Crucible

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I don’t think you are in serious danger, not really,” Zama finally said. “You are both native to Longfall, you can visit there without arousing suspicion. It is on the way to K’Valdemar Vale in any case, so you have every reason in the world to stop by.”

  Truth be told, Sparrow would gladly have stopped at Longfall of her own accord. But this was something very different. Given what Zama had told them, she was afraid to see the changes that had come to her old home.

  Zama leaned back on his oak garden bench and sighed. “Look, it’s up to you. You are still Trainees, it’s true. If you are too afraid, we will come up with another way.”

  Challenge flowed in the undercurrent of Zama’s words. Sparrow heard it clearly: This is the life of a Herald. If you cannot handle this kind of mission . . .

  “We are not afraid,” Brock said, quiet determination in his voice. “We simply want to make sure we can do what you ask of us.”

  Zama spoke to Sparrow, not to Brock. “Afraid or not isn’t the nub of it, is it? Sometimes you have to be afraid and do the right thing anyway.”

  The understanding and kindness in Zama’s eyes helped a lot. Maybe Brock felt no fear, but Sparrow sure did. She sighed and nodded. “If only the right thing didn’t have to be so hard sometimes.”

  Zama shrugged and laughed. “That is the life of a Herald, right there. And once you accept the basic fact, it’s a glorious life.”

  • • •

  Longfall was less than a day’s easy journey away, and Abilard, Brock, and Sparrow opted to leave soon after their meeting with Herald Zama. The Owl Inn at Errold’s Grove handsomely replenished their supplies, and Sparrow’s spirits lifted as they departed the town and headed into the backcountry on the way to her home village.

  The sun was low in the western sky by the time they set off. They left Errold’s Grove and soon turned off the main northern road for the dirt path connecting some of the smaller villages to the north and west. Almost immediately, they descended into the deep shadows of the leafy forest, Abilard’s silver hooves leaving hardly any trace as they traveled.

  As always, Sparrow rode behind Brock, sitting astride now, since she rode in simple Healer’s green trousers instead of the embroidered skirts she used to wear. “I hope I didn’t sound too scared before,” she said, her voice hushed in the immense green silence of the wood.

  “No,” Brock replied. “You were the voice of reason.”

  :Indea, Zama’s Companion, and I also spoke, and we believe in the both of you,: Abilard said to them both in Mindspeech. As always, Sparrow thrilled to his words, spoken deeply in her mind, sending emotion along with bare meaning. A sustaining warmth radiated from her heart out to her fingers, and she could feel as well as hear Abilard’s trust in their ability to rise to whatever occasion they would meet in Longfall.

  :Thank you, dear Companion,: Brock replied. The connection was between Abilard and his Chosen, but from the beginning Sparrow had been able to receive Mindspeech from both Companion and her beloved childhood friend. She could not respond in kind, but she could always hear. And this second mode of communication had been a great comfort to her from the day she and Brock had left Longfall.

  “So, what do we do?” Sparrow asked. “Just ride into town?”

  “I think so,” Brock replied. “Explain that we came to visit your father. See what has changed.”

  Sparrow laughed. “Oh, my goodness, what hasn’t changed!”

  It had been three years since they’d left for the Collegium, but it might as well have been a thousand. Sparrow could hardly remember what it was like to be a fifteen-year-old girl who had just lost her mother to snow fever and lived with her father in a small cottage on the village’s edge.

  Errold’s Grove had seemed like a grand town back then, but now it looked to Sparrow like a quaint backwater compared to the spires and winding, intricate back streets leading to the Collegium in Haven. But Zama’s description of the dangers in her little village opened up a deep foreboding that the home she remembered was gone forever.

  A crow alighted on a dead branch on a blue fir tree just ahead. As Abilard rounded the bend, the bird tilted its head to study them. Its feathers were jet black, shot through with iridescent purples and blues.

  Shrewd eyes regarded them as they passed, and the bird seemed calculating to Sparrow. As she watched, it cawed twice, looked up into the branches above its head, and then stretched its wings and shot into the sky.

  Sparrow’s foreboding grew even deeper. “Did you see that, Abilard?”

  “I heard it,” Brock said.

  :That was no ordinary crow.:

  “It was almost like he was . . . waiting for us. And flew off to let somebody know we’re coming.”

  Neither Brock nor Abilard replied, but Brock’s back muscles tensed up, and his Companion broke into a canter. Whatever was going on in Longfall, clearly neither believed they had much time to waste.

  • • •

  They made camp at nightfall, planning to ride into Longfall the following morning. The night passed uneventfully, yet Sparrow could not find her rest. Her dreams, all tumbled and jumbled, were troubled by visitations of swooping crows, their cries echoing among unforgiving stone canyons and dry riverbeds filled with bones. Her home, transformed by nightmare into an unfamiliar, forbidding wasteland.

  When they arose the next morning, Sparrow did not speak of her dreams. But as she rolled up her blanket and replaced it in her pack, a murder of crows flew past their camp, swooping overhead and coming to rest in a circle among the surrounding trees. They called and cawed to each other, a deafening cacophony, a great debate that Sparrow could not understand.

  “Looks like we have company,” Sparrow said. “Crows. A lot of crows, Brock. They’ve got us surrounded.”

  She kept her voice light. Crows were native to these forests after all. Nothing unnatural about seeing crows so near to where she grew up . . . Sparrow used to see them all the time as a girl.

  The villagers believed that crows portended death. But Sparrow had never understood how a bird could be fully evil just by its very existence . . . crows lived as they were made by the Mother. The great Mother loved the crows surely, just as she loved all the creatures of the earth.

  Abilard did not respond with his customary words of reassurance. He stood tall in the clearing, his magnificent haunches tensed and his curling mane blowing in the clean morning breeze. The scent of blue fir sap added a tang to the air, a sense that the forest was alive and considering their presence as well.

  Sparrow looked into Abilard’s brilliant sapphire eyes, saw the growing wariness there. :Beloved ones,: he said, :Come with me and let us travel swiftly to Longfall. I fear we may be too late.:

  • • •

  Abilard’s long strides ate up the distance to their destination. They reached Longfall one candlemark before breakfast time. The first thing Sparrow noticed was an absence.

  No children on the hillsides bringing the sheep out to pasture; no mothers feeding hungry chickens. No cats sleeping in the morning sun, no menfolk going out to their fields, their tanneries, or their forges. It was a glorious, bright morning, and yet Longfall was still asleep, as if it had fallen under a powerful and insidious spell.

  The shutters and front doors of the homes and businesses remained tightly shut against the sunshine and fresh air. Not even the chickens were outside.

  Sparrow hugged Brock tighter. “It looks like a deserted ruin.” She could not keep the creeping horror out of her voice.

  “So silent,” he whispered.

  Abilard said nothing, just kept walking resolutely toward the mayor’s house at the center of town. The thud of hooves against the bone-dry dirt track echoed down the silent lane.

  Before the three reached the little village green, they passed the cottage where Sparrow had lived with her father. She strained to se
e any signs of life inside her home, but she found nothing there either. Not even the goats made a sound. They were either still inside their pens or . . . gone.

  “Abilard, please stop,” she said. “I need to see if my father is okay. I don’t believe they sent word from Haven that I was coming, I’d hoped someone from Errold’s Grove might have told him, but no. Because if he knew . . .”

  Her father, Hari, would have been standing outside looking for her. Looking every day until she arrived. And if she had been later than he expected, he would have asked the mayor to send a runner to Errold’s Grove to find out what had happened to her.

  Abilard halted at the entrance to the little place she had once loved as home. “Father?” she called. She hugged Brock even tighter and tried not to panic.

  “Call him again,” Brock said, his voice low, urgent.

  “Papa!”

  She dismounted, tried the door. It was shut tight. She willed the front door to swing open, and her father to appear in the doorway, rounded shoulders, slow, broad smile and all.

  Instead, the circle of crows reappeared, darting from tree to tree along the lane until they gathered around them. This time, they stayed as silent as the rest of the town, standing sentinel with them.

  Where was her father? Where were all the villagers?

  She looked again at the crows. They watched her, expectant, silent, waiting.

  “By the Mother,” she finally forced out, her voice a harsh rasp. “I think that’s them. In the trees.”

  Blinking back tears, she scanned the treetops. Had the villagers been changed into birds by some powerful and never-before-seen sorcery? Or, even worse, had they all been murdered, and the crows now stood guard over their departed spirits?

  Abilard whispered into her mind. :The crows wait for us to act. We can do no more here . . . our answers to this terrible mystery lie in the Vale. Come back, remount. We must press on, and quickly.:

  She used the rock by the lane to climb back up. Brock leaned forward, buried his face in Abilard’s thick mane. “I will . . . send ahead,” he whispered, so low that Sparrow could hardly hear him. “My . . . brothers will be ready for us. And they will prepare for the crows.”

  And with that, Brock too was gone. By now, Sparrow was used to his flights into the clouds, where he rode the currents of energy that flowed through Valdemar. She had learned to ground him as he floated away, so that he could find his way back to ordinary consciousness when he returned.

  She held on tight, even as Abilard wheeled around and broke into a trot, heading through the village and out the other side, to the edge of the Forest of Sorrows and, far beyond, the sanctuary of the K’Valdemar Vale.

  Abilard’s stride was so high and smooth that Sparrow knew she could keep her seat without difficulty. As they rode, her thoughts remained in Longfall. She had thought her years at the Collegium in Haven had changed everything about her. But she had been wrong. In fact, she hadn’t really changed at all; she was still Sparrow, she would always be her father’s daughter.

  But Longfall had changed utterly and, she feared, irrevocably. The buildings still stood, but the heart had gone out of the village. A bright stillness had invaded in its stead, and instead of the people she remembered, crows stood watch over what remained.

  The Forest of Sorrows sped by in a blur as they rushed to the Vale. And for the first time, Sparrow thought it was well named.

  • • •

  By the time they reached K’Valdemar Vale, Brock’s consciousness had returned to his body. “They know we are coming,” he said, excitement filling his voice. “All is well there.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Sparrow replied, her spirits lifting with his return. She had heard wondrous tales of the Vale but had never seen it herself. And knowing the Vale had not suffered Longfall’s fate filled her with hope.

  The Vale rose before them, so beautiful that Sparrow could not believe she was seeing a real place. The northern forest gave way to a verdant oasis of tropical flowers, multilevel gardens, and well-tended paths. Her imagination had not done the Vale justice.

  A man waited for them on the crushed-cinder path to their right. A Tayledras, he stood tall under an open gateway made of brass, ornamented with twining, flowering vines. The fragrance of those tropical flowers instantly relaxed Sparrow and set her at ease—or at least made her less anxious than she had been a few moments before.

  He was clothed in brilliantly embroidered tunic and trews, with carefully stitched parrots, birds of paradise, and firebirds interspersed with greenery that matched the real vines he stood under. His long hair, unbound, trailed over his shoulders and down behind his back, and though his face was young and unlined, his jet-black hair was shot through with streaks of blue and silver.

  “Liros!” Brock cried. “So good to meet you walking on ground.”

  Liros raised a single hand in greeting. “My brother,” he said. “You are a welcome sight indeed.”

  Sparrow could not keep from smiling. She knew that while Brock could not see in the ordinary way, he could sense the energy-patterns of his Clan members, and he undoubtedly could make out the unique energy that this man, Liros, projected while standing on the path.

  She understood his Gift, and sometimes wished she could follow Brock in his mastery, but reveled in the second-hand joy of it nevertheless.

  Abilard whickered in greeting as she and Brock slowly dismounted. Sparrow’s legs were stiff from hanging on during their swift flight from Longfall to the Vale. But on contact with the ground, she stretched her legs and was amazed by the feeling of well-being that rose inside her almost instantly.

  Brock could not stop smiling either. “This is a healing sanctuary, Sparrow. You can feel it, I can tell.”

  “By the Mother, yes! Why does anybody leave here?”

  Brock laughed aloud, a soft trill that never failed to melt Sparrow’s heart. “Liros, this is my guide and oldest friend, Sparrow, and you have Walked with Abilard before, I know. Sparrow, this is Liros Cloud-Singer, of my Clan. A Healing Mage, and my first teacher. I’ve been waiting three long years for you two to meet.”

  Liros’ face lit up once he heard her name. “Sparrow! You are the little bird who called back my brother from the clouds. Welcome to K’Valdemar Vale. The whole Clan wants to meet you!”

  “Thank you,” Sparrow replied. His welcome, so open and generous, brought tears to her eyes. “We need sanctuary as well as fellowship, and there is no better place, I know, than K’Valdemar to find both.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  Quickly, Brock filled in the events of the morning, as Sparrow interrupted at intervals with her visual observations. By the time they were done, Liros was no longer smiling. His expression was grave as he waved for them to follow him.

  “Come to the meeting room in the Cloudwalker Clan’s public ekele,” he said. “I want you to tell them everything you just told me. We just got a very different version of events.”

  “You did?” Sparrow blurted. “From where?”

  “The mayor of Longfall.”

  There was silence as that information sank in. Sparrow walked fast to keep up with Liros’ long, loping strides and Abilard’s dignified, high-stepping walk.

  “I would ordinarily welcome you with a great deal more hospitality, a welcome meal. We will make celebrations, certainly. But it seems you have arrived in the midst of an unusual storm. Please come quickly.”

  Their lush, tropical surroundings belied the storm raging in Sparrow’s mind as they hurried along the winding paths, structures rising high overhead on multiple levels built among the trees. They stopped in front of an enormous flowering hedge with red berries interspersed with pink and purple flowers.

  “Come inside,” Liros said.

  “Inside? But I don’t see . . .”

  Before Sparrow could finish her question, a door
appeared between the thick branches. What looked like a manicured hedge was in fact the dome of a large, half-submerged ground structure. And it was huge inside compared to how it looked from the pathway.

  Even Abilard fit through the entry and into the meeting room without difficulty. The meeting hall was filled with scouts and leaders of Brock’s adoptive Cloudwalker clan. Voices filled the scented, slightly smoky air, debating, questioning, exclaiming.

  And in the middle of all of these colorful Clan brothers stood a single villager. Not too tall, not too short, dressed in homespun and tradesman’s boots. She stepped forward to see him more clearly . . . at first glance, he seemed utterly ordinary. Yet, in so many little ways, he didn’t look like a Longfaller at all.

  For one, his boots had not a spot of mud on them. Even brand new boots got muddy once you put them on, especially in a village with no paved roads. And his hands . . . they looked soft, and too clean, and his nails were too long, with not even a speck of grime or grass stain on them.

  Finally, his face. It was full summer, and yet his face was pasty pale, with not even the half-tan that the village menfolk developed under their broad brimmed hats after a long day tending the fields or working in an open-air summer workshop. He looked like a priest or a scrivener, not a villager.

  No way.

  “You’re not Mayor Undor!” Sparrow said.

  The man looked at her, his eyes widening in shock. The hum of voices ceased, and suddenly Sparrow felt as though the man and she were the only two people in the room.

  “You are not the Mayor of Longfall,” she said.

  “Undor is no more,” the man said, but he stumbled over his words, looked confused.

  “In Haven, I got no word that Undor retired. In fact, he was re-elected last year after a record harvest!” she said. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she tasted smoke and ashes in the back of her throat. “What happened to them?”

  The rest of her was shaking too. Whoever this man was pretending to be, he was not of her village. He might know where they had all gone, or what had really happened, but he was not their mayor, not a protector of his people.