Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-102

by Mercedes Lackey

  I fell two stories and landed hard, but when I tried to stand up again, I could. I hadn’t broken anything. Apparently unwilling to trust to fool’s luck as I had, Dromis didn’t jump after me. I staggered away into the night as fast as I was able.

  Luckily, the feebleness and dizziness didn’t last long. They were gone by the time Dromis came to call at my school the next morning.

  As before, he appeared with several of his students tagging along, serving as bodyguards whether they realized it or not. But he consented to leave them loitering in the main training hall while he and I sat at a table in one of the alcoves along the wall. His disciples would still see it if I attempted any violence, and he likely realized I wouldn’t talk honestly about breaking into his house if anyone else was close enough to overhear.

  “How’s your leg?” I asked him.

  “Fine. You didn’t kick me that hard.” He took a breath. “I moved the stone. The City Guards can search my academy from top to bottom. They won’t find a thing.”

  I shrugged. “Even if they did, I couldn’t prove that the thing can be used to cheat at dueling, let alone that you actually have used it that way. Even though I’m sure of it.”

  He frowned. “What exactly is it that you think you know?”

  “The talisman carries a man’s spirit—and his perceptions—into the future. I couldn’t control exactly where I went or what I saw. But you can, either because you know the words of command or just because you’ve practiced. Prior to a duel, you observe exactly how a student’s opponent will behave, and precisely what the pupil does to overcome those tactics. Then you drill your fencer in the proper moves, and everything works out just as you foresaw. Magic gives him an unfair advantage even though no enchantments are active on the field of honor.

  “The only limitation,” I continued, “is that to guarantee victory, you have to seek revelation and provide special instruction for each individual combat. But you’ve minimized that problem by stressing to your charges that formal duels are always to be preferred over spontaneous bloodshed.”

  Dromis scowled. “I truly am a fine swordsman, and a fine teacher, too.”

  “If you say so.”

  “But since I had an edge, why not use it? How else could I achieve preeminence quickly in a city already famous for its fencing masters? You’d have done the same thing in my place.”

  I shook my head. “I’d use your stone or any other trick in war, but never in dueling. The code of the duel is an attempt to bring order and restraint to that which would otherwise be chaotic and bestial, and for that reason, decent men value it.”

  He sneered. “I’ve always heard that Selden is a strong man, but you think like a weak one.”

  “Let’s not debate moral philosophy. We’re not likely to reach an accord. I’m much rather hear how you came by the stone.”

  “All right, why not, if you’re curious. When I was as young as those lads—” he nodded toward his students, “—a new creed arose in my homeland. Given the chance to flourish, it could have changed the world. But corrupt lords and false priests declared our prophet a demon in disguise, and hundreds of idiots believed them. An army marched on us when we were still too few to defend ourselves.”

  I remembered the stories his pupils told. “Then you really did fight on the losing side in a religious war.”

  He glared as if my matter-of-fact way of speaking was an insult to the exaltation and tragedy enshrined in his memory. “I survived the final battle, then returned to the temple of the prophet. The unbelievers had defaced the black stone along with everything else, but it was still a holy relic, and something about it called to me. I decided to carry it with me into exile, and when I touched it, it revealed its power to me.”

  “And you’ve no doubted cheated your way through life ever since.”

  “I’m tired of hearing you use that word. It’s good to know that after we meet two mornings hence, I won’t have to hear it anymore.”

  “Indeed not. You won’t hear anything ever again.”

  Dromis laughed. “I thought you understood, Selden. You can’t win. I’ve already watched our duel. I already know the tactics you’ll employ even if you haven’t yet decided on them yourself, and I know how I’ll defeat them and cut you down. In a very real sense, you’re already lying dead at my feet.”

  I found Marissa in her armory repairing a leather-and-wire-mesh fencing helmet. As she got caught up in my story, she abandoned her task and left the protective mask to lie in pieces on the cluttered worktable before her.

  “I told you we should kill Dromis before the duel,” she said. “Luckily, it’s not too late.”

  “Actually, it is,” I replied. “He’s hiding behind a wall of his students, and he’ll stay there until he comes to keep our appointment.”

  “In that case, go to Lords Baltes and Pivar.”

  “Without proof?”

  “You shouldn’t need it. They owe you. They’re your friends.”

  “They’re also committed to governing Mornedealth in a less arbitrary manner than their predecessors, and that’s a good thing. I won’t ask them to set aside their own rules of law just to save my arse.”

  “Then what? You can’t simply refuse to fight, or people will think you a coward. No maestro or hiresword can afford that.”

  I felt a jab of anger. “Don’t worry about that. Despite everything, I want to duel. I want to beat Dromis at his own rotten game and pay him back for Falnac’s death.” I took a breath. “And even if I didn’t, the dastard has evidently seen that I show up, so perhaps I don’t have a choice. Maybe, somehow, I’d wind up at the designated place and time no matter what.”

  Marissa made a sour face. “That’s so contrary to common sense, it makes my head hurt just to think about it.”

  “Mine too. So why don’t we try thinking like warriors?”

  A dank mist blurred the mausoleums and grave markers, and the dawn was just a luminous smear on a wall of gray cloud. The birds hadn’t yet begun to sing.

  I’d done my best to keep Dromis’ prophecy of doom from affecting my morale. But perhaps the dismal morning helped to dampen my spirits, for as we approached one another, I did indeed have the fey sense that my fate was sealed. That all that was about to happen had, in some ultimate sense, happened already.

  I couldn’t afford to feel like a helpless sleepwalker, so I focused on Dromis’ sneer and Olissimal’s gloating smirk, stoking my hatred for them both. It wasn’t something I would have done ordinarily; I prefer to fight with a cool head. But in this instance, it steadied me.

  We took our places, and then Olissimal said, “We, your friends, urge you to seek a peaceful resolution to your dispute.” I doubted that anyone in the history of swordplay had ever made that traditional plea with such a transparent lack of sincerity.

  “I do not apologize,” Dromis said, “and I know for a fact that my opponent won’t, either. Isn’t that right, Selden?” He grinned at me as though sharing a secret jest.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ll always wonder: Could you simply not accept the truth of your situation, or did your notions of honor oblige you to show up even so? Either way, you die a fool.”

  I looked to Marissa. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “As you wish,” she said, backing away to give Dromis and me room to fight. Shifting his crutches, Olissimal likewise hobbled clear.

  Marissa then lifted a white cloth and whipped it through the air. Dromis and I started to circle one another.

  Fear welled up inside me, and of course, given the life I’d led, it was scarcely the first time. But it was the first time it balked me. For a heartbeat, I couldn’t attack because the craven part of me knew that whatever technique I attempted, Dromis would offer a perfect—and perfectly lethal—response.

  I screamed a battle cry to jolt myself into motion.

  I sprang into the distance, feinted to the chest, and cut to the head. Dromis ducked under the stroke and thrust at m
y torso as he’d surely watched himself do while using the power of the stone.

  It was a nasty counterattack, but fortunately, I was ready for it. I deflected it with a heavy beat-parry that weakened his grip on his hilt, then slashed at his face.

  Dromis had boasted he was a good swordsman, and it was so. He didn’t drop his weapon, and he managed to jump back and evade my cut. But his eyes were wide with shock. Whereas I wanted to laugh, because from this moment forward, nothing about our encounter was predestined. Now it was just another sword fight.

  Having experienced the turbulent power of the stone, I’d conjectured that, while Dromis had learned to use it, the process wasn’t easy for him. For after all, he was a warrior, not a mystic, and, moreover, the artifact was damaged.

  And if Dromis had to struggle mightily to swim through the time currents in the same way I had, then it stood to reason that he couldn’t navigate to a scene he wanted to witness with any extraordinary precision. He had to flounder about until he happened across it, then fight to hold his position long enough to obtain a serviceable glimpse.

  So I’d called in the favor owed me by the players of the Azure Swan Theater. On the previous morning, they, Marissa, and I had thrice staged a mock duel, with actors made up to resemble Dromis, a band of his students, and Olissimal. Each time I attacked with a feint to the chest and a cut to the head, and each time my adversary dispatched me with a stab to the body. His sword was blunt, but still capable of bursting the bladder of pig’s blood concealed inside my doublet.

  The idea was for Dromis’s spirit, adrift in time, to observe one of the fraudulent duels and mistake it for the real one, and I admit, I’ve hatched schemes that inspired greater confidence. Even if all my unsubstantiated guesses were correct, there was still one chance in four that my foe had watched the actual combat. But now I knew the trick had worked.

  We traded attacks, neither scoring as of yet. But as the moments passed, I felt more and more in control of the action, and he had to give ground repeatedly.

  I judged that if I could stop him retreating, I could finish him, and there was a marble tomb, crowned with a statue of a dove lighting on the hand of a goddess, several paces behind him. I started the process of backing him up against it.

  Then Dromis used the thumb of his off hand to rotate the gold ring on his middle finger, perhaps another keepsake he’d carried away from his cult’s desecrated temple. The medallion I wore next to my skin turned icy cold, warning me of hostile magic. Unfortunately, the warning was redundant. I was able to guess that my opponent had cast a curse stored in a talisman from the way the world suddenly went black.

  Acting by reflex, I parried, and steel rang as I stopped Dromis’ sword. I riposted, and felt my blade cleave flesh and stick there. When Dromis fell, his weight dragged it toward the ground.

  My feat was lucky, but not, I think, pure luck. Throughout the duel, I’d studied Dromis’ fighting style and learned his favorite attack. Thus, even blind, I was able to defend. And when our blades met, it gave me a sense of his position. That made it possible to land a cut.

  Much to my relief, my eyesight returned a moment after Dromis dropped. Blinking away a certain residual cloudiness, I checked to make sure he was dead, then pivoted to find Olissimal. I wanted to witness his dismay at his champion’s demise.

  But in that regard, I was disappointed. Supported by his crutches, Olissimal stood shivering with his lips parted and his eyes half closed, a picture of perverse delight. He didn’t really care who’d died a bloody death, only that someone had.

  I suppose no moment is perfect. But, Olissimal’s bliss notwithstanding, this one came close, and tasted sweeter still when Marissa strode up to me, a rare smile of genuine admiration on her face. “Nicely done,” she said.

  “You have no idea,” I answered.

  “So what happens now? We find the black stone and try to use it to prove Dromis’ duelists cheated?”

  “No, because they didn’t. Not knowingly. They didn’t understand Dromis used sorcery to determine how they should fight. They just thought he was a brilliant teacher.”

  “Then I guess we’re done. We can get down to the serious business of using the stone to pick winning horses.”

  I was reasonably certain she was joking. But since coming to Mornedealth, I’d lost a ridiculous amount of coin wagering in the hippodrome, and I confess that, just for an instant, I was tempted.

  A Dream Deferred

  by Kristin M. Schwengel

  Kristin Schwengel’s work has appeared in the anthologies

  Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar

  ,

  Legends: Tales from the Eternal Archives

  , and

  Knight Fantastic

  , among others. She and her husband live near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she has a full-time job that, as she puts it, “pays the bills” and allows her to pursue other interests part-time, including massage therapy, gourmet cooking, and, of course, writing.

  On silent feet, Laeka padded through the darkened house. Her steps wove from one side of the entrance hall to the other, her feet remembering from years of habit where each squeaky board was even when her mind had not yet fully awakened. She held her oldest boots in her hand, and her well-worn clothing barely rustled with her movements. A few hushed words with the guard at the front door, and she was outside, sitting on the front stair to pull on her boots before she stepped into the dew-damp grass.

  As always, her first stop of the morning was the private corral, where the mares that were the foundation of her breeding line moved at their choice between the open outdoors and the large loose-box in the stable. Tonight the mares had slept outdoors, and soft whickers greeted her approach. She slipped the latch and walked into the corral, and the mares crowded around her, lipping at her hair and clothing, bumping their heads affectionately against her. Laeka spent a moment with each mare, cupping the wide heads in her hands and whispering to them in the Shin’a’in language that she had learned for them.

  These mares were her pride, the culmination of breeding that had started with the few mares sold to her so many years ago by the Clan Liha’irden at the Shin’a’in Horse-fairs. Though she had been young, she had taken the advice of the hawk-faced Clanswoman Tarma shena Tale’sedrin, and Liha’irden had made good on the Clanswoman’s promise to her. Each year, they had made sure she had the pick of what they were selling, and even a few that they would never sell to any but her, once they had seen that she valued their horses as highly as they deserved.

  False dawn was starting its approach when Laeka left the corral. Taking a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, she turned toward the woods with anticipation. Her step lightened as she walked among the trees, letting the mood of the quiet forest settle into her. Her family would doubtless not approve of these early walks, but then she had never feared the woods as others did. After all, her corner of the Pelagiris was far from the wild and strange places where unknown creatures made their homes. A smile lifted one corner of her mouth, softening the deep creases formed by wind and wear. At my age, she thought, I think I’ve earned the right to walk where I will.

  A scratching, dragging noise in the brush caught her attention, and she held herself in midstride, turning her head by slow degrees to locate the sound. As she listened, her mind sorted out the pieces of noise. An animal, large and probably injured. Laeka moved forward, keeping her own steps as silent as she could, ignoring the twinge in her right leg as she placed her feet with care.

  The dragging steps ceased, and Laeka heard the soft thud of a body falling to the earth, followed by rasping, panting breaths. Shifting her direction to the right, she crept forward until she stood concealed by a great tree on the edge of a clearing. Taking shallow, quiet breaths, she prepared to crane her head behind one of the branches to see what lay in the clearing.

  :I am no threat to you. I need your help.: Laeka froze, her eyes darting around her, but she saw nothing.

  :Please.:
The voice was fainter now, and Laeka realized that she had only heard it inside her head. She peered around the tree into the clearing. The shaggy animal slumped on the bracken, pain-shadowed eyes focused on hers, was larger than any wolf she had ever seen, despite the similar shape of its head. She guessed that it would stand as tall as her waist, if not more.

  :Please.: The head sagged down, resting on two great paws. Laeka read the pain and exhaustion in both the voice and the body as it lay, its limbs crumpled beneath it. Though the structure of the body looked more feline than canine, there was no grace or ease in its movements now.

  “I did not realize that kyree dwelled so close to this edge of the forest,” she said, keeping her voice quiet and stepping into the clearing.

  :Not so very close,: the kyree responded. :But you were still closer than the nearest Vale.:

  “What brings you to me instead, and in such a state?” She moved over to the wounded creature, kneeling down in the dead leaves beside it.

  :My cubs.: Laeka nodded. The voice had somehow felt female. :Bandits found our cave, stole them, and left me for dead. They plan to sell my cubs, to make a handsome profit.: Despite the kyree’s exhaustion, her helpless fury rang in her mind-voice.

  “They would need to travel far, I think, to find someone fool enough to buy them.” Although it would bring great prestige to have a kyree for a pet, to do so would surely incur the anger of the Tayledras, who looked on themselves as guardians and protectors of the creatures of the Pelagiris. And the Hawkbrothers were not known for kindness to abusers of those they protected, most especially the sentient races like the kyree.

  :Not so far as you might think. The Blood Mages are always wandering, seeking power to steal.:

  Laeka’s hand closed into a fist on her thigh. Yes, there were always those who would seek to take advantage of the weak, innocent, or powerless. Long, long ago, she had dreamed of taking up the sword to battle in defense of the weaker kind. She had still been young when she had learned from the Tale’sedrin Clanswoman what the reality of that life would have been and had realized that she had not the temperament for the task. It seemed that the dream, however, had slumbered on in her heart. “So, what can a half-dead kyree and an old horse trainer do against a troop of bandits?”