:Newer than the morning,: he said with a sudden wry twist. :Here, get on my back. Show me where they went.:
Her eyes went wide. "I? Ride a Companion?"
For answer he folded his long legs and knelt, pressing lightly against her, so that she had to swing her leg over his back and cling to his mane. He rose as smoothly as he could. She squeaked a little in alarm, but the fear was fading fast before incredulous delight.
Her weight was negligible, and she balanced well enough once he was upright. She knew how to ride. She guided him as if he had been a horse-odd sensation to be on the receiving end of it.
His mind was racing down too many tracks at once. He focused in on two: the child's guidance, and the news that she had given him. Vera and Terrell? If he could put aside the stab of pure, green, and completely unreasonable jealousy, he could see it, even force himself to approve of it. Terrell was not too young but not too old, his family connections were impeccable, and much more to the point, Mathias had known him to be an honorable man. He was both warrior and mage, and equally accomplished in both.
He had been loyal to Vera during Dashant's war; he had served her well. He would make a more than adequate Consort.
Mathias' young rider guided him out of the Palace and into the city. She held on tighter there, tensing when people stared. He soothed her as he could, and thought calm at her. Her gratitude was like a warm hand slipping into his.
The crowds of the city made their own joyous mortal noise, but he heard that other sound beneath, the baying that would pursue him until he was caught and made to pay for what he had done. He was tiring, a little; even the body of a Grove-born Companion was mortal, and its strength was finite. He slowed his pace a fraction. He was almost through the city. The gate was ahead, and open country beyond it.
"They can't be far," said the child on his back. "They only left a little while ago."
He resisted the urge to quicken his stride. The sun shone blandly down upon him. The road was level underfoot, until at his rider's urging he turned to follow a narrower track.
This had been Vera's favorite way when she was younger. It led up a long hillside to a stretch of wood, where there was fine hunting in autumn, and where in spring the ladies liked to go a-Maying. It was a pleasant ride on a warm afternoon, ending in a little lake beyond the wood, where a rider could stop to rest and water her horse, and swim if she were minded.
He left the child by the road, with such blessing on her as he had to give, and a word of warding that would bring her back safe to Haven. She did not want to be left behind. There was no time to explain; he bucked her off as gently as he could, pausing to see that she was unharmed, before he went on alone.
As he ran through the wood, his nostrils twitched. That scent beneath the scents of living greenery-he knew it from another life. In this body the senses were keener; the scent was stronger. It was cold, like the breath of graves, and all around it was woven the sick-sweet stench of death.
Dashant.
Mathias could not hold himself in. Not now. Vera was ahead, dismounted by the lake. He could see her in his mind's eye, walking along the shore, hand-in-hand with a tall, dark-haired young man. Her face had grown somber since Mathias had died, but it was as beautiful as ever. Lord Terrell bent his head to hear what she said. His smile was so warm, his glance so tender, that Mathias need have no doubt of it: this man loved this woman with all his heart.
Behind them, unseen and unnoticed, the waters of the lake had begun to stir. Darkness was rising.
The spell was keyed to this place, where her heart was. It would set hooks in her soul and draw her down into itself, and swallow her.
His lungs were burning. His legs were beyond pain. And still there was the last ascent to face, and the steep twisting track down to the lake. He would never come there in time. The thing in the lake, Dashant's conjuring, would rise and devour her.
Deep within, he found a last surge of strength. He sprang to the top of the ridge and skidded down the track to the lake. Its waters were heaving. The dark thing was close to the surface. The two on the shore were still oblivious, lost in one another.
There should have been an escort. Mathias could detect no sign of them. It was eerily like the battle in which he had died: the same cloud of deception, and the same utter abandonment.
This time Vera was warded. To his eyes it was like armor of light. But even that would no be proof against what rose to take her. Dashant had awakened something very, very old and very, very black. It loathed the light; living flesh, to it, was abomination.
The wards warned her-too damnably late. She turned in her lover's arms. Her eyes went wide.
It was like a towering wave. It was darkness absolute. It reached for her.
She did not cower-not Vera. Her only weapon was a dagger, but she drew it and set herself between the darkness and her consort. He was a fraction slower to understand, but his wits were quick enough once he saw what fell upon them. He summoned up a spell, a bolt of light against the dark.
It guttered and went out like a candle in a whirlwind, nearly taking Terrell with it. The darkness took no notice of him at all.
Mathias' whole heart and soul screamed at him to leap between his lady and the thing that would destroy her. But it only had volition through the one who commanded it. Dashant was near-he had to be.
Power of this magnitude needed a mage's fullest strength and focus.
There. On the far side of the lake, in a ruin from the older days. Legend had it that had been a sorcerer's tower during the Mage Wars. Mathias in this incarnation knew that for truth. Dashant was drawing up the dregs of power that had gathered there, feeding his own strength.
He had paid a high price for his ambition. He was skeletally gaunt; his face was twisted with scars.
One hand was a claw. His own spellmongering had done it to him, but in the darkness of his bartered soul, he held Vera to blame.
Mathias had no magic to match his, and next to no strength. He had only the weight of his body, driven at the speed of desperation. He hurtled over the broken wall.
There were wards, protections. His flesh charred and crackled at the touch of them. He ignored the pain, ignored the barriers, ignored the slow and excruciating dissolution of his mortal substance. He fell on Dashant.
Bones snapped like dry sticks. His own, the sorcerer's-it did not matter. Dashant screamed.
Mathias had no breath left for such a thing. Silver hooves battered the writhing body. His nostrils filled with the iron scent of blood.
On the edge of awareness, he knew that the darkness had collapsed upon itself. Terrell drove it back with a barrage of fire-spells.
This world would believe that Terrell had saved his queen from Dashant's last assault. That was fitting. She would never know who had broken the laws of heaven for her-would never suffer that guilt.
Mathias' knees buckled. He was dying, again. He made certain that when he fell, he crushed the sorcerer's remains beneath him.
The last of his sight saw the blue of the mortal sky, and the brightness of the sun, and a pack of pale gleaming shapes drawing in. The baying of hounds was painfully loud. They were almost upon him.
He let go. The world whirled away, sky and sun and Companions, all of it-even the hounds of heaven.
* * *
He knelt on grass that never faded, under a sun that never set. His form was a man's again. He was rather surprised to feel no pain; no broken bones, no bruises.
Not that it would have mattered if he had. His heart was as light as air. The grief was gone from it.
He knew, at last, the peace of this blessed country.
He knew also that he had no right to any such thing. Three judges stood over him. They seemed to be Companions: white horse-shapes, supernally beautiful. Their eyes were not blue but dark, like the night full of stars.
Their hounds lay at their feet, panting like mortal dogs. None seemed to bear him any malice for outrunning them. He was caught, af
ter all. He had come to face his judgment.
"Whatever you do to me," he said to his judges, "let it be enough. No one else should pay for what I've done."
"No?" said the judge in the center, who was perhaps the chief of them. Its eyes flickered toward one who stood not far from Mathias: the great one, now much shrunken and its light greatly dimmed. It could have been a mortal horse, standing with head low, ears slack as if exhausted.
His heart went out to it. He rounded on the judges. "If that one has any guilt, let it be on my head.
Let me pay for whatever sins it has committed."
"You would pay a doubled and trebled price?" the judge asked him. "Even if that price should be the dissolution of your very self?"
"Even so," Mathias said without hesitation.
The judge stood motionless. There was no breath here, and no heartbeat to mark the passage of time; only the stillness of eternity. Mathias existed in it in perfect peace, without fear, without apprehension. Whatever sentence was laid on him, he would accept it. He had done what he was set in the world to do. The rest, as the singers sang, was silence.
After a moment or an eon, the judge spoke. "All things are possible under the eyes of heaven.
What you did, you were permitted to do by the One who is above the gods; and you did it for love of another. That mitigates your sentence. Yet sentence there must be, for you broke the laws that divide mortal from immortal, and did violence to the barriers between life and death."
Mathias bowed his head. "That is true," he murmured.
"You did it knowingly," said the judge, "and in full knowledge of the consequences. Therefore we grant you justice. Since the world of the flesh is so dear to you, we condemn you to return, and to live life after life in human form, each time anew, each time without memory of the life before-save only once in each life, in utmost extremity, when you will know what you are and why you have come into that life.
And because you would have surrendered your very soul for the Queen and the Kingdom of Valdemar, we charge you to serve it forever, in life after life, until with the passing of time you shall have atoned for your transgression."
Mathias sank down under the weight of that sentence, on his face in the undying grass. And yet his heart was incorrigibly light. To live for her-to live for Valdemar. He dared to speak, though it might damn him even further. "And she? Will I stand beside her in life after life?"
"In every life," said the judge, "you two shall be bound. You shall never have her as mate or consort, nor shall your love ever be requited."
"But we will be together," Mathias said. "That is enough."
The judge was silent.
Mathias did not care what any creature or Power might think. It truly was enough. His soul knew it, deep within itself, where joy was rising like a lark in the morning.
"Go," said that dreadful and merciful judge. "Live out your sentence, man of Valdemar. Serve it forever as you served it in these lives of yours, both that to which you were entitled and that which you stole in her name."
Mathias rose. He kept his head bowed in respect, but he could not keep the smile from his lips.
Maybe the judge saw it. If that was so, it said nothing-and that was divine mercy.
Already Mathias felt the pull of the living world. It drew him down out of the land of peace. It enfolded him in a scrap of flesh, the barest beginnings of a human being. Memory was too expansive a thing for this mote in eternity. All that was left was a spark of joy. It would grow as he grew, and fill him always, however dark the world about him.
The Queen of Valdemar bent over the cradle in which her son lay burbling softly to himself. She smiled-she could not help it; there was something so light about him, so irresistibly joyous. "Look," she said to her consort. "his eyes are changing color already. I think they'll be green."
Lord Terrell took her hand and kissed it. "Have you decided yet what you'll call him?"
She did not answer at once. Even as besotted with new motherhood as she was, she knew that this was an ordinary enough baby; he ate, slept, and filled his diaper as monotonously as any other of his kind. And yet sometimes she could have sworn that someone she knew and had loved before was watching her out of those blurred infant eyes.
She held her finger in front of them. His hand reached up to clasp it. Yes, those eyes would be green. "Mathias," she said. "His name is Mathias."
Terrell shot her an odd look, but he did not object. Not for the first time, Vera was glad of her choice of consort. She stood with him, looking down at this new Mathias, and knew in her heart that she had chosen the name well. And maybe...who knew? Maybe it was her dearest friend come back again, to be Heir and eventual King of Valdemar.
That was justice, she thought, and mercy, too. It seemed that he agreed. The nurses all said that he was much too young to smile, but a smile that certainly was, curving his lips as he slid contentedly into sleep.
BROCK
by Tanya Huff
Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario with her partner, six cats, and a chihuahua who refuses to acknowledge her existence. Her latest book, out for DAW in May of 2003, was the third in the Keeper Chronicles called Long Hot Summoning and she's currently working on the first of three books spinning the character Tony off from her Blood series (DAW spring 2004). In her spare time she gardens and complains about the weather.
"Id's just a code."
Trying not to smile at the same protest he'd heard for the last two days, Jors set the empty mug on a small table. "Healer Lorrin says it's more, Isabel. She says you're spending the next two days in bed."
The older Herald tried to snort, but her nose had filled past the point it was possible, and she had to settle for an avalanche of coughing instead. "She cud heal me," she muttered when she could finally breathe again.
"She seems to think that a couple of days in bed and a couple of hundred cups of tea will heal you just fine."
"Gibbing children their Greens..."
That was half a protest at best and, as Jors watched, Isabel's eyes closed, the lines exhaustion had etched around them beginning to ease. Leaning forward, he blew out the lamp, then quietly slipped from the room.
"Oh, she's sick," the Healer assured him, exasperation edging her voice. "What could have possessed her to ride courier at her age, at this time of the year? Yes, the package and information she brought from the Healer's Collegium will save lives this winter, but surely there had to have been younger Heralds around to deliver it?"
Jors opened his mouth to answer.
Lorrin gave him no chance. "If she hadn't run into your riding sector, she might not have made it this far. She needs rest and I'm keeping her in bed until I think she's had enough of it."
Jors didn't argue. He wouldn't have minded an actual conversation-Lorrin was young and pretty-but unfortunately, she seemed too determined to run this new House of Healing the way she felt a House of Healing should be run to waste time in dalliance with the healthy.
* * *
"Have you good as new. You see. Good as new. Soft and clean."
Jors stopped just inside the stable door and stared in astonishment at the young man grooming his Companion. The stubby fingers that held the brush, the bulky body, the round face, angled eyes, and full mouth told the Herald that this unexpected groom was one of those the country people called Moonlings. He wore patched homespun; the pants too large, the shirt too small, both washed out to a grimy gray. His boots had seen at least one other pair of feet.
He'd already groomed the chirras and Isabel's Companion, Calida-the sleeping mare all but glowed in the dim stable light.
:Gervis?:
:His name is Brock.: The stallion's mental voice sounded sleepy and sated. :Can we take him with us?:
:No. And how do you know what his name is?:
:He talks to us and he knows exactly-oh, yes-where to rub.: Companions were not in the habit of allowing themselves to be groomed by other than Heralds' hands. Jors found it ha
rd to believe that they'd not only allowed Brock's ministrations but were actually reveling in them. He stepped forward and, at the sound of his footfall, Brock turned.
His face broke into a broad smile radiating welcome. Arms spread, he rushed at the Herald and wrapped him in a tight hug. Staring up at Jors, their faces barely inches apart, he joyfully repeated "Brother Herald!" over and over while a large gray dog leaped around them barking.
:Gervis?:
:The dog's name is Rock. He's harmless.:
:Glad to hear that.:
"Brock...I can't breathe ..."
"Sorry! Sorry." Releasing him so quickly Jors stumbled and had to grab the edge of a hay rack, Brock shuffled back, still smiling. "Sorry. I brushed." One short-fingered hand gestured back at the Companions. "Good as new. Soft and clean."
"You did a very good job." Jors stepped around the dog, now lying panting on the floor and ran his fingers down Gervis' side. There wasn't a bit of straw, a speck of dust, a hair out of place on either Companion.
:Better than very good,: Gervis sighed.
Jors smiled and repeated the compliment. :Did you say thank you, you fuzzy hedonist?:
In answer, the Companion stretched out his neck and gently nuzzled Brock's cheek, receiving a loud, smacking kiss in return.
"Okay. We go now." Brock bent and picked a ragged, gray sweater out of the straw and wrestled it over his head. "We go now," he repeated, placing both hands in the small of Jors' back and pushing him toward the stable door. "Or we come late and Mister Mayor is mad and yells."
"Late for...?"
:The petitions.: Gervis' mental voice sounded more than a little amused and Jors remembered he'd intended to merely look in on the Companions on his way to the town hall.
Heading out into the square, he realized Brock was trotting to keep up, and he shortened his stride. "Does the mayor yell a lot?"
"Yes. A lot."
"Do you know why?"
Brock sighed deeply, one hand dropping to fondle the ears of the dog walking beside him. "Mister Mayor wears the town," he said very seriously after a moment. "The town swings heavy heavy."
Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-100 Page 17
