Darrian took a longer path, finding a gentler slope, so they reached the trail-hut at the same time.
Since Jordwen was manifestly unable to dismount, it was Elidor who pushed open the door.
Two carriage-horses stood placidly in one corner, gazing at him incuriously. In the other, sitting on a bench, was a large man in a heavy driving cloak, and beside him, a small child of perhaps four or five, her face red and swollen with tears.
"Are you with the rescue party?" the man demanded truculently. "It's about time-I've been cooped up with this squalling brat for hours!"
"And you are?" Elidor asked.
"Meachum, job-coachman, hired to deliver Mistress Vonarre to the Library at Talastyre, and I've had a time of it, I tell you-first one of the horses went lame, then the coach lost a wheel, and then some fool of a Herald came along and made matters worse-"
You haven't had as bad a time as Mistress Vonarre or that 'fool of a Herald' has had.
Ignoring the man, he went over to the girl and knelt before her.
"Hello, Sweetheart, are you Mistress Vonarre?"
She looked at him, blue eyes made enormous with tears, and nodded, lip trembling.
"I'm Elidor. I live at the Library. There are a lot of little girls there who want to be your friend. I'll be your friend, too. And right now, there's a Herald outside. I bet he'll even let you say hello to his Companion, Darrian. Would you like that? And then we'll go to Talastyre."
"What about the rescue party?" Meachum demanded.
"There is no rescue party," Elidor said, over his shoulder, his attention focused on the little girl.
"Got no parents," Vonarre said, hiccupping on a sob. "And it's cold."
"Well, it won't be cold soon," Elidor said. "And do you know what? I haven't got any parents either. But there are wonderful things at the Library. Books with beautiful pictures all full of stories. I'll show you. Now come on." He scooped her up into his arms and carried her outside.
Her eyes widened when she saw Darrian again, and she reached out to touch him. Though he'd been standoffish with Elidor, Darrian lowered his muzzle into her hand and allowed her to stroke him.
She seemed to forget most of her troubles at the sight of the Companion, and Elidor could understand why. They were wonderful, magical creatures.
But he didn't want one. He wanted the life he had. He was proud of the life he had.
He looked up at Jordwen. The Herald smiled, as if he could guess most of Elidor's thoughts. "It's not for everyone, you know," Jordwen said softly.
"I do. Now. Is that why Darrian came for me?" In a different way than a Companion would come for his Chosen, but one that had made just as much of a difference to Elidor.
"Could be. He had to get someone before I froze to death, and oddly enough, not just anyone will go off with one of us. And I assume you sent a message to the Library?"
"Sure. It might take a while. It's Midwinter."
"Ah. You lose track of things on the road. Well, give her here. We'd best go and meet them."
"Sweetheart, how would you like to be able to tell your children you once rode a real live Companion?" Elidor asked. "This is Herald Jordwen. Jordwen, here is Mistress Vonarre."
"I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress Vonarre," Jordwen said, in his most courtly tones. No one would have guessed that the man was freezing and injured. Elidor handed Vonarre up to him, then went back into the shelter. As he did, he heard the faint jingle of silver bells as Darrian started down the road at a slow walk.
"Come if you're coming," Elidor said with determined cheerfulness to the unpleasant coachman as he gathered up the horse's bridle-reins. "It's a long walk to town, and better with company."
"You can't expect me to walk?" the man said in astonishment. "It's freezing out there, and we're miles from town! If that fool of a Herald hadn't put my coach over the cliff, we could ride in comfort. I'll sue the College for damages, you see if I don't!"
Sharp words rose to Elidor's tongue, but he didn't say them. If Jordwen could be kind and forgiving to a journeyman scribe while lying cold and injured, Elidor could certainly keep his temper with a blustering fool.
"I'm sorry. Perhaps you can ride one of the horses. They should be sending someone to look for us, but if they don't, at least we'll reach Talastyre by dark."
* * *
They had gone less than half a mile when they were met by the Master Librarian's own coach and a dozen outriders, and Elidor, Jordwen, Vonarre, and Meachum finished the journey safe and warm.
* * *
Several of the outriders went on ahead, so everything was waiting for them when they reached the city gates. Suddenly shy, Elidor slipped away in the confusion, before anyone could think to speak to him, and hurried to his rooms.
As one of the journeymen, he had a semi-private room of his own, and Caleanth was home with his family at Festival time. It was odd to think, now, that he had grudged his fellow Journeyman that, when he had all of Talastyre for his own, as much his kingdom as any prince's.
No one is too young to be a fool-or too old, either! he thought, thinking of Meachum. But surely the coachman's greatest crime had been only that he had been thinking too much of his own troubles-he had gone quite satisfyingly white when the outriders from the Library had lifted Jordwen into the carriage to finish out the journey, his leg in a makeshift brace and bandage, and there had been no more talk of
'foolish Heralds.'
He stood for a while, gazing out the window at the buildings of the Library and Scriptorium, its stone dark silver in the winter twilight. Imagine being on the road so many days you didn't know it was Midwinter, and then having to spend most of the Festival pinned beneath a broken coach, only to be half-rescued by a wet-eared journeyman with a dream-stuffed head! Elidor smiled ruefully at the thought, then went to the chest at the foot of his bed, opened it, and withdrew his oldest and longest-prized possession.
The white paint was worn away in spots, showing the wood beneath, but the tiny blue glass eyes were still as bright, as were the tiny beads that stood in for the silver bells on the painted harness of the carved wooden Companion. He kissed the small wooden toy gently on the forehead, saying goodbye to a dream that had served him well, then tucked the toy into a pocket in his cloak and went to do something he should have done long ago.
He walked across the quadrangle to the Infirmary. The Herald would be in the hands of the Healers, of course, but Mistress Infirmerer was a reliable source of all gossip at the Library, and he hoped to find where little Vonarre had been taken.
But to his surprise, the first person he encountered upon entering the Infirmary precincts was the Mistress of Girls, Lady Kendra. As he lingered in an outer room, uncertain of how far to go exploring, she came through a doorway and advanced upon him, heavy skirts swishing.
"So here is our hero," she said, keeping her voice low.
Elidor ducked his head, feeling awkward. It was one thing to do what was needed, he realized, and quite another to hear about it later. "I came to see Mistress Vonarre," he said.
Lady Kendra's expression softened. "Poor mite! To come such a long way, and at this time of year, and sent like a parcel of old clothes to the ragman, her that wasn't to come until a year spring-you may be sure that yon coachman will have a better care for the next child he must bring such a distance, and a pox upon him!" Lady Kendra's eyes flashed, and she took a deep breath. "But a hot bath and a bowl of soup mends much, and I will sit with her until she sleeps. She will soon settle in. Tomorrow we will send someone to the wreck to bring back her things, and the letter that will undoubtedly explain all."
From her tone, it was clear the Mistress of Girls doubted the explanation would satisfy her.
"I can go with them. I know where it is," Elidor said. "But I've brought her a present. It's Midwinter. Can I give it to her? I'll stay with her, if you like."
Lady Kendra looked surprised, but the expression passed so quickly that Elidor wasn't quite s
ure he'd seen it. "Well, then. Do. But mind she drinks her milk. There's a sleeping posset in it."
"I will," Elidor promised.
He went through the door the Mistress of Girls indicated. There was a table with a small lamp burning on it, and a wooden cup beside it. Beside the bed that took up most of the space in the room was a wooden stool. Vonarre was sitting up in bed. She had been scrubbed, and her hair brushed out, and dressed in a thick flannel nightshirt, just as any traveler whose things had been lost might be. Elidor loosened his cloak and sat down beside her bed. She smiled when she saw him, hopefully, as if-just perhaps-the world was not terrible after all.
The books he'd read spoke of breaking hearts, and of the pain they caused, and its curious joy, but in all their stories, never once had Elidor read of the comforting pain of a heart that mends, though he knew he felt it now. Thank you, Jordwen. Thank you, Darrian. He reached into his cloak.
"I've brought you a Midwinter present," he said, offering the carved Companion to the child. "This was mine when I was little. I think you'll like it."
"His name is Darrian," Vonarre said firmly, clutching the wooden horse against her chest.
"Shall I tell you a story?" Elidor said. He picked up the wooden mug and held it out. "Drink your milk and I will. Once, long ago-a long, long, time ago, there was a Companion named Darrian, who was the partner of a Herald named Vonarre..."
SUN IN GLORY
by Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels, including the best-selling Heralds of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator.
Sunset was long past; the light in his study came from the lanterns high on the wall behind him. The floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window on the other side of the room was a dark panel spiderwebbed with lead channels. It formed a somber backdrop behind the two men seated across from Herald Alberich. The Weaponmaster to the Trainees of all three Collegia at Haven in the Kingdom of Valdemar coughed to punctuate the silence in his quarters. He regarded his second visitor, who was ensconced in one of his austere, but comfortable, wooden chairs, with a skeptical gaze.
His first visitor he knew very well, dressed in his robes of office, saffron and cream; mild-mannered, balding Gerichen, the chief Priest of Vkandis Sunlord here in Haven. Not that anyone knew Gerichen's temple, prudently called only "the Temple of the Lord of Light"
was of Vkandis Sunlord, at least not unless you were a Karsite exile...
Of which there were a surprising number in Valdemar-surprising, at least, to Alberich even now.
Gerichen had been born here, but most of his fellowship had not been, and Karse did not easily let loose its children, even if all it wanted of them was to reduce them to ashes.
Yet, year by year, season by season, for decades it seemed, Karse's children had been, slipping over the Border into Valdemar, beating down their fear of the "Demon-lovers"
because real death bayed hot at their heels and the possibility of demons seemed preferable to the certainty of the Fires of Purification. Some couldn't bear the fear of the things that the Priest-Mages (in the name of the god, of course) sent to howl about their doors of a night. Some came because the Red-robes had taken, or had threatened to take, a child or spouse-either to absorb into the priesthood or to burn as a proto-witch. And amazingly enough to Alberich, some of them came because he had dared to, so many years ago.
Alberich had met Gerichen longer ago than he cared to think about, when he was first a Herald-Trainee and Gerichen a mere Novice. Both of them were older than they liked to admit, except over a drink, in front of a cozy fire, late of an evening. Gerichen was one of a very small company of folk who had supported Alberich's presence in Valdemar from the very beginning.
The other visitor, sitting beneath the left eye of the stained-glass image of Vkandis as a Sun In Glory that formed the outer wall of Alberich's study, was someone that Alberich knew not at all, though he knew far more about this fellow than the man probably suspected.
He was here at Gerichen's request. He was also here, if not illegally, certainly covertly, for he was a Priest-Mage of Vkandis Sunlord in Karse. There had not been one of those on Valdemaran soil in centuries.
There had not been one on Valdemaran soil as anything other than an invader in far longer.
Karse-sworn enemy of Valdemar for so long that very few even knew it had once been a peaceful neighbor, had been Alberich's home. Karse was ruled, in fact if not in name, by a theocracy who called the Heralds "Demons" and were pledged to eradicate them. And of that theocracy, the ruling priests, the Priest-Mages and the priests who had clawed their way up through the ranks, were the true aristocracy of Karse, answerable only to one authority, the Son of the Sun.
Who-until very recently, at least-had called Alberich himself "The Great Traitor" for not only deserting his post as captain of a company of Vkandis' Holy Army, but for turning witch and joining the ranks of the Demon-Riders of Valdemar. And worse; rising to a position of such trust that Witch-Queen Selenay counted him among her most valued advisers.
The Priest-Mages were not only the Voices of Vkandis; they had the power to summon and control demons themselves-not that they called such creatures "demons," not even among themselves, preferring to refer to them as the "Dark Servants" or "Vkandis' Furies."
All in Vkandis' name, of course, or so they said. All at the behest of Vkandis Himself, or so they claimed.
One of those Voices had condemned Alberich to death by burning, and all because he'd had the temerity to make use of a "witch-power" and save the inhabitants of a Karsite Border village from certain slaughter by a band of outlaws. Never mind that he'd had no more control over that so-called "witch-power" than he had over a raging storm, had never asked for that power, and would have given it up without a moment of hesitation.
But the current Son of the Sun-the newly chosen Son of the Sun-was not of the same stamp as all of those who had preceded her. And the Voice that sat beneath Vkandis' left eye was not at all like the arrogant, cold priest who had pronounced sentence on Alberich that day. He was young, surprisingly so. It would hardly be politic for him to be clad in the red robes of his office here in the heart of a land that was his enemy's, but in ordinary clothing that would not disgrace a moderately prosperous merchant, he had an aura of calm authority that set him apart, even from Gerichen. He was short, stocky, clean-shaven; his white-blond hair was as close-cropped as that of all Sun-priests, with keen eyes as blue as those of any Companion set in a face whose planes might have been cut by a chisel. And yet-not cold, that face; alive and curiously accepting. Beside Alberich, on the other side of the fireplace, sat Herald-Chronicler Myste. She regarded the two priests with a gaze as penetrating as that of the visitors, and perhaps more uncanny, at least to the stranger, since her hazel eyes looked at him through a pair of round glass lenses that magnified what was behind them, giving her an owllike stare. Myste was the official historian of Herald's Collegium, the Herald-Chronicler, and had been since she finished her internship. She had a facility with words that would have suited her to the job had she not had other handicaps that kept her out of the Field.
Myste had been as odd a Herald, in her way, as Alberich. She had always, from the moment she arrived, been shockingly short-sighted, and had never been assigned to Field work on account of it-not the best notion to put someone in the Field whose precious glass goggles could be lost or broken, rendering her the next thing to blind. Perhaps that was why she had always been Alberich's friend. "When you can't see what people are like on the outside," she'd once said in her blunt manner, "you stop even considering appearances and concentrate on everything else."
That was, among other reasons, why Myste was here tonight.
Alberich coughed again. "And exactly it is to what that I owe the honor of your presence?" he asked, stressing the word "honor" in such a way that implied it was anything but. He spoke Valdemaran, not Karsite.
/> The stranger cast a mild glance at Myste. "Could one ask why the lady is present?" he replied-in Karsite, not Valdemaran.
"I am the Herald-Chronicler, and I am here to record this meeting, at the request of Herald Alberich," Myste said for herself-in flawless Karsite, not Valdemaran. She'd learned it from Alberich, of course, but she owed her accent to her own exacting ear for languages.
To Alberich's surprise, the stranger smiled. "Excellent," he said, with every appearance of approval, "Would it be too much to ask for a copy for myself-and to conduct this discussion in my own tongue? My command of yours is in nowise as good as yours clearly is of mine."
His smile was sudden, charming, dazzling even-and apparently genuine. Alberich and Myste exchanged more than a glance.
:I don't sense any falsehood,: Myste Mindspoke. Her unique Gift was a strictly limited ability to Truth-Sense without the use of a spell. She could only concentrate on one person at a time, and had to be within an arm's-length or two of him, though, which (again) rendered it less than useful in the Field.
:But their so-called Priestly Attributes are no more nor less than our Gifts,: he reminded her. :What if he can block you?:
A purely mental shrug. :Then what I sense is meaningless. On the other hand, how many people know my Gift-and of those, how many are outside the Heraldic Circle or would guess I'd be here at your request?:
Not many; he had to admit that. Surely no matter how good the Karsite spies were, they didn't know that about Myste, or would think to warn this man against her. "I think, if only for the purposes of clarity, we should conduct our discussion in Karsite," he replied.
"And I will be pleased to provide a copy," Myste added smoothly.
The visitor smiled again. "Before we begin, then, will you introduce me to the lady, Herald Alberich?"
The word "Herald" sounded strange in the middle of a Karsite sentence. They didn't have a word for "Herald." It sounded even stranger spoken without a curse appended.
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