you should know better than to -”
Old man? He shook his head so that his hood fell back, and she stopped in midsentence, her mouth falling open.
“If there were any flies to catch,” he said, with tired good humor, “you'd be making a frog envious.”
She shut her mouth with an audible snap.
“Beg your pardon, milord Vanyel,” she said stiffly. “Just saw the white in your hair, and -”
“You did quite right to stop me, my lady,” he replied gently. “I'm obviously not thinking, and it's from cold and exhaustion. We're far from infallible - someone had better watch out for us. Now what were you planning on doing with me - aside from telling me what a fool I was to be out in this muck?”
“I was goin' to give you a blanket to wrap up in,” she said hesitantly. “Make you take off that soggy cloak. Gods, milord, it looks like you're carryin' half the road-muck 'twixt here and the Border on you.”
“I think we are, but the Palace isn't far, and that's where we're heading,” he said. “I think we can make it that far.” He managed a real smile, and she smiled back uncertainly.
“If you say so, milord.” She took her hand off Yfandes' rein, and stepped aside; he rode back out into the cold and snow.
But at least within the city walls they were sheltered from the wind. And it wasn't that far to the Palace. . . .
He must have blanked out for a while; a common enough habit of his, when he knew he was in relatively safe, but uncomfortable surroundings-riding on a patrolled road in the dead of winter, or waiting out an ambush in the pouring rain, for instance. The next thing he knew, he was in the dry and heated warming shed beside the stable; one of the grooms was at his stirrup, urging him to dismount.
:'Fandes?: he queried.
She turned her head slowly to stare at him, blinking. :Oh. We're home. I must have-:
:You did the same thing I did; the minute we crossed inside the city we went numb. Get some rest, love. I'm going to do the same as soon as I make my report.:
“Get her closer to the heat,” he told the groom, dismounting with care for his bruises. The warming shed was heated by a series of iron stoves, and on very cold nights, the door into the stable would be left open so that the heat would carry out into the attached building. “Get her dry, give her a thorough grooming, then a hot mash for her supper.”
:Bless you.:
“Put two blankets on her, and take that tack away. It needs a complete overhaul.” He took the saddlebags from the cantle and threw them over his shoulder, mud and all.
“Anything else, milord?” the groom asked, eyes wide with surprise at his state.
“No,” Vanyel said, and dredged up another smile. “Thank you. I'm a little short on manners. I think they froze somewhere back about a candlemark ago.”
:Where are you going?: Yfandes asked, as she was being led away.
:To my room long enough to change, then to report,: he told her. :Check with the others and tell me if Randi's holding Audience today, would you?:
:He is,: she replied immediately. :Stefs with him.:
:Good. Thank you. Go get some rest, you deserve it.: He found a little more energy somewhere, and quickened his steps toward the door.
:So do you, but you won't take it,: she replied with resignation. Van sent her a tired but warm mental hug.
He strode out into the snow, which was coming down so thickly now that it completely hid the Palace from where he stood. :I'II take it, love. Later. Randi's good hours are too rare to waste, and I have too much to report.:
He was afraid; afraid of what he'd find when he saw Randale, afraid that Treven was not going to be able to cope with so many duties thrust on him so young, afraid that Shavri was going to fall apart at any moment-
Yes, and admit it. Afraid Stefs lost interest. That's what is really eating at you. He shivered, and forced himself to walk a little faster, as the snow coated him with a purer white than his uniform cloak was capable of showing just now.
The stable-side door opened just before he reached it, and someone pulled him inside, into warmth and golden light from the oil lamp mounted in the doorframe.
It took Vanyel a moment to recognize him; not because Tantras had changed, but because his numb memory couldn't put name and face together.
“Tran -” he croaked. Ye gods, I doubt I'd recognize my own mother in this state.
“Give me that cloak,” Tantras said briskly, unfastening the throat-latch himself. “Delian has been watching for you two for days; as soon as he saw how mind-numb you were, he called me. There.” The cloak fell from Van's shoulders, landing in a sodden heap on the floor. “Good. There isn't a lot of time to spare; Randi's Audiences rarely last more than a candlemark or two even with Stef to help. Come in here -”
He pulled Vanyel into a storage-chamber. There was a small lantern here on a shelf, and a set of Whites beside it. “Strip, and put these on,” Tantras ordered. “What do you need out of your saddlebags?”
“Just the dispatch cases,” Vanyel said, pulling at the lacings of his tunic, with hands that felt twice their normal size.
“I take it that you did all right?” Tantras pulled out the pair of sealed cases and laid them on the shelf where the uniform had been.
“It wasn't easy, but yes, I got the treaty Randi wanted,” He had to peel his breeches off, they were so soaked. Tran handed him a towel, and he dried himself off, then wrapped it around his dripping hair before he began pulling on the new set of breeches. “Queen Lythiaren - gods, that's a mouthful! - has only heard rumors of what we are and what we can do. Heralds, I mean. She isn't familiar with Mind-magic; the very idea that someone could pick up their thoughts and feelings frightens most of the people of Rethwellan. I spent about as much time undoing rumor as I did at the bargaining table. But it's over, and I must say, it's a good thing Randi sent me, because I'll tell you the truth, I don't think anyone else has the peculiar combination of Gifts that would have let them pull it off.”
“Your reputation doesn't hurt, either,” Tran observed wryly.
Vanyel pulled the tunic over his head - one of Tran's and much too loose, but that wouldn't matter. He began toweling his hair, still talking. “That's true, though it almost did more harm than good. That's why I got out of there before the passes snowed up. I make them all very uneasy, and they were very happy to see my back.”
“Here're your dispatches,” Tran said, handing the cases to him as he ran his fingers through his hair to achieve a little order. “I'll take the rest of your stuff back to your room. And Randi looks like hell, so be prepared.”
Vanyel took the twin blue-leather cases from his friend, and hesitated a moment. He wanted to say something, but wasn't certain what.
“Go,” Tran said, holding open the door with one hand while he grabbed the lantern with the other. “You haven't got any time to waste.”
Just how much worse can Randi have gotten in three months? he wondered, forcing tired legs into a brisk walk. The corridors were deserted; in fact, the entire Palace had an air of disuse about it. It was disquieting in the extreme, especially for someone who remembered these same corridors full of courtiers and servants, the way they had been in Elspeth's time. It was as if an evil spirit had made off with all the people, leaving the Palace empty, populated by memories.
The Throne Room was mostly empty; no sycophants, no curious idlers, only those who had business with Randale.
Hardly more than twenty people, all told, and all of them so quiet that Van clearly heard Stef playing up at the front of the room. At first Van couldn't see Randale at all; then someone moved to one side, and Van got his first look at the King in three months.
With a supreme effort of will he prevented himself from crying out and running to Randale's side. Randale had changed drastically since summer.
It wasn't so much a physical change as something less tangible. Randale looked frail, as fragile as a spun-glass ornament. There was a quality of transparency about him; he could easily have been a Tayledras ice-sculpture, the kind they made for their winter-festivals, but one of a creature other than a man. One of the Ethereal Plane Varrir, perhaps.
That was, perhaps, the most frightening thing of all. Randale no longer looked quite human. Everything that was nonessential had been burned away or discarded in the past three months; he held to life by nothing less than sheer will. There was something magnificent about him; Vanyel would never have believed that poor, vacillating Randi, Randale who had never wanted to be King, could have metamorphosed into this creature of iron spirit and diamond determination.
He's holding on until Treven is ready, Van thought, watching as Randale listened carefully to the messenger from the Karsite Border. He won't let go until Trev can handle the job. But that's all that's keeping him. I wonder if he realizes that?
Shavri bent over him and touched his shoulder. He raised a colorless hand to cover hers, without taking his eyes or his attention away from the messenger. Vanyel Felt the strength flowing from her to him, and realized something else. Shavri was as doomed as Randi. She had, out of love, done the one thing no Healer ever did - she'd opened an unrestricted channel between them. She was giving him everything she had - they would burn out together, because she no longer had any way to stop that from happening.
She knew what she'd done; she had to. Which meant that was what she wanted.
Neither of them knows what the other is hiding. Randi doesn't know the channel Shavri opened is unrestricted; Shavri doesn't know how little Randi has left. I should tell them - but I can't. I can't. Let them keep their secrets. They have so little else except love.
Joshel beckoned to Van as the messenger bowed in response to something Randale said. Vanyel forced himself to walk briskly to the foot of the throne, as if he'd just come in from a pleasure ride. Randale was focused entirely on what came immediately before him; too focused to read past any outward seeming of well-being, if Van chose to enforce that kind of illusion. Which was precisely what Vanyel intended to do.
“Majesty,” he said quietly, “your business with Rethwellan is successfully concluded.” He handed the dispatch tubes to Joshel, who opened them and handed them to the Seneschal. “Here is your treaty, my King; exactly what you requested I negotiate for. Mutual defense pact against Karse, extradition of criminals, provision for aid in the event of an attack, it's all there.”
Plus a few more things the Queen and I worked out. He watched as the Seneschal scanned each page and handed it on to Randale; noted with tired satisfaction the surprised smiles as they came to the clauses he had gotten inserted into the document. It was a good treaty, fair to both sides. The rulers of Karse would have a rude awakening when they found out about this particular agreement.
He was proudest of the fact that he had negotiated the agreement despite having no formal training as a diplomat. Everything he knew, he'd picked up from Joshel or the Seneschal.
Randale knew that, and his smile showed that he realized the value of Van's accomplishment. “Well done, old friend,” he said, in a breathless voice that told Van how much each word cost him in effort. “I couldn't have asked for more. I wouldn't have thought to ask for some of the things you got for us. I'm tempted to ask you to give up mage-craft in favor of politics.”
“Oh, I think not, my liege,” Vanyel said lightly. “I am far too honest. This is one situation where honesty was an asset, but that's usually not the case in politics.”
Randale laughed, a pale little ghost of a chuckle, and leaned back into the padded embrace of his throne. “Thank you, Vanyel. I'm sure the Council will want to go over this with you in detail shortly, and I'd appreciate it if you'd brief Trev on how to handle the Queen.”
This was clearly a dismissal, and Vanyel bowed himself out. He left the Throne Room entirely; he couldn't bear to see anything more of what Randale had become. Joshel followed him out into the corridor.
“I know you're exhausted, Van, but we need to convene the Privy Council on this and the Karse situation right away -” The haggard young Herald paused, concern for Vanyel warring with the needs of the moment, and the conflict evident in his expression.
“It's all right, Joshe,” Van told him. “The Council room is warm, and that's what I need most right now. I'm cold right down to my marrow.”
“Can you go there now? I can get pages to bring everyone there in next to no time.” Joshe's relief was so plain that Van wondered what else had gone wrong in his absence.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Provided that no one minds that I look like a drowned cat.”
“I doubt they'll mind,” Joshel said, “We've got other things to worry about these days. They'd take you looking like a stablehand covered with muck, you're that important.”
Frustration and anguish inside Vanyel exploded into words. “Important? Dammit, Joshe, what's the use of all this? I can level a building with the power I control, but I can't do anything for a friend who's dying in front of my eyes!”
Joshel sighed. “I know. I have to keep telling myself that it isn't Randi that we're working to preserve, it's Valdemar. Most of the time, it doesn't help.”
“What good is having power if you can't use it the way it needs to be used?” Vanyel asked, his hand clenched into a fist in front of him. “I'm Vanyel Demonsbane, and I can't even keep my parents safe in their own home, much less keep Randi alive.”
Joshe just shook his head; Vanyel could Feel the same anguish inside him, and unclenched his fist. “I'm sorry, Van. I wish I knew some answers for you. I should tell you one thing more before the Council meeting. The Heraldic Circle met today, and we're promoting Trev to full Whites.”
Vanyel felt the news like a blow to the stomach. To promote Treven so young could only mean one thing - the King had to be a full Herald, and the ForeSeers did not see Randale living through the next two years it would ordinarily take Treven to make his Whites.
Joshe nodded at Vanyel's expression. “You know what that means as well as I do,” he said, and turned back to the door to the Throne Room.
Van walked the few steps down the corridor to the Council Chamber. Unlike the rest of the Palace, this room looked, and felt, as if it were in use. Heavy use, from the look of all the papers and maps stacked neatly about, and the remains of a meal on a tray beside the door. Here, then, was where the business of the Crown was being transacted, and not the Throne Room. Evidently Audiences were just for those things Randale had to handle personally, or for edicts that needed to come from the lips of the Sovereign in order to have the required impact.
This treaty, obviously, was one of those things, which was why Tran had hustled him into the Throne Room. Randale was probably signing it now, with what there was of the Court as witness, which made it binding from this moment on.
Van took his usual seat, then slouched down in it and put his feet up on the one beside it. If Stef hasn't had a change of heart while I was gone, I could certainly use a massage, he thought wistfully. The fire in the fireplace beside him burned steadily, and the generous supply of wood beside it argued that it had become normal practice to keep the Council Chamber ready for use at a moment's notice. That was in keeping with the rest of Van's observations, so it meant that the business of the Kingdom was being conducted at any and all hours.
After being told of Treven's promotion, he wasn't surprised when the door behind him creaked open, and Treven eased into the room, wearing a brand-new set of Whites.
The youngster sat down in the chair beside Vanyel with an air of uncertainty, as if he didn't know what his welcome would be. Van watched him through half-closed eyes for a moment, then smiled.
“Ease up, Trev. We're still friends. I've come to the conclusion that you and Jisa did the right thing.”
The young man relaxed. “We've managed to convince Randale and Shavri, too,” he said. “Though Jisa and her mother came awfully close to a real fight over it. I'm still not sure how I kept them from each other's throats. Early training for diplomatic maneuvering, I guess.” He adjusted the fit of his white belt self-consciously.
“Feeling uncomfortable about that?” Van asked, gesturing at the white tunic.
Treven nodded. “I hadn't expected it quite so suddenly. I don't feel exactly like I've earned it. It feels like a cheat. And - and I don't like getting it because - because -”
The young Herald hung his head.
“I understand,” Vanyel said. “I'd think less of you if you didn't have doubts, Trev. I'll give you my honest opinion, if you want it.”
Treven grimaced. “Lady bless, that sounds like a bitter pill! Still - yes, I think so. At least I'd know what to measure myself against.”
Vanyel took his feet off the chair, and straightened his aching back before facing Treven. The young man's honest blue eyes met his fearlessly, and Vanyel felt a moment of satisfaction. There weren't many people who could meet his gaze.
“I think you were rushed into this, Trev, and we both know why. No, I don't think you're ready - quite. I think you will be when you have to be, if you don't let that uniform fool you into thinking the Whites make the Herald.”
Treven looked disappointed, and Vanyel knew he'd been hoping to be told - despite Van's warning that this would be an honest opinion - that he really was ready to be called a full Herald.
In some ways Treven was a boy still, and that had something to do with what Van had told him. He had a boy's optimism and a boy's belief in the essential fairness of the universe. This wouldn't have been a problem in an ordinary Herald - but neither belief had any place in the thinking of a Monarch. A King never assumed anything was fair; a ruler must always expect the worst and plan for it.
Treven would learn, as Randale had learned. As Jisa had learned.
As if his thought had summoned her, Vanyel felt Jisa's presence before she entered, the little mind-to-mind brush that was the Mindspeaker's equivalent of a knock.
:Hello, love,: he replied. :Holding on?:
:As well as I can,: she replied. :You saw.:
So, she hadn't missed what her mother had done, binding herself to her lifebonded's fate. And she wasn't blinded to Randale's condition by her love of him. There was resignation in her mind-voice, and a sadness as profound as if her parents were already gone.
:They've closed me out,: she said, in answer to the questions he couldn't bring himself to ask. :They've closed everyone out except each other. Most of the time I could be a thousand miles away, for all they notice I'm there.:
:Well, I notice you're here. Come on in.:
The door behind him creaked again, and Treven looked up and smiled. Vanyel started to get up, but Jisa pushed him back down into his chair with her hands on his shoulders.
“No you don't, Uncle Van. There's enough Healer in me to know how tired you are.” She kissed him on the top of his head, and Sent :Treven doesn't know, Father. I don't see any reason why he has to. :
:Thank you, dearheart.: “I won't deny you're right. Are you part of the Council now, too?”
She sat down beside Treven. “Both of us; I'm here as Mother's proxy. I have been ever since late fall.”
“And doing very well at it, too.” Jisa had left the door open, and the rest of the Council filed in, taking their usual seats. The Seneschal had said that last, and he stopped on the way to his seat at the head of the table, pausing with his hands on the back of Jisa's chair. His inflection told Vanyel he meant the compliment; there was nothing paternalistic or condescending in his voice. “I frankly don't know what we would have done without her earlier this fall; We had a situation with someone who claimed to be a high-ranking Karsite refugee. We suspected his motives, but he was shielded against casual Thought-sensing, and we didn't want to tip our hands by probing him. We badly needed someone whose Gift was Empathy -”
“But Mother was exhausted and in any case, wouldn't leave Father,” Jisa said matter-of-factly. “So I went. He was a spy for the Prophet, sent to see if we were giving aid to their mages. It's hard to mistake fanatic devotion for anything else.”
“That was when we put her on the Council,” the Seneschal said, taking his seat. “And that brings us around to the Karsite situation.”
The situation, so Seneschal Arved told them, was stalemate. The followers of the Prophet had won, and were consolidating their victory. As yet they had shown no signs of resuming the war the previous regime had begun - but they had also been probing to see if Valdemar had been aiding mages, or were offering aid to those who continued to evade the “witchfinders.”
“They're just looking for an excuse to start things up again when they're ready,” said the representative for the South, Lord Taving, with a sour grimace.
“I'm inclined to agree,” Vanyel's father replied. “You know what they say: 'Nothing comes out of Karse but brigands and bad weather.' Whether they say their cause is for their god or for their greed, the Karsites always have been robbers and always will be.”
Lord Taving looked gratified to find someone who shared his basic feelings toward Karse. “The only problem is, we're still in no shape to fight a war,” he said, “or at least that's my understanding.”
“You are correct, my lord,” the Lord Marshal said. “Thanks to Vanyel's suggestions, we haven't had to resort to conscription, but our new Guards are still green as new leaves, and if faced with troops of seasoned fanatics they wouldn't stand a chance.”
“And why aren't they ready?” asked Guildmaster Jumay. “Zado knows we pay enough in taxes!”
“Largely because we've already lost more men to this war with Karse than in the whole of Elspeth's reign!” the Lord Marshal shot back heatedly.
“Which is why the treaty Vanyel brought back from Rethwellan is vital,” the Seneschal said, pouncing on the opportunity to introduce the subject.
The rest of the Councillors - who had not been at the Audiences - reacted according to their natures. Lord Taving was not inclined to trust anything South of Valdemar's Border. Withen wanted to know where the catch was. The Lord Marshal heaved an audible sigh of relief, until he realized the thing included a mutual assistance pact.
Vanyel explained the details of the treaty at length until his head ached, pointing out the ones Randale had requested and the ones he had gotten inserted. They finally agreed that it was an excellent treaty as it stood - which was just as well, since Randale had already signed it.
When they finally let him go, it was clear that they were already preparing for Randale's death and a period in which Treven would be just one of the Council when it came to decision-making. Which was a good idea - but it brought home the fact that Randi's days were numbered, and probably less than a year.
He returned to his room very depressed, and paused outside the door for a moment to think where Stefen might be.
Then the door opened under his hand -
“I'm glad you're back,” Stef said simply, and took his hand to pull him inside.
Stefen had been waiting for Van ever since the Audience session ended. He'd come straight to Vanyel's room once Randale had been put to bed. He'd had a page bring food and wine, and had gotten everything set up exactly like the supper he'd had with Vanyel the first night the Herald had brought him to this room. Except tonight he expected the end of the evening to be somewhat different.
He'd known Van was expected back at any time, but no one had been able to tell him exactly when the Herald would arrive, so he'd been as nervous and excited as a kid waiting for Festival for the past week.
When Van had made his presentation at the Audiences, even though he'd been in trance, Stef had known he was there. He had thought his heart was going to pound itself to pieces with joy. To stay in trance until Randale had no further need of him had been the hardest thing Stefen had ever done.
“I'm glad you're back,” Stefen said simply, letting his voice tell Vanyel exactly how glad he really was. “I've missed you.” He reached behind Vanyel and closed the door.
“I've missed you,” Vanyel said, then unexpectedly pulled the Bard into his arms for an embrace with more of desperation in it than passion. Stef just held him, not entirely sure what had prompted the action, but ready to give Vanyel whatever he needed. Behind him, the fire crackled and popped, punctuating the silence.
Finally Van let him go. “I was afraid once I was gone you'd find someone who suited you better,” he said hoarsely.
“We've lifebonded,” Stef reminded him, pulling the Herald into the room and getting him to sit in the chair nearest the fireplace. “How could I find anybody who suited me better than that? That's not something that goes away just because there's some distance between us.”
Vanyel laughed weakly. “I know, I was being stupid. It's just that in the middle of the night, when you're leagues and leagues away from me, it's hard to see why you'd choose to stay with me.” Stefen reached for the food since Van was ignoring it, and poured some wine for him.
“You're still being stupid,” Stef said, and put bread and cheese in one hand, and a mug of hot mulled wine in the other. “Eat. Relax. I love you. There, see? Everything's all right.” He sat in the chair opposite Vanyel, and glared at him until he took a bite.
“I wish it could be that simple,” Vanyel sighed, but he smiled a little when he said it. He ate what Stef gave him, then sipped at his wine, watching Stefen, his strange silver eyes gone dark and thoughtful.
“I have a surprise for you,” Stef said, unable to bear the silence anymore. He got up, went to the desk, and took out the box he'd put there earlier. “I left it here in case you came back to your room before I got done. Here -”
He thrust it into Vanyel's hands and waited, hardly breathing, for the Herald to open it.
Vanyel turned the catch on the simple wooden box, saying as he did so, “You didn't have to do this - you don't have to give me things, Stef -” The lid came open, and he saw what nestled in the velvet and his mouth opened in a soundless “oh.”
He took it out, his hands trembling a little. He'd told Stef once or twice that he was hampered in his mage-craft by not having a good focus-stone. The mineral he worked best with was amber, which wasn't particularly rare, but he had a problem similar to his aunt Savil's. For mage-work, the clearer and less flawed the stone, the better it focused power. And amber rarely appeared totally clear and without inclusions. When it did - it was expensive. Since the loss of his first focus-stone a few years ago, Van had never again found a piece even in the raw state that was flawless and large enough to be of use. Flaws in a stone could make it disintegrate or even explode when stressed by magic energies.
So, like Savil, Vanyel had to do most of the work that required a focus through his secondary stone, an egg-shaped piece of tiger-eye.
Stefen's present was a faceted half-globe of completely flawless, water-clear, dark gold-red amber, set in a thin silver band with a loop at the top so that it could be worn as a pendant. He'd begged a silver chain of Jisa just so that Van could wear it immediately. Jisa had given one to him without asking why, but when he'd told her, she'd been as pleased as if the gift had been for her.
“Stefen,” Van said in a strange, strained voice. “You have to tell me. Where - and more importantly, how - did you get this?”
“I didn't steal it!” Stef exclaimed, stung.
“I didn't think you did, love - but there's no ordinary way you could afford something like this, and we both know it.” Vanyel put the pendant back in the box and closed it. “I can't in good conscience wear 'this until I know.”
He thinks I sold my bed-time for it, Stef thought suddenly. Oh, gods - I have to put him right.
“I met this gem-merchant,” he said quickly. ”He was giving some of the ladies I was playing for a private showing; amber, pearls, and coral, really unusual things, but he says he's been all over the world at one time or another. Anyway, he had this and I saw it, and he saw me looking at it. He told me it would be useless to me, that it was made to be a mage-focus . . . well, we got to talking, and I told him I wanted it for you, even though I knew I couldn't afford it.”
He remembered what the merchant had told him, too: “What, a Bard like you? Gods, my friend, in my country you'd have been showered with baubles like this a thousand times over. A Gift such as yours is rarer than all my collection put together.”
Then the merchant's face had grown thoughtful. “On the other hand, perhaps we could do each other a service. . . .”
“So anyway, he offered to give me the stone if I'd do him a favor. He had some more private showings planned, at the house he'd rented, for fellow gem-merchants. He said they were a lot harder to convince than pretty ladies and he wanted me to play for them -”
He faltered, for Vanyel was looking at him in a way that made him feel as if he had sold himself. “- he didn't ask me to do anything like make them buy things. Just to put them in a pleasant mood; make them feel good, and allow him to drop the fact that I was the King's Bard to impress them. That was all! I didn't do anything wrong!”
Vanyel was still looking at him doubtfully.
“Did I?” he asked, in a very small voice.
The Herald weighed the box in his hand. Stefen felt worse with every passing moment. He'd intended this to be a love-offering, and instead the thing had turned into a viper and bitten them both.
Finally Van opened the box, and took the amber out. Stef heaved a sigh of relief. Vanyel stared at the beautiful thing, and shook his head. “You didn't do anything wrong - but only by accident and the fact that I don't think your friend wanted you to get into trouble,” he said, in a low voice. “You came so close to misuse of your powers that I shudder to think about it. You must never use your Gift to manipulate people except at the orders of the Crown, Stef. You can be stripped of it, if you do. And it's wrong, Stef, it's just plain wrong. What if this man had been unscrupulous, and had been trying to sell trash - and what if he'd actually asked you to influence people to buy? What if he'd drastically overpriced his wares and asked you to make them think he was giving them a bargain? What if he'd brought in those who couldn't afford his merchandise and told you to make them want it enough to buy it no matter what?”
“Stop!” Stef cried, horribly ashamed of himself. Now he almost wished he had sold himself; it seemed more honest.
“Stef -”Vanyel caught his hand and drew him down beside his chair. “Stef, I didn't want to make you feel bad. You didn't do any of those things; you didn't misuse your powers. But it was a very near thing. You can thank that merchant for being an honest fellow, and not leading you into temptation.”
Stefen vowed silently to think about what he was being asked to do before he did it. And he marveled a little at this change in himself. A year ago he would have done any of those things, and never considered them wrong.
“Van,” he said quietly, “Being with you . . . you've shown me that it's as wrong to play with peoples' minds and emotions as it is to steal -” He hesitated a moment, then added, “In a way, it is stealing from them. It's stealing their right to think and feel at their own will. I wouldn't have understood that before I met you, but I do now.”
Vanyel relaxed completely, and closed his hand around the amber half-globe. “Then I can wear this, Stef, and I will, gladly, and I'll use it knowing it was a gift of love and honor.” He bowed his head and chuckled. “I suppose that sounds rather pretentious and pompous, like something out of a ballad - but it's how I really feel, Stef.”
“If you thought any differently, you wouldn't be Vanyel,” Stef replied, flushing happily as Van pulled the chain over his head and laid his right hand on Stef's shoulder.
“You give me too much credit, lover,” Vanyel said quietly. “I'm as prone to being a fool as anyone else. And just now, I'm a very sore fool. Could I possibly get you to use those talented hands of yours to unknot my shoulders?”
“And give me a chance to have my hands on you?” Stef grinned. “Of course you could, and I will. Gladly.”
Vanyel finished off his wine in a single gulp, peeled off his tunic, kicked off his boots, and sagged back into his chair. Stefen got up and moved around behind him, and began kneading his shoulders with steady, firm pressure.
“What's wrong, Van?” he asked. “You just got back with everything the King asked you for and more.”
“Sometimes I feel like everything I've done is useless,” Vanyel said dispiritedly. “Randi is going to be dead before the year's out, every enemy Valdemar has will take that as a signal to strike while Treven is so young, and a good half the treaties we made will fall apart, because they were made with Randale and not Trev. Karse is likely to declare holy war on us any day. The West is full of half-mad mage-born, any one of whom might be another Krebain, but with wider plans. I have a personal enemy out there somewhere; I don't know who or why, only that he, she, or it is a mage.”
Stefen dug his thumbs into Vanyel's shoulders a little harder and tried to think of things to say that would make a difference. “Randale is the mind behind the Crown, but about half of the work is being done by Trev and the Council,” he offered. “Trev's bright, especially on short-term planning, and Randale's doing long-range planning that ought to hold good for the next five years. Trev's a little too idealistic, maybe, but he'll get that knocked out of him soon enough - and Jisa is practical enough for two. They'll be all right.”
“How do you know so much about this?” Vanyel asked suddenly, after a long silence.
“I'm right there whenever Randale is working, and I'm beginning to be able to listen to what's going on while I'm in trance.” Stefen was rather proud of that. It wasn't much compared with the kinds of things Vanyel could do, but it was more than he'd been able to manage before Van's trip.
“That's pretty impressive,” Vanyel told him, without even a trace of patronization. “Bards usually don't have a Gift that requires being in trance, and I'm surprised you learned how to manage that on your own. What about Jisa and Trev?”
“I spent a lot of time with them after you'd gone,” Stef replied, working on Van's neck, flexing and stroking as though he were playing an instrument. The muscles were very stiff, so tight they were like rope under tension, and Stef had no doubt they were giving Van a headache of monumental proportions. “With Jisa especially. The Seneschal is the only one who doesn't underestimate her, and he likes it that way.”
“A very wise lady,” Vanyel said, his voice a little muffled. “Did you know she's my daughter, and not Randi's?”
It should have been a shock. Somehow it wasn't. “No. But it makes sense. She's very like you, you know.” He thought about the situation for a moment. “Obviously Randale must know; I mean, a Healer like Shavri can prevent any pregnancy she cares to, so it wasn't an accident, which means she wanted Jisa. ...”
“Shavri was desperate for a child, and the two of them asked me to help. I've never told anyone but you, not even my parents,” Van replied. “I have three other children, but the only one I ever see is Brightstar, the boy Starwind and Moondance are raising. The others are a mage-Gifted girl one of the other Tayledras has, named Featherfire, and a girl two of Lissa's retired shaych Guards are raising, who has no Gifts at all so far as I can tell.”
Stefen wasn't sure how he should be feeling about these revelations. “Why?” he asked finally. “I mean, why did you do it? I can see why Shavri would have asked you, rather than somebody else, but why the others?”
Vanyel sighed, and flexed his shoulders. “For pretty much the same reasons as Shavri had. People I knew and cared for wanted a child, but for one reason or another couldn't produce one without outside help. Featherfire's mother isn't shaych, but there wasn't a single Tayledras male she felt the right way about to have a child with. She had twins; Brightstar is Feather's brother.”
Stef recalled all the fantasies he'd had about his parentage, how he'd never known who even his mother was. “Do you ever wish you'd - I don't know, had more of a hand in their raising?” He worked his thumbs into the nape of Vanyel's neck, with the silky hair covering both hands. “I know they've got parents who really want them, but -”
“That's just it; they have parents who really want them,” Van replied. “Ah, that's it, that's the worst of the aches, right there. I see what 'Fandes means about musicians having talented hands. Really, love, the only reason Brightstar and Jisa know I'm their father is that it's necessary for them to know. Brightstar evidently has all my Gifts; Jisa could get backwash from a magical attack on me, because she has Mage-Gift in potential. They have to be prepared. Feather-fire is so like her mother they could be twins, and Arven doesn't even carry potential as far as I was able to check. They all know who their real parents are - the ones who love them.”
He chuckled then. “What's funny?” Stef asked.
“Oh, just that whatever it is that makes someone shaych, it probably isn't learned or inherited. Brightstar has a half dozen young ladies of the Tayledras with whom he trades feathers on a regular basis, and he'd probably have more if he had the stamina.”
“Trades feathers?” Stef said with puzzlement.
“Tayledras custom. When you want to make love to someone you offer them a feather. If you want a more permanent relationship, it's a feather from your bondbird.”
“Oh.” That gave his fertile imagination something to work on. And feathers were easier come by in the dead of winter than, say, flowers. . . .
Van was finally relaxing under his hands. In fact, from the way his head kept nodding, the Herald was barely awake. Which meant Stef could probably coax him into bed without too much trouble.
Of course, he may not get much sleep. Stefen sighed contentedly, and slowly ran his fingers through Vanyel's hair, grateful just for his lover's presence.
Van relaxed for the first time in three months, and gave himself over completely to the gentle strength of Stef's callused hands. Stef felt the cold more than most - he was so thin it went straight to his bones - so he'd built the fire up to the point where he was comfortable. That meant that even without his tunic, Van basked in drowsy warmth.
The mage-focus glowed just above his heart, touching him with a different sort of warmth. That piece of amber was truly extraordinary. It might have been made for him, fitting into his cupped hand perfectly, meshing with his power-patterns and channeling them with next to no effort on his part. Given how things had worked out, perhaps it had been; in the same way that the rose-quartz crystal he'd given Savil years ago had seemingly been made for her, though it had been given to him.
He'd told Stef the truth, though; if the Bard had bought the thing with dishonorable coin, he couldn't have worn it. If Stef had failed to realize why that kind of perversion of his Gift was wrong, Vanyel would have had misgivings every time he put it on.
Stef had changed, though Van had never tried to change him. He'd become a partner, someone Van could rely on, despite his youth. And because he's my partner, he had to know about Jisa and the others. Partners shouldn't have secrets from one another. That information could be important some day. It's good to be able to tell someone-especially him. . . .
It was so easy to relax, letting all his responsibilities slide away for a moment. He felt himself drifting off into a half-doze, and didn't even try to stop himself.
PAIN!
He didn't realize that he'd jumped to his feet until he found himself staring at Stef from halfway across the room. He blinked, and in that instant between one breath and the next, knew -
Kilchas! That pain was Herald-Mage Kilchas, and he was dying. Or being killed. Suddenly. Violently.
An unexpected side effect of the new Web. Unless someone was magically cut out of the Web, every Herald would know when another Herald died, as the Companions already knew.
And as Vanyel knew that something was wrong.
The Death Bell began tolling, and he grabbed his tunic from the back of the chair beside the one he'd been sitting in, pulling it on hastily over his head. Something was wrong, something to do with Kilchas, and he was the only one who might be able to see what it was. But he had to get there.
Stef fell back a step, startled. “Van, what did I -”
The Death Bell tolled, drowning out the rest of his words.
Stef had been at Haven long enough to know what that meant. But he'd never seen a Herald react to it the way Vanyel had - and he'd never heard of a Herald who had reacted before the tolling of the Bell.
“Van?” he said, and the Herald stared at him as if he'd never seen him before.
“Van?” he said again, which seemed to break Vanyel out of whatever trance he'd gotten stuck in. Vanyel grabbed his uniform tunic and began pulling it on over his head.
“Van,” Stef protested, “It's the Death Bell. There's nothing you can do, and even if there were, you just got back! You're tired, and you've earned a rest! Let somebody else take care of it.”
Van shook his head stubbornly, and bent down to reach for his boots. “I have to go - I don't know why, but I have to.”
Stefen sighed, and got both their cloaks; his, that had been draped on a hook behind the door, and Vanyel's spare from the wardrobe. As soon as the Herald straightened up from pulling his boots on, Stef handed him the white cloak and swung his own scarlet over his shoulders. Vanyel paused, hands on the throat-latch of his garment.
“Where are you going?” he asked, in a startled voice.
Stefen shrugged. “With you. If you're going to run off the first night you're home, at least I can be with you.”
“But Stef -” Vanyel protested. “You don't have to-”
“I know,” he interrupted. “That's one reason why I'm doing it anyway, lover.” He held the door open for the Herald, and waved him through it. “Come on. Let's get going.”
Someone had already beaten Vanyel to the scene; there were lights and moving shadows at the base of one of the two flat-topped towers at the end of Herald's Wing. The storm had blown off some time after Vanyel got in; the sky was perfectly clear, and the night windless and much colder than when he'd arrived. The slush had hardened into icy ridges that he and Stef slipped and stumbled over to get to the death-scene.
Kilchas lay facedown on the hardened snow, one arm twisted beneath him, head at an unnatural angle. He was dressed in a shabby old tunic and soft breeches, with felt house-shoes. Treven, cloak wrapped tightly around him, knelt beside the body. A very young, blond Guardsman stood next to him, holding a lantern that shook as the hand that held it trembled. “- there was this kind of cry,” he was saying, as Van stumbled within hearing distance. “I looked up at the tower, and he was falling, limplike; like somebody'd thrown a rag doll over. I ran to - to catch him, to try to help, but he was -” The young man shuddered and gulped. “So I came to get help, my lord.”
“Which was when you bowled me over in the corridor,” Treven said coolly, touching the body's shoulder with care. “You can go get me a Healer, but I think he'll just confirm that the poor old man died of a broken neck and smashed skull.” Though the young Heir spoke with every sign of complete composure, Van Felt him shaking inside. This was Trev's first close-up look at the violent death of a fellow human, and all his calm was pretense.
Not that it ever got easier emotionally with time and repetition; it was just easier to be calm about taking care of it.
“Trev.” Vanyel touched the young man's shoulder at the same time as he spoke; Trev and the Guardsman both jumped. The lantern swung wildly in the Guardsman's hand, making the shadows jerk and dance, and making the body appear to move for an instant.
“Trev, I'll take it from here if you want, but I think you've got things well in hand.” His first impulse had been to take over; this, after all, was not the first time he'd seen death near at hand - it was not even the first time he'd seen the death of someone he knew and cared for. No, that had happened so often he'd given up counting the times. . . . But taking over from Trev would have meant shoving the young Heir into the position of hanger-on, when what he needed to do was start assuming his authority. The sooner he started doing so, the more readily others would accept that authority when Randi died.
So even if the young Heir didn't have any experience in handling situations like this, Trev should be the one in charge.
Treven took a deep breath, and looked very much as if he wanted to hand that authority right back to Van. But instead, he said only, “This really isn't my area of expertise, Herald Vanyel. Would you mind having a look here?”
Van nodded. Beside him, Stef shivered, and pulled his cloak a little tighter. Vanyel knelt down beside the white-faced Heir, and examined the body without visible sign of emotion, though he wanted to weep for the poor old man. “The neck is broken, and the front of the skull as well,” he said quietly. He looked up, though all he could see of the top of the tower was the dark shape of it against the sky. “Kilchas has an observatory up on the top of this tower,” he told Treven. “Did he say anything about going up there tonight?”
Another pair of heralds had joined them; Tantras and Lissandra; Lissandra huddled in on herself, as though she was too cold for her cloak to warm her. “Oh, gods,” the woman said brokenly. “Yes, he told me that he was going up there if it cleared at all tonight. Phryny was conjuncting Aberdene's Eye, or some such thing. Only happens once in a hundred years, and he wanted to see it. He was so excited when it cleared up at sunset -” She sobbed, and turned away, hiding her face on Tran's shoulder. He folded his cloak around her, and looked down at the three kneeling in the snow.
“Poor old man,” Tantras said hoarsely. “He must have gotten so wrapped up in what he was doing that he forgot to watch his step.”
“There're probably ice patches all over the top of that tower,” Trev replied, “And the parapet is only knee-high. It's only enough to warn you that you're at the edge, not save you from falling.” He stood up, folding dignity around himself like a new cloak that was overlarge, stiff, and a trifle awkward. “Guard, would you please see that Kilchas' body is taken to the Chapel? I'll inform Joshel, and have him see to what's needed from there.” The Guardsman stood up, saluted, and trudged toward the Guard quarters, leaving the lantern behind. Before too long his dark blue uniform had been absorbed into the night.
Treven turned to Vanyel. “Thank you, Herald Vanyel. If Tantras and Lissandra don't mind, I'll have them stay with me to get things taken care of. You've just come in from a long journey, and you should get some rest.” He coughed uncomfortably, as if he wasn't sure what to say or do next.
Vanyel started to object, but realized that he didn't have any grounds for objection. It looked like an accident. Everyone else accepted it as an accident.
But Van didn't - couldn't - believe that it was.
Nevertheless, all he had to go on were vague and ill-defined feelings. Nothing even concrete enough for a Herald to accept.
So he thanked Treven - to Stefen's quite open relief - and returned across the crusted snow to the warmth and light of the Herald's Wing.
He was at the door, when Yfandes Mindtouched him. :Van,: she said, sounding troubled. :We've found Kilchas' Companion, Rohan. He's dead. He was off in the far Western comer of the Field.:
:And?: he prompted her.
:And I don't like it. There's no sign of anything wrong, but I don't like it. We just don't - fall over like that. Unless we die in battle or by accident, we're Called, and we generally have time to say good-bye to our friends before we go. :
:Could the shock of his Chosen dying like that have killed Rohan?: Van asked.
: May be,: she replied reluctantly. Most of the others think that's what did it.:
:But you're not convinced.: It was kind of comforting that she shared his doubts.
:I'm not convinced. It doesn't feel right. I can't pinpoint why, but it doesn't.:
“Van, are you going to stand there all night?” Stef asked, holding the door open and shivering visibly.
“Sorry, ashke,” Vanyel said giving himself a little mental kick. “I was talking to 'Fandes. The others found Kilchas' Companion. Dead. She says it doesn't feel right to her.”
The heat of the corridor hit him and made him want to lie down right then and there. He fought the urge and the attendant weakness. Stefen looked at him with puzzlement. “I thought that Companions never outlived their Chosen,” he said. “And vice versa. So what's wrong?”
“ 'Fandes just doesn't like the way it seems to have happened - Rohan was off by himself in the farthest corner of the Field, and none of the others knew he was gone until they found him.”
Stefen looked disturbed. “That's not the way things are supposed to happen,” he replied slowly. “At least not the way I understand them. I think you're both right. There's at least something odd about this.”
Van reached the door of his room first, and held it open for the Bard. “It may just be the new Web-spell,” he said as he closed the door behind them, took off his cloak, and flung it into a chair. “It's supposed to bind us all together; some of that may be spilling over in unexpected ways, like onto our Companions.”
Stefen draped his own cloak on top of Vanyel's. “Here,” he offered. “Let me help you out of that tunic and go lie down; we can talk about this while I give you a better massage than the one that was interrupted. I'll play opposition, and try to find logical explanations for everything you find wrong.”
“Stef, I'm absolutely exhausted,” Vanyel warned, unlacing his tunic and allowing Stef to pull it off. “If you really get me relaxed, I'll probably fall asleep in the middle of it. And once I do, you wouldn't be able to wake me with an earthquake.”
“If that's what you need, then that's what you should do,” the Bard replied, pushing him a little so that he sat down - or rather, collapsed - onto the bed. “Meanwhile, let me get the knots out of you while we talk about this. Why don't you pull 'Fandes into this, too? If she's worried, you probably should, anyway, and she may find holes in my arguments.”
:'Fandes?: Van called
:Here-:
:Want to listen in on this? We're going to try and see if I'm just overreacting to Kilchas' death because of exhaustion.:
:Neatly put, and that could be my problem, too. Go ahead. I'll be listening.: She sounded relieved.
Vanyel yielded to Stefs wishes, and sprawled facedown on the bed. Stefen straddled him and reached into the top drawer of the little bedside table.
“What-” Vanyel began, turning his head to look; then when Stefen pulled out a little bottle of what was obviously scented oil, asked in surprise, “How did that get in there?”
“I put it there,” Stef said shortly. “Get your head back down and relax.” In a few moments, his warm hands were slowly working their way upward along Van's spine, starting from the small of his back. Vanyel sighed, and gave himself up to it.
“Now, what doesn't fit in the way Kilchas died?” Stef asked. “And don't you start tensing up on me. You can think and stay relaxed.”
“Kilchas has a little enclosure up there,” Van said, thinking things through, slowly. “The roof is glass. If he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to go out in the cold. I can't see why he would have been outside, and he certainly wasn't dressed for the cold.”
“What if the glass was covered with snow or ice?” Stef countered. “It probably was, you know.”
:I agree,: Yfandes said reluctantly. :Everything else was.:
“Good point. But why was he wearing slippers, rather than boots?”
Stefen rolled his knuckles along either side of Vanyel's spine while he thought. “Because he didn't know the glass was going to be iced over until he'd already climbed the stairs to the roof, and it was too far for him to climb down and back up again just for his boots. He was an old man, after all, and his quarters are down here on the ground floor.”
Van gasped as Stef hit a particularly sore spot. “All right, I can accept that, too. But he's had that observatory for years. He always knows - knew - exactly where he is up there. Why should he suddenly misstep now?”
“Because he didn't,” Stef answered immediately. “He was doing something he'd never had to do before. He was cleaning the glass on the roof of his little shelter, trying to chip the ice off. He lost his balance, or he slipped.”
:That sounds just like Kilchas. Stubborn old goat.:
Vanyel tried not to tense as Stef hit another bad knot and began working it out. “Why not get a servant to do it?” he asked.
“No time?” Stef hazarded, as the fire in the fireplace cracked and popped. “This thing he was going to be watching-it would have been about to happen, and he figured if he had to find a servant, then wait for him to do the job, he'd miss part of what he wanted to see. Either that, or he was sure a servant wouldn't do it right. Or both.”
:That sounds like Kilchas, too,:
The air filled with the gentle scent of sendlewood. Vanyel felt sleep trying to overcome him and fought it off. “If he just fell -” he said, slowly, “Why, when I felt him die, did I only feel pain? Why didn't I feel him fall?”
“I don't know,” Stef said, pausing with his hand just over Van's shoulderblades. “I don't know how these Gifts of yours are supposed to work. But Kilchas was an old man, Van. What if he was already dead when he fell? What if his heart gave out on him? That's pretty painful, I guess. And if his heart suddenly gave out, couldn't that cause his Companion's to do the same? Maybe that's why he was found the way he was.”
Vanyel closed his eyes, suddenly too tired to try to find something wrong with what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary situation.
“You're probably right,” he said, :'Fandes, do you agree?:
:Quite reasonable,: she said, wearily. :That's very typical of heart-failure; the shock goes straight to us, too. And Kilchas' Rohan was as old as he was. That's a much more logical explanation than foul play - it's just that so few of you live long enough these days for your hearts to fail that I forgot that. I think we may be overreacting because we're tired and we're so used to treachery and ambush that we ignore other answers, love.:
“ 'Fandes agrees with you -” he began; the Stef started something that had nothing to do with a therapeutic massage, and he murmured a little exclamation of surprise.
“Have we disposed of the topic, ashke?” Stef asked, breathing the words into his ear, his chest pressed against Vanyel's back.
:I think,: Yfandes said tactfully, :that it's time for me to get some sleep. Good night, dearheart,:
:Good night, love,: he replied - then his attention was taken elsewhere.
And it was quite a while before either he or Stefen actually slept.
Vanyel forgot all about his misgivings in the weeks that followed. His time was devoured by Council meetings, Audience sessions where he and Treven stood as proxies for Randale, and long-distance spellcasting. Desperation at being unable to be two places at once had led him to discover that he could work magic through a Herald without the Mage-Gift, provided that the Herald in question was both a Thoughtsenser and carried Mage-Gift in potential. He immersed himself in the nodes so often he began to feel very much akin to the Tayledras.
He often returned to his room at night long past the hour when sane folk retired. When he did so, he found Stef invariably curled up sleepily next to the fire, light from the flames making a red glow in his hair, for he refused to take his own rest until Van returned. The Bard's patient care was the one constant in his life besides Yfandes, and as fall deepened into winter, he came to rely more and more on both of them, just to keep a hold on sanity and optimism in a world increasingly devoid of both.
Karse had declared holy war on the “evil mages of Valdemar,” though as yet they had done nothing about it. The agents both the Lord Marshal and the Seneschal had in place reported that the Prophet-King (as he styled himself) had his hands full with rooting out “heresy” in his own land. But no one was under any delusions; the consensus was that as soon as the followers of the Sun Lord needed an outside enemy to unify what was left of the populace, there would be an army of fanatics hammering the Southern Border.
That would only add to the bandits who had taken over the buffer zone between the two countries, motley bands of brigands who had escaped or been turned loose during the revolution, those who had been accused of magery and fled their homes but had declined to cross the Border, and opportunists who preyed on both sides.
“At least there won't be any mages in the Prophet's pay,” the Seneschal said, as they all leaned over the maps and tried to find weak points in their defenses.
“Maybe,” the Archpriest replied dubiously. His tour of the south had garnered mixed results. On the whole he was happy with the outcome, for his presence had kept any overt activities to a minimum. The net result, however, was that there were no enclaves of the Sun Lord in Valdemar any more. Roughly half of the devotees had been so revolted by the Father-House's actions that they had converted to some other way. The rest had decamped across the Border to Karse, to join their fellows. The holdings themselves had gone to those who had remained behind, thus staying in the hands of those who had remained loyal to Valdemar.
Supposedly loyal, at any rate. Both the Seneschal and the Archpriest were keeping a wary eye on them in case some of these “conversions” were intended as a ruse, to cover later subversion. That there were spies planted in the midst of these enclaves was a given.
“What do you mean, 'maybe'?” asked the Seneschal, hand poised above a marker representing a Guard detachment.
“What's the difference between a miracle and a magic spell?” the Archpriest asked, looking from Arved to Van and back again.
“A miracle comes from the gods; magic comes from a mage,” the Seneschal replied impatiently.
“That's purely subjective,” the Archpriest pointed out. “To the layman, there is no discernible difference. The Prophet can easily have mages within his own ranks, claim their powers are from the Sun Lord, and be completely within strict doctrinal boundaries.”
“Damn. You're right,” the Lord Marshal said softly. “I wonder how many he does have?”
“There's no way of knowing,” Vanyel replied, as they all turned to look at him. “I don't think he has anyone a Herald couldn't counter, though. My operatives aren't reporting any 'miracles' other than Healing and the odd illusion, not even when the Prophet's Children are trying to capture mages. The powerful mages in the pay and employ of the Karsite Crown were all known as such, and have either been killed or fled the country. That's not to say that the Mage-Gifted won't end up in the Sun Lord's priesthood in the future; I'd virtually guarantee that, but they won't get effective training, because there won't be anyone experienced enough to train them thoroughly, and they probably won't be permitted to use their Gift combatively.”
“Why not?” the Archpriest asked.
Van smiled thinly, and fingered a marker representing an agent. “Because if they learn what they can do, what's to stop them from declaring themselves the chosen of the God and doing exactly what the Prophet did?”
“Only with more success, because they have 'miracles' to prove their power,” the Archpriest mused, his eyes half-closed. “Interesting speculation. It's fortunate that you are on our side, Vanyel.”
Van bowed with intended irony. “A Herald tends to be altogether too well acquainted with the ways of treachery for anyone's comfort, including his own, my lord,” he said. “One could say that it is part of the job.”
“To know, and not use?” The Archpriest's smile was genuine and his eyes warmed with it. “I am aware of that, my son. I think that most of you would have been comfortable within the ranks of the clergy had there been no Companions to Choose you.”
“Most?” Vanyel chuckled, knowing the Archpriest was blissfully unaware of his relationship with Stefen. “Some, maybe, but I assure you, my lord, not all. By no means all. We are far too worldly for most orders to ever accept us!”
He would have said more, but suddenly -
His eyes burned. A giant hand closed itself around his chest, as his lungs caught fire. He tried to breathe, and only increased the pain. His heart spasmed; once, twice-then exploded.
He found himself sprawled facedown over the table, the rest of the Councillors, his father among them, frantically trying to revive him. He stared at the lines of the map just under his nose, unable to remember what they were.
“Vanyel!”
He was very cold, and his chest hurt.
“Turn him over you fools, he can't breathe!”
He blinked as the shadows danced around him, trying to recall exactly where-and who-he was.
:Van?: Yfandes said weakly, making a confusion of voices inside his head and out. :Are you all right?:
“What's wrong? What happened? Has he ever had a spell like this before?”
He stirred, dazed, the map-paper under him crackling. The Council meeting. I was in the Council meeting. :Van?: A little more urgent. :'Fandes. Give me a moment. . . .: “What -” he gasped. He tried to push himself away from the table, but his arms were too weak and trembling, and he was too dazed to even think of what to do. Someone - two someones-grabbed his arms, one on either side, and pulled him up. Trev and Joshel; they lowered him into a chair.
Just as the Death Bell began tolling. Lissandra - He knew it, even as the other two looked at each other over his head and spoke the name simultaneously.
“You go,” Treven told Joshel. “Find out what happened.” He shook Vanyel's shoulder gently. “Is that what you Felt? Is that what happened to you just now?”
Vanyel nodded, and schooled himself to reply. “I - yes. Something very painful, very sudden. Like what happened with Kilchas, only worse.” He shuddered. “I don't understand - why am I Feeling them die? Why is this happening to me, and no one else?”
“Maybe because you set the spell,” Treven hazarded. “The rest of us know what happens after the fact, but you feel it at the time. Or maybe it's happening just because the two of them were in the original Web with you. Or because they're close by physically. We haven't had any Herald deaths at Haven but Kilchas and Lissandra.”
“I suppose. . . .” He put his head down on his knees, still dizzy. “A lot of good I'm going to be if I black out every time a Herald dies.” He was still in too much quasi-physical pain and too much in shock to feel the emotional impact of the other Herald-Mage's death. :'Fandes? What about her Companion?: :We're looking,: Yfandes said shortly. :Shonsea dropped out of our minds just as you Felt Lissandra die. Are you going to be all right?: :I think so-I-: :We found her,: Yfandes interrupted. :The northern end of the Field. It looks as though she was running, and fell and broke her neck.:
Vanyel sighed and closed his eyes. :If she felt what I did, I'm not surprised it came as enough of a shock to make her fall. Something horrendous happened, whatever it was.:
His head throbbed with aftershock, and it was increasingly hard to think. He raised his head with an effort when Joshel came back into the Council Chamber, coughing.
“It looks like she had an accident with her alchemical apparatus,” Joshe said. “When we got to her chamber, it was full of fumes of some kind. We had to open a window to clear them out. Look -”
He held up a glass jar; it was frosted on the outside.
“That's what those fumes did closest to the spill; ate into things. We found a container of some kind over a small firepot had broken. That was where the fumes were coming from. All we can guess is that it cracked and spilled the stuff into the fire, and Lissandra breathed in a fatal dose before she could get the window open.”
“It Felt like my lungs were on fire,” Vanyel said. “I couldn't breathe, and my eyes were burning.”
“She might not even have been able to see to get the window open,” Joshe continued. “As corrosive as those fumes were, she must have been nearly blind. We found her halfway between her workbench and the door.”
Lissandra should have known better than to work with something that dangerous in her chamber, Vanyel thought vaguely. What on earth possessed her to do such a thing? The still-room at Healer's Collegium has adequate ventilation against accidents, and she hasn't got any secrets from the Healers. . . .
But his head was pounding, and he couldn't seem to get any further than that.
“I need to get something for my head,” he said thickly, getting to his feet. Treven looked at him in concern.
“This hit you awfully hard,” he said. “I know you've been overworking. Do you want to take this session up later?”
He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “We haven't the time to spare. You have Audiences right after this, then Randi has a private Audience session with the Rethwellan ambassador. I'll be all right.”
Treven smiled weakly. “You always are,” he said with gratitude. “I don't know what we'd do without you.”
“Some day you'll have to do without me,” Van reminded him grimly. “I'm not immortal. Well, let's get on with this. My operatives say the next move will be for Karse to declare holy war on Rethwellan, too, trusting that the mountains will keep the Queen from coming at them.”
“The more fools, they,” the Lord Marshal replied. “Here's what she's pledged us if they make a move like that...”
The fire in Savil's room hissed and popped at them, and the late-afternoon sun shone weakly down on the gardens outside the window. Van sat back in his chair and tried not to look as if he were tired of hearing his aunt's plaints.
“I don't like it,” Savil said fretfully. “First Kilchas, then Lissandra. Both of them Herald-Mages. It's no accident.”
“What else could it be?” Vanyel asked reasonably, nibbing one of his shoulders. He was still stiff and sore from his fit this afternoon. “We've been all over that. No one found anything out of the ordinary. No signs of tampering, magical or otherwise. Just the result of miscalculation.”
A coal fell down to the grate, and a shower of sparks followed it.
'I still don't like it,” she replied, stubbornly shaking her head. “What if the tampering wasn't with their equipment, but with them - their minds or their bodies? A Healer could easily have stopped Kilchas' heart. A MindHealer could have made Lissandra think she was putting something harmless on the fire. You'd never detect that kind of tampering.”
She's getting old, he thought sadly. She's getting old, and frightened of everything. In her oversized, overstuffed chair she looked thinner, and terribly frail. There were lines in her face that had never been there until this winter. It seemed that, like the Tayledras, she was failing all at once. She's aged more in the last six months than in the last six years. “Savil, love, why would a Healer do something like that?” he asked. “It just isn't logical.”
“You don't have to be a Healer to have Healing Gifts,” she countered. “You have them; so do I. Moondance is a Healing Adept. It could be a rogue mage with the Gift. A kind of anti-Healer.”
Great good gods. Now she's inventing enemies. Whoever heard of anything like that? “All right, then,” he replied patiently. “Who? We've no indication that anyone is using mages against Valdemar right now.”
She frowned. “What about the one that nearly killed you?”
“There's no sign of that kind of magical attack in either Kilchas' death or Lissandra's,” he reminded her. “And the attempt on me was not directed at Valdemar. I think that must have been a purely personal vendetta and nothing more. I've made a lot of enemies in the last few years, and it's all too likely to have been one of them.”
“Van,” she said unhappily, “I'm worried. I think it's stretching coincidence - first the incident with you, then Kilchas is killed, then Lissandra. Please listen to me -”
Vanyel sighed. “I'll tell you what, Aunt Savil. If it'll make you feel more confident, I'll strengthen your wards. But I don't think they need it. You're an eminently capable mage, as you very well know - you're my superior at ritual magics. Kilchas was very old and inclined to try and do things he shouldn't because he was stubborn. Lissandra worked with very dangerous substances all the time. The odds just caught up with both of them.”
Savil scowled at him, and the fire hissed as if it felt her anger. “Vanyel Ashkevron, you're being more than usually dense. If I were ten years younger -”
Abruptly she deflated, and shrank back down into her chair. “But I'm not,” she said sadly. “I'm older than Kilchas, and just as vulnerable. I'm holding you to your promise, Van. Strengthen my wards. I'll take any help I can get, because I believe I will be the next target and I can't get anyone else to agree with me, not even you.”
Vanyel stood up, feeling guilty. “Savil, I don't blame you for overreacting. You knew both of the others better than I did. I'll be happy to strengthen your wards as soon as I get a moment free, and I'm absolutely certain that in a few more weeks we'll be laughing about this.”
“I hope so,” Savil said unhappily as he moved toward the door. “I truly hope so.”
He stifled a surge of annoyance, and bade her good night as affectionately as he could manage. It wouldn't cost him more than a candlemark and a little energy to strengthen her wards, and if it made her less paranoid, it was worth it.
He closed the door behind himself, and literally ran into Stefen in the hall outside.
“I hope you're through for the day,” the Bard said in a weary voice as he caught Vanyel's arm. “Because I certainly am. It's my turn to need a backrub. The Rethwellan ambassador wouldn't talk unless I was out of the room and Randale couldn't sit up unless I was in the room, so they compromised by sticking me in a closet.”
Vanyel chuckled tiredly, and put his arm around Stefen's shoulders. “Nobody has me scheduled for anything more, and I'm not inclined to let them know I'm free. Let's go; I'll give you that backrub.”
“More than a backrub, I hope,” Stef said, shyly.
“I think I might be able to manage that,” Vanyel said into the Bard's ear.
“Good,” Stef said. “I'll hold you to that. . . .”
Later, much later, as Vanyel drifted off to sleep, he remembered what he had promised Savil.
Oh, well, he thought drowsily. I can take care of it tomorrow. It's not that urgent. And I didn't promise exactly when I'd do it, just that I would when I got some free time.
The fire had burned down to coals, with a few flames flickering now and again above them, and Stef was already asleep, his head resting on Vanyel's shoulder. It was the first moment of peace together they'd had since returning from Forst Reach - the first entire evening they'd been able to spend together without either of them being utterly exhausted or worried about something.
And it was the first evening Van hadn't had to spend in the nodes, drawing energy for later use, or channeling it elsewhere.
He stroked Stef's silky, fine hair, and the Bard murmured a little in his sleep. I'm not going to spoil it now. It can wait until morning.
He watched the fire through half-closed eyes, listening to Stef breathe, and waited for sleep to take him.
Then the peace of the evening shattered.
:VANYEL!:
He was out of bed and grabbing his clothes before Stef woke.
:VAN - :
Savil's cry was cut off, abruptly, and Vanyel doubled up and fell to the floor -
Pain -
- knives of fire slicing him from neck to crotch-
- lungs aching for air-
- teeth fastening in his throat-
Then, nothing -
He found himself gasping for breath, curled in a fetal position on the floor, Stefen staring at him from the bed with his eyes wide with fear. It had felt like an eternity, yet it had taken only a few heartbeats from the moment Savil called him until now.
Savil!
He grabbed his robe from the floor beside him where he had dropped it and struggled to his feet, pulling it on. He burst out the door and ran down the corridor-joined by every other Herald in the wing just as the Death Bell tolled. This time he hadn't been the only one to feel the death-struggle.
And this time there was no doubt. This was no accident.
Savil's door was locked; Vanyel kicked it open. His aunt lay in the center of a circle of destruction; furniture overturned, lamps knocked over, papers scattered. Blood everywhere. Some of the others, Herald-trainees who had probably never seen violent death before, gasped and turned green - or blanched and fled.
Claw and teethmarks on Savil's throat and torso showed that she'd put up a fight. A trail of greenish ichor and a broken-bladed knife told that her enemy had not escaped unscathed.
But there was no sign of it, and the trail ended at the locked door.
Not that it mattered to him. The damage was already done, and this time Vanyel's hard-won detachment failed entirely. While the others checked the locks, and looked for clues or any sign of what had attacked her, he sank down to his knees beside the body, and took one limp hand in , his - and wept.
Oh, gods - Savil, you were right, and I didn't listen to you. Now you're gone, and it's all my fault. . . .
Some of the others stopped what they were doing, and looked at him with pity and concern. Very few of them had ever seen Vanyel emerge from behind the cool mask of the first-ranked Herald-Mage of Valdemar. Fewer still had seen him break down like this, especially in public. He had heard that he had a reputation for such coolness and self-isolation that even fellow Heralds seemed to think nothing could crack his icy calm.
They were finding out differently now. “She - thought someone was - targeting the Herald-Mages,” he said brokenly, to no one in particularly. “She was afraid she was going to be next; she asked me to help her, and I just thought she was being hysterical. I promised to strengthen her wards, and I didn't; I forgot. This is all my fault -”
She's never going to sit there in her chair and expound at me again. I can't ever ask her for advice. She'll never take on Father for me - she was my mother in everything but flesh, and I failed her, I failed her, when I'd promised to help her.
He hung his head, and closed his eyes, choking down the sob that rose and cut off his breathing.
Savil, Savil, I'm so sorry - and sorry isn't enough. Sorry won't bring you back.
Tears escaped from under his closed eyelids, and etched their way down his cheeks. He couldn't swallow; he could hardly breathe.
A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up, slowly, through eyes that burned and vision that wavered with tears.
“Van?” Tantras said quietly. “I know you're in no shape to do anything, but you're the only Herald-Mage left, and we can't check all the magical locks she had to see if they were violated.”
He blinked, then reckoned up in his head ail the deaths over the last couple of years.
Oh, gods - I'm not just the only Herald-Mage they have left here, I'm the very last Herald-Mage. There aren't any more but me.
He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and rose slowly to his feet. “Clear everyone out,” he said in a low, and deadly calm voice, as a coldness settled in his heart and icy anger steadied his thoughts. “I'll need some room to work.”
The wards weren't violated. Van stood in the middle of the room and scanned every inch of it with Mage-Sight. The wards were fading now that Savil was dead, but they were still strong enough to read. She had warded all four directions, above and below, weaving protection atop protection, and all glowed with the bright blue that meant no strand and no connection had been broken, and the only hole was the one he himself had made when he broke down the door.
The wards weren't violated. The locks and locking-spells are all intact. Whatever it was came in before she set the wards.
What was the damned thing, anyway?
There was still a trace of the greenish ichor left; more than enough to identify the creature if it was something Vanyel had encountered before this. But it wasn't; it wasn't even close to anything he knew, and the magical signature it had left behind when it broke the spell that gave it its disguise was entirely new.
It's intelligent, he decided. It has to be. And it's not Abyssal, or I'd at least recognize that much of its signature, which only leaves one possibility. It's created, or it's from the Pelagirs. Or both -
His only option now was to try alone what he and Savil and the two Tayledras had done together; try to See into the immediate past. He wouldn't have tried it if he hadn't seen it done by an expert; and if the time he wanted to See hadn't been so recent, he wouldn't have been able to do it alone.
The longer he waited, the fainter the traces would be. His best chance at discovering anything would be to cast the spell now, this instant.
You son of a bitch, whoever, whatever you are, you're not getting away! I'm going to hunt you down if it takes me the rest of my life-
He sat down on the cold, bare floor, next to where Savil had been found, and tapped recklessly into the node far below Haven. His need, anger, and sorrow drove him deeper into it than he had ever been or dared to go before; he grasped the raw power with unflinching “hands,” manipulating it like soft, half-molten iron. He forged it into the spell on the anvil of his will and tuned it to himself through the medium of his mage-focus. Then he cast it loose.
When he opened his eyes, the room was as he had left it when he'd last seen Savil alive. He was sitting just beside Savil's big chair; it was early evening by the thin light coming in the windows, and she didn't seem to be in the room.
This must be just after I met Stef, he thought, and guilt ate at him, acid in his wounds of loss. The wards were not up. And there was nothing in the room that did not belong there.
Vanyel froze the moment and searched everywhere, even behind and underneath the furniture. Nothing. Everything was entirely as it should be.
He gritted his teeth and let time proceed again, waiting as the twilight deepened and became true night; as one of the servants came in, lighting the lamps and leaving fresh candles in the sconces. Another brought in a heavy load of wood, and fueled the fire. Nothing at all out of the ordinary -
Wait a moment!
He froze the time-stream again, and examined the candles, minutely, with Mage-Sight.
Nothing at all odd about the candles - but when he turned his Sight on the wood, the entire pile glowed an evil green, and when he dug deeper at it, the wood gave him the same signature as the ichor.
But it wasn't enough; not quite. He needed to see how the thing had looked when it dropped its disguise, and where it had gone afterward.
He forced himself to let the time-stream start up again; his heart lurched when he saw Savil enter the room. No, not now, he told himself, forcing himself to be cold and unemotional. It's not the time for that - not while I'm tapping a node. I can't afford to give up concentration for emotion.
He regained control over himself, just as his aunt turned away from him and put up her wards.
Even though he was watching the woodpile, he didn't see it actually change; the creature was that fast. He froze time again; catching it in mid-leap and Savil in mid-turn.
Well, at least I'm not slipping,, he thought, still locked in that icy detachment. That creature isn't anything I've ever encountered before. It was mostly like a raven, but with toothed beak, evil red eyes, and powerful legs that ended in feet bearing knife-sharp, hand-sized talons.
Not even the Tayledras knew all of the creatures that roamed the Pelagirs, but somehow this bird-thing didn't have the feeling of anything natural - if that word could ever be applied to a beast from that magic-haunted area. Still, the bird looked wrong; the teeth were too long for it to be able to actually eat with them, and those claws were no good for anything except rending. Certainly it couldn't perch on anything like a tree limb with those talons. And how would it feed young?
Vanyel could not leave his own position, but he could let the beast continue its leap, little by little, until he could see all of it. He did so, steadfastly ignoring the look of fear on his aunt's face, the panic as she realized she could not ready a blast of mage-energy before it reached her. It was thumb-lengths away from her when he stopped the thing again, and close examination of the rear proved what he had suspected. It had no genital slit; in fact, it had nothing at all, not even a vent. It was as featureless behind as a feather-covered egg.
It was a construct, a one-of-a-kind, probably created specifically for this task out of a real raven. The only way it could obtain nourishment would be magically; it was utterly dependent on the mage that created it, and there would be no young that might escape the mage's control. That meant that the mage who had targeted Savil was at the least more ruthless than Vanyel, and very likely more powerful as well.
Power doesn't count for everything, Vanyel thought, clenching his jaw on a rising tide of anger. There's skill, and there's how much you're willing to pay for what you want. I want this bastard, and I don't intend to lose him.
He sped up the time-stream, skipping ahead to the moment when Savil was already dead and he had started to kick in the doorway. He watched dispassionately as the bird-thing, wounded and bleeding, again assumed its guise of a pile of wood, this time beside the door. He watched as he allowed himself to be overcome with grief, and the creature took that moment of distraction to slip out the door.
He tracked it as it fled from the Palace by the first exit. It paused just long enough to attack one lone Companion, down and in shock with the loss of her Chosen - the others came to Kellan's aid, but too late. The thing rose up in triumph and fled, its talons and beak red with the mingled blood of Herald and Companion, while the rest of the herd shrieked their impotent anger after it.
And still he tracked it. North. North for several days' ride, on wings sped by more magic, until it dropped back down to earth, exhausted and weakened by its injury. He sensed from its primitive thoughts that it was going to stay there for at least a week, healing. It knew it was safe enough. No one knew it was there . . . and no one could follow it that quickly.
That was all he could bear to see. He let loose his control of the spell, and it dissolved away, leaving him sitting alone in the middle of the empty, ruined room, with dawn just beginning to color the sky outside the windows, and Stefen huddled in a cloak just inside the door.
“They t-told me not to disturb you,” the Bard stuttered, looking pale and wan in the thin, gray light. “But nobody said I couldn't wait here until you w-were done. Van, I'm sorry, I w-wish I could do something -”
“You can,” Vanyel replied shortly. “You can guard the door and keep everyone else out.” There was hurt in Stef's eyes at his coldness, but he ignored it. :'Fandes?: he called.
The rage in her mind-voice colored everything a bloody red. :Gods damn them to the lowest hells! That thing got Kellan on its way out, Van -:
:I know that,: he interrupted. :And I'm about to extract a little revenge right now. Will you link and cover my back while I go hunting?:
:Hunt away,: she snarled, :I'm right behind you.: That was all the assurance he needed. Once again he dove into the node, pulled in all the raw power he could hold through the buffering effect of his amber focus, and launched himself out again with all his channels scorched and tender but still perfectly functional.
He knew the general area where the thing had gone to earth, and he still had that trace of ichor to use to find its exact location. While he had that bit of the beast's life-fluid, it could never escape him, no matter how many disguises it assumed, or how much magic it called up to cloak its presence.
With Yfandes guarding his back, he knew he needn't waste half his energy watching for ambush; he tracked the thing into its hiding place with infinite patience. He still had his tap into the node, he could afford whatever expense of power it took to find the construct.
When he found it, he also found something else; it had shielding far more powerful than he had expected. The creature's master wanted it back, evidently, which made it all the more valuable to Vanyel. His resources were already stretched thin by distance; he couldn't smash through those shields at this range.
But he didn't need to...
It was protected against “real” magic, not Mind-magic. And one of his Gifts was Fetching - with all of the power of the node to back him. Because he had both real and Mind-magic, he could fuel his mind-powers with mage-energies as no other Herald could. Which was where his enemy had made a fundamental misjudgment.
He seized the thing, shields and all; belatedly it tried to escape, but it hadn't a chance at that point and its master hadn't given it the ability to call for help. It had been too late for the creature to escape the moment he knew its physical location. As it struggled, he could Feel its rising panic, and he smiled -
And Pulled.
:Yes -: Yfandes hissed eagerly in his mind - by no means enough to distract him; he was used to her commentaries and encouragements in the back of his thoughts after all these years. :Yes! Bring it here and we'll show them we're not to be slaughtered at anyone's whim -:
The thing grabbed on to where it was and resisted his pull; he simply tapped deeper into the node, ignored the pain, the rivers of fire that ran along his channels, and pulled harder. He ripped it loose as it shrieked in desperation; Yfandes supported him as he hauled it in. She cushioned him from the effects of a reaction-headache, something she'd never done before, enabling him to fling the creature down right on the spot where it had killed Savil, and pin it to the floor with raw node-power.
Stefen gave a strangled croak when it appeared, but wisely remained where he was. Wise - or perhaps frozen with fear; Van Felt the panic coming from him in waves, but had no time to worry about the Bard just now. While the beast squirmed and screamed both mentally and vocally, he stripped the protections from its crude thoughts and ripped away every detail he could concerning its master.
North, the direction it had fled in the first place; the direction no one expected for an enemy. North, and an impression of the vast wilderness that could only be the Forest of Wendwinter and the Ice Wall mountains beyond. But of the master himself, nothing; only darkness. After ruthless probing that left the bird's mind a broken, bleeding rag, Vanyel decided that this was all the construct had ever seen of its master.
He contemplated the writhing creature at his feet with his mouth set in a grim line. He had left it a ruin, with nothing remaining to tell it how to get home, or even how to defend itself. It could no longer work the borrowed magics it had been given, and it might not even remember how to fly. If he let it go, it would slowly starve itself to death, and its master would never know what had become of it, or even whether or not it had been successful in its task.
Even Yfandes' lust for revenge seemed satisfied now; at any rate, she was silent, and her anger no longer seethed at the back of his mind. But his need for vengeance was not filled. He gathered all the node-power he could handle, poured in channels that burned as hotly as his own need for revenge. He made certain that there was still a line open between the bird and its creator. It was too bad that the line was such a thin one - one that he could not follow to its source. He was going to have to find the perpetrator the hard way. But the line was enough to punish the master through. . . .
And he smashed the thing with one hammer-blow of pure, wild power.
The construct screamed its agony, and as it died in the cold flames of magic, the energy backlashed up the line Van had left open to its creator.
The scream ended; the thing glowed with the power Van poured into it - then incandesced until it was too bright to look at. And still he fed the fire, until the last of it was eaten away, and there was nothing left but a few wisps of white, feathery ash.
He turned toward Stefen, knowing that at any moment he would feel the effects of what he had just done. Yfandes couldn't protect him from the reaction-headache of overexertion of Mind-magic much longer; it was incredible enough that she'd done it in the first place. And his channels were pure agony that would take several hours of self-Healing to repair.
The Bard stared at him, his eyes wide and frightened, his face pale as skimmed milk. “W-what did y-you do th-that for?” he whispered, looking at Vanyel as if he expected the Herald to lash out at him next.
“I sent a message,” Vanyel said quietly. “One that can't be mistaken for anything but what it is. A challenge, and a warning. Whoever did this, whoever murdered Savil, is going to pay for it with his own life. Because this wasn't a personal vendetta; this bastard is the same one that's responsible for Kilchas' death, and Lissandra's and probably made the attempt on me as well. So it's a threat to Valdemar, and as such, I am going to eliminate the source of the threat.”
The reaction-headache hit then; he brought one hand slowly to his head and swayed a little. Stef was instantly at his side, supporting him.
He recalled the hurt in Stefen's eyes when he'd cut him off earlier, and grimaced. “Stef,” he said, awkwardly, “I'm sorry. I loved Savil, she was - she was - ” He couldn't continue; tears interrupted him.
“She was the most remarkable and sweetest old bitch the gods ever created,” Stef replied angrily, with tears in his own eyes. “There's never going to be anyone to match her. Whoever did this to her - I want his hide, too. Not as much as you do, but I want it too, and I'll do anything I can to help you get it.” He held Vanyel, half supporting him, half embracing him. “It's all right, I understand.”
Vanyel shook his aching head. “I just hope you can keep understanding, Stef,” he said through the pain, “because this isn't finished yet. It isn't even close.”